Rebecca Rice (choreographer)

Rebecca Rice is a Boston-based modern dance choreographer whose work blends modern contemporary dance and ballet.

Biography

Rice is artistic director of Rebecca Rice Dance, a company that focuses on blending ballet with the creative, innovative energy of 20th and 21st century modern dance. Rice's work includes new classical music and she has collaborated with Pulitzer Prize–winning composer, John Harbison, pianist Constantine Finehouse and Burberry designer/photographer Martin Cooper. Her work has been shown as part of the Celebrity Series of Boston (2006) which included "Shortstories" a dance created to a score John Harbison created especially for her company, "Deep Dances" (2006).

Her company was invited to perform at Boston's Jordan Hall in 2006, MIT and at Jacob's Pillow. In 2009, her company was invited to perform with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops as part of Boston's Ballet Russes 2009 Festival. As a professional choreographer Rice has set new work on various modern and ballet companies including Boston Ballet II.

Rice comes from a dancing family where she trained with her grandmother Marion Rice in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. She is a member of Marion Rice Denishawn Dancers, a company dedicated to preserving early modern Denishawn dance, along with her mother (Mona Irvine Rice) and sister (Robin Rice). She studied and performed modern dance with Bill Evans and Utah Repertory Dance Theatre at the University of Utah as well as in New York City and Boston. She was a founding performing member of the Pittsburgh Dance Alloy modern dance company where she became resident choreographer, and teacher. In 1998, Rice implemented the first choreography workshops with the Boston Ballet Company under Bruce Marks.

The Boston reviewer Marcia B. Siegel described her work as drawing from "the theatricality of Denishawn dance, the extroverted skills of ballet and the physical investment of modern dance".

External links

• http://rebeccarice.blip.tv
• http://www.rebeccaricedance.com/