A Jerome Robbins “NEW” Fellow at the Baryshnikov Arts Center 2010

Frequently called the Josephine of today, Stefanie Batten Bland mixes European subtleties with American ardor to explore human emotional relationships and the physical notions of community.

A native New Yorker, who now splits her time between Paris and New York.  Granddaughter of a Virginia peanut farmer,  Stefanie Batten Bland was born in New York  and began performing at the young age of four.  Expressing herself to her father’s compositions and mother’s writings, Bland charged her parents 25cents during dinner parties to “amuse” guests in what would become true round table entertainment. 

At age six an appearence on the tv show Dance Fever encouraged her to begin exploring her “special side” before moving with her family to Los Angeles at age nine.

Her serious dance and theater training began later at the performing arts high school in LA , at The Joffrey School, where she was awarded a scholarship to participate in their trainee program and at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center.  She graduated from the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where she was honored with the Sunny Brown Foundation Award.  She then attended SUNY Purchase for dance, and New School for Social Research for post coloninal literature studies on scholarships.  In 1998 she began to dance as a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, where she spent several seasons as a soloist. 

In addition, she performed with Sean Curran, Kraig Patterson, Gus Solomons Jr., Douglas Dunn and Kevin Wynn.  She has been a guest artist with Lar Lubovitch Dance and was seduced to Europe by Pina Bausch and her Tanztheater Wüppertal where she guested in 2001/2002. Afterwards she joined Compagnie Linga and worked with European choreographers Pal Frenak and Georges Momboye, for whom she served as artistic assistant and performed ‘the chosen one’ in his ballet The Rite of Spring. In 2006 she worked for Angelin Preljocaj in Julie Taymor’s “Grendel”.  Her initial work as a choreographer was awarded first prize for young choreographers at the Festival Fontainebleau in 2004. 

The Biennale Nationale de Danse du Val-de-Marne selected Ms. Bland to open the evening “Rendez Vous de la Danse” and “Les Plateaux.”  In New York City she was selected to participate in the 2005 Joyce Soho Presents, a series created to encourage young choreographic talent. The Joyce then chose Ms. Bland for their Spring 2006 Season.  Ms. Bland has choreographed for the Mu Terminal Conservatory in Budapest and her works have been performed in Prague, Brussels, Spain, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Denmark, France and the United States. 

Her commercial choreography includes luxury ads for Guerlain perfumes and Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry, as well as the musicals: Soweto about the release of Nelson Mandela; and Looking for Josephine—New Orleans Forever, the international ongoing hit musical that compares the exodus of American blacks due to early American racism with the dispersion of contemporary blacks due to Hurricane Katrina.

Her cinematic dance films with collaborators Guillaume Le Grontec (cinematographer) and Ed Bland (composer) have been recognized with inclusion in the Alexander Onassis Foundation choreography competition, the Thessaloniki film festival in Greece, Dança em Foco dance cinema festival in Rio de Janeiro, FMB Dance Umbrella of South Africa, Tanztendenzen of Germany and the Sans Souci dance film festival in Colorado.

Her residency credits include:

Guest Artist of Ohio University of 2008, Guest Artist at Middle Tennessee State University MTSU 2009 and she has just completed a winter residency at Ithaca College as a guest faculty member and a residency/conference at Cornell University.

2010 brings much excitement to the bland brand, as Stefanie is guest choreographer for “So you think you can dance” Poland and this fall is in creation for her new piece “Terra Firma” which will be in residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center under a grant from the Jerome Robbins Foundation.