Amie Dowling creates dance and theater for the stage, for film, and in community settings. For the past 15 years, her work has considered the politics and representation of mass incarceration. Drawn by the way dance film can strike metaphors about confinement, control, vitality, and impermanence, Amie has moved towards film as a medium. Her first film, Well Contested Sites, a collaboration with Bay Area artists, some of whom were previously incarcerated, won the International Screendance Jury Award; the second, Separate Sentence, is currently being screened nationally and internationally. In addition to receiving numerous awards, the films have served as texts in college courses such as: “The Rhetoric of Public Art” (Stanford) and “Doing Performance Research” (University of Washington), and have been selected as Keynotes at multiple symposiums, including Performing Arts & Justice Symposium (Massey University, Auckland New Zealand), The Justice Initiative (Columbia University), and Ethics and the Common Good (Hampshire College).
Currently, Amie is a Professor in the Performing Arts Department at the University of San Francisco and collaborates with the Artistic Ensemble in San Quentin Prison, a group of incarcerated artists, in creating original works of movement and theater. Her work has been presented internationally at such venues as Busboys & Poets (Washington D.C.), Lincoln Center (NYC), Hellenic Cosmos (Greece), Regards Hybrides (Canada), Cinéma Jean-Eustache (France), Passangen Art Gallery (Sweden), and the Juming Museum (Taiwan).
Recent funding for her work has been awarded by the Wattis Foundation, Zellerbach Foundation, Creative Work Fund, Theater Bay Area, Puffin Foundation, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Fonds Soziokultur, and the Jesuit Foundation. She is a recipient of a choreography fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the United Board of Higher Education in Asia.
For more information, contact: amie.dowling@gmail.com
Below is a partial list of the individuals and organizations that Amie has had the pleasure to collaborate with in developing and creating work. (Click on the name to view more information)
Antwan Banks Williams
Maurice Reed