Formed in 2007, OH DEAR DANCE THEATRE tells stories through gesture, image and sound. Under the direction of Laura Diffenderfer, the company creates work that explores identity and history through performance.
Often including a research component, the work is concerned with ontological questions. It enters the body on an aesthetic and visceral level, and leaves behind a word, a skeleton, a history of presence.
OH DEAR believes in what is produced by the live body, invisible yet palpable, and always in the process of leaving.
OH DEAR BIO
Laura Diffenderfer has been presenting work in New York City since 1999 at venues such as WAX, The Flea, University Settlement, Merkin Concert Hall, the 78th Street Theater Lab, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Interborough Repertory Theater and at the Contemporary Art Center in North Adams, MA.
In 2006, she produced a shared evening of work at the IRT Space where she presented Trying to Remain Upright, a dance inspired by a program note written in 1968 by Yvonne Rainer.
As a performer, she has danced with Pat Catterson, Megan Nicely, and Judith Smith/Mile of String among others. She holds a BFA in Dance from Marymount Manhattan College and an MA in Performance Studies from New York University. She has published several dance-related articles, most recently “Octavio Campos and the Business of Art,” which can be read in Movement Research Performance Journal #30.
