Louise Reichlin
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This page was last revised on January 3, 2010.
Louise Reichlin, Managing and Artistic Director of LA C& D, and Choreographer, began her professional career in New York performing in concert and on Broadway, has performed and choreographed throughout North America. Since 1972 she has worked extensively from her Los Angeles base, founding LOS ANGELES CHOREOGRAPHERS & DANCERS, the non-profit base of Louise Reichlin & Dancers, in 1979. Louise feels dance is a medium that reflects the human condition, and is interested in creating works that allow the spectator to experience feelings and relate to others with an expanded understanding and awareness of who we are, and how we all form one community. Performances with concert choreographers include Jose Limon, Helen Tamiris, Charles Weidman, and Meredith Monk. Broadway choreographers include Michael Bennett and Jerome Robbins. Besides teaching and choreographing for the Ballet Folklorico De Guatemala y Grupo de Danza Moderna, her choreography has been seen in the United States at the American Dance Festival, Dance Kaleidoscope, in 16 mainstage productions for USC Drama and Opera, for the Shakespeare Festival/LA's production of Much Ado About Nothing, and Theatrical Arts International's Caution, Men at Work: TAP, in addition to thousands of performances and workshops by her company throughout Southern California. Reichlin has choreographed (with Alfred Desio) industrials and corporate events for Schick Wilkinson, Alliance Funding, and Ford Motors for the Taiwan Taipei International Motor Show.
Many of her concerts include audience participation works. In the 90's, she began using her concert choreography for her company in partnerships with orchestras and theater companies, and in the contemporary rock/concert/musical form. She has also choreographed a number of stage productions targeted for children. In her concert work she has created several major works for families, the most recent being The Better to Bite You With and The Patchwork Girl of Oz. Her new full-length work is The Reality Series - including The Shampoo, Los(t) Angeles, and Identity.
Reichlin was a National Performance Network (NPN) artist from 2003-06. In 2002 Reichlin was awarded the Gary Bates Service Award by the Horton Awards Committee, a three pronged award for creativity, sustained professional achievement, and service to the Community. In 2003, the Beverly Hills Outlook selected Reichlin as a runner-up for Choreographer of the Year. Her company has 10 vetted programs on the LA County Arts Education Directory (LAArtsEd.org). Reichlin and LRD is on the Kennedy Center Approved Artist Roster. Other awards and grants included a $14,000 Faculty Research and Innovation Fund Grant for a choreography and performance project from USC that led to the work for her company Celtic Suite, an EZTV/CyberSpace Media Access Award for Production/Collaboration for The E-Mail Dances, and current grants for the company are from the California Arts Council, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, and the Culver City Performing Arts Grant Program with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment, Target, and the Milken Family Foundation.
COMMISSIONS
One of the commissions Louise had the most fun with was from the Los Angeles Zoo, where she was invited to write, produce, and choreograph special programs combining animals, sports, and dance for the summer of Olympics, 1984, when the company was in residence for 22 performances.
About the same time kinetic artist Elfi Chester asked Reichlin to do an experimental work for an 11 foot high monofilament kinetic sculpture and dancers that illustrated angular momentum. It was first performed at the Laguna Beach Arts In Motion Festival.
In August 2003, Reichlin was commissioned for a second time to create new dances for performance with the Pasadena Pops Orchestra at Descanso Gardens. Using her company, this included an hour of new modern pieces to music by Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and Milhaud, as well as a Tango Suite to Astor Piazolla, a suite from Grease, and a ballet to Tchaikovsky.
2003 was also a year for increased national and international touring of "Dream Scapes", multi-media work written and composed by Steve Reid, Bamboo Forest. With a first version created for a video shoot in Los Angeles, the work which also includes 5 Cirque du Soleil performers along with Reid's band and 4-6 members of Reichlin's company was first performed in Orlando FL in 2000 and revised in July 2002 at El Portal Theatre in CA. Dances include Come Fly Away, The Fire of the Heart, Secrets of the Himalayas, The Web of Life, Cyber Cafe, Dream Scapes, Flowers in the Snow, and Rhythm Alley.
CHOREOGRAPHY
Louise's recent works for her company include The Better to Bite You With (dance/theatre/multimedia)('09), The Reality Series - including The Shampoo, Los(t) Angeles,and Identity('07-'08), Dance at the Stone House (site specific interactive work ('07), The Patchwork Girl of Oz (dance/theatre/multimedia) ('01-'02), Dream Scapes ('00-'02), The Lion and the Mermaid ('99), The Five Sisters ('99), The E-Mail Dances (dance/theatre/multimedia) (5 versions '96-'98), The Woman With One Head ('97/'99), Dances of Assimilation ('95), Easy and Uneasy Pieces (94), Turkish Delights ('93), Urban and Tribal Dances (6 dances choreographed between 1990 and 1992), Communal Dream ('92), Metamorphosis ('91), Gaelic Scrawl ('90, a new dance for Celtic Suite created in 1983 and '84), dis-located ('89), as well as The Tenderland (opera '90), Midsummer Night's Dream (opera '96), and A Special House, Charlie, and Frankenbean and the Monster Carrots, 3 original musicals for the LA Children's Museum in 1996 and 1997. Frankenbean toured nationally, closing at the Smithsonian in the fall of 1997. A special interest of the company has been producing the work of other Los Angeles based choreographers, and Louise produced the works of 22 in her New Works Dance Festivals. Since concentrating on presenting only her own and Alfred Desio's works since 1989 on her company, Louise also produced the "Dance At Brand" series for the city of Glendale, which allowed her to continue providing opportunities for more than a dozen companies to have their work presented. The Tennis Dances remains Louise's most acclaimed work, with performances at outdoor festivals and major theaters for audiences of thousands, to small galleries and elementary school stages. Beside choreographing for her company, Reichlin has additional choreography for Caution: Men At Work, TAP, choreography for the Turkish Radio Television's network logo, and industrials for Schick Wilkinsen, Alliance Funding, and Ford Automotive. Reichlin's company is on the Approved Artist Roster for the Kennedy Center, and has toured to Las Vegas for 2 of their Cultural Affairs' theaters Louise Reichlin has also created a number of Family Programs, some for an all modern cast, and others including the tap unit of Los Angeles Choreographers & Dancers, Zapped Tap(tm)/Alfred Desio.
EDUCATION
For many years Louise taught Movement Training for Musicians classes for the USC Thornton School of Music, in addition to her work with the company. Louise has also been a faculty member at the University of California, Irvine, and at Loyola Marymount University, in addition to teaching special workshops and creating projects for the LA USD, Pasadena Citywide Arts, and at many schools and colleges. Locally, she and her company have been creating residencies for arts training of teachers and students in many of the schools in Los Angeles. This is in collaboration with the Arts Prototype Program of the LA USD. She currently serves on the advisory committee for the ACPN constituency for the LA Unified Wallace Planning Grant and on the Advisory Board for the LA County Arts Commission’s Educational Roundtable.
TOURING AND OTHER ACTIVITIES
Louise Reichlin & Dancers has toured Arizona, California, Florida,Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Mexico. In 2002 The Patchwork Girl of Oz was premiered as part of an NPN residency. The following year Dream Scapes took the company to Mexico. Louise has created a radio series on Myth and Dance, and has often been interviewed on television, as well as having her works broadcast. She is a biographee in Who's Who in the West, and Who's Who in Entertainment, a Board member of the Hollywood Arts Council, and a member of the Dance Resource Center, Dance USA, The International Performing Arts for Youth, AEA, AGMA, and SAG. Since 1995, she has created and published a web site for her company as well as compiled and published a web site for the Southern California Dance and Directory, which now hosts 525 professional companies. Louise has served on a number of panels for Los Angeles City and County. Her degrees include a BA from Bennington College, and an MFA from UC Irvine. She also has a Professional Designation in Arts Education for the California State Standards.
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