Kate Corby

Chair of Theatre and Drama, Professor

kcorby@wisc.edu


125 Lathrop Hall

1050 University Ave

Madison, WI 53706-1304

Corby, Katherine

Download CV   katecorbydance.com   performingourselves.com  

“Compelling” and “full of gestured conflict and impish daring” (Chicago Tribune), Kate Corby’s dance works have been seen extensively in the Midwest, New York, California, Seattle, Atlanta and interna­tionally in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Taiwan and Hungary, where she traveled as a Fulbright fellow. Corby, featured in Dance Magazine as one of six choreographers “on the cusp of making waves in the larger dance world,” has been a professor at the UW since 2008, and served as the Dance Department chair from 2017- 2020. She is an active professional choreographer, dividing her time between Madison and Chicago, and established Kate Corby & Dancers in the Midwest in 2009. Corby’s choreography has been called “ingenious” by the Chicago Reader, “haunting and memorable” by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and was a Critics’ Pick in Time Out Chicago five times from 2011-2012.

Recently Corby began creating screen dance and her films have been screened extensively, including in the Triskelion Arts’ Dance Film Festival, Flatlands Dance Film Festival, Tiny Dance Film Festival, Jacksonville Dance Film Festival, and the Sans Souci Festival of Dance and Cinema, among others.

Corby also co-directs Performing Ourselves, a community dance program based in Madison. Performing Ourselves employs undergraduate dance students to teach movement and wellness curriculum in local community centers and schools to empower youth in the areas of embodiment, self-concept, and resiliency. In its first eight years of programming, Performing Ourselves served approximately 750 4-14 year-olds and was funded by the Wisconsin Arts Board, Dane Arts, Madison Arts Commission, Evjue Foundation, American Girl’s Fund for Children, and the UW’s Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment. Through her work with Performing Ourselves, Corby co-founded the UW’s Arts Collaboratory which provides art-making opportunities for youth to cultivate wellness and advocate for social change and includes the expertise of UW faculty and staff from the areas of dance and dance/movement therapy, curriculum and instruction, art, educational psychology, theatre, and music.

Corby received her MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was the recipient of the Nettl Award for outstanding student choreography and was a teaching assistant and a University Fellow. She discovered dance as a theater major at Beloit College and spent much of her childhood in rural Wisconsin, graduating from Three Lakes High School in Oneida County.

Corby, Katherine

In Whole or in Part by Shomari Montsho, featuring Erin Kilmurray and Mikey Rioux, visual design by Orit Ben-Shitrit.

Education

  • MFA Dance, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007
  • BA Dance and Women's Studies, Beloit College, 1999

Select Media Contributions

  • Lauren Warnecke, Seechicagodance.com, Harvest Festival's Second Weekend Full of Unresolved Cliffhangers. (September, 2018).
  • Lauren Warnecke, Seechicagodance.com, Triple Bill: Power Play at Links Hall. (December, 2014).
  • Matthew de la Peña, Time Out Chicago, Dance 2012 Year in Review. (December, 2012).
  • Laura Molzahn, SeeChicagoDance.com, Kate Corby & Dancers, Passing. (December, 2012).
  • Sharon Hoyer, New City, Fall Dance Preview 2012. (September, 2012).
  • Matthew de la Peña, Time Out Chicago, 'In Whole or in Part/Dance Review'. (September, 2012).
  • Zachary Wittenburg, Time Out Chicago, "The Wrecking Project" Preview. (April, 2012).
  • Susan Kepecs, Dance Magazine, Kate Corby & Dancers. (October, 2011).
  • Katie Reiser, Isthmus, Kate Corby: Mover and shaker. (September, 2011).
  • Laura Molzahn, seechicagodance.com, Kate Corby & Dancers 'Catch'. (May, 2011).

Select Presentations

  • Corby, K. (2018, September - 2018, September). Passing. Choreography presented at the Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival, excerpt from, Chicago, IL.
  • Corby, K. (2018, September - 2018, September). Hungars Beach. Choreography presented at the Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema 15th Annual Premiere, Boulder, CO.
  • Corby, K. (2016, August - 2016, August). Hungars Beach. Film presented at the Flatlands Dance Film Festival, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
  • Corby, K. (2014, December - 2014, December). Digging. Choreography presented at the Dances for the Underground, Links Hall, Chicago IL.
  • Corby, K. (2013, October - 2013, October). Digging. Choreography presented at the SpinOff, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago IL.
  • Corby, K. (2013, July - 2013, August). Passing. Choreography presented at the World Dance Alliance-Americas Conference & Festival, Scotiabank Dance Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
  • Corby, K. (2012, April). Two. Choreography presented at the Gala Concert, American College Dance Association, Union Theater, UW-Madison.
  • Corby, K. (2010, October - 2010, November). Feeling Into" and "Brute. Performance presented at the Wave Rising Festival, Brooklyn, New York.
  • Corby, K. (2010, July - 2010, July). Go. Performance presented at the The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2010: Chicago, Chicago, IL.
  • Corby, K. (2007). Rift. Performance presented at the International Solo/Duo Festival & Competition, Budapest, Hungary.

Select Awards and Honors

  • Creative Communities Grant for Performing Ourselves, Wisconsin Arts Board, 2019
  • Distinguished Faculty Award, UW-Madison, School of Education, 2019
  • Grant for Performing Ourselves, Evjue Foundation, 2019
  • Joyce J. and Gerald A. Bartell Award in the Arts, Arts Institute, 2015
  • Vilas Associate Award, 2015
  • DanceBridge Residency, Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture in association with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, 2012
  • Wisconsin Idea Endowment for Performing Ourselves, Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin, 2012
  • Artistic Associates Program, Links Hall, 2011
  • Nettl Award for Outstanding Student Choreography, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, 2007
  • Fulbright Fellowship to Hungary, The Fulbright Program, 2006