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“Fusion doesn’t begin to describe what’s going on here; Elam is annealing his influences, creating a taut, intense movement language.” - Zimmer, The Village Voice
Misnomer’s works have been recognized as “one of the top ten dance performances” of the year by The New York Times and have earned the company a position as one of “25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine. Misnomer has performed in over 300 theaters in fourteen countries, and has presented eight NYC seasons with support from frequent residencies, most notably at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, NYC’s Skirball Center, and The Joyce Theater Foundation. The company has conducted large-scale, cross-medium collaborations, ranging from choreographing for Bjork’s “Wanderlust” video to creating an 8,000 square foot labyrinth with the Danish Dance Theater.
MISSION
Misnomer's work includes the creation, research and presentation of original dance and the development of boundary-crossing innovations in audience engagement.
GoSeeDo
MISNOMER’S LEAD SUPPORTERS
Chris Elam, Founding Artistic Director and Choreographer
“A true original, … one of the most individualistic of modern dance voices today.” - Dunning, The New York Times
Heralded as “a true original” (The New York Times), whose “clarity of vision delights the soul” (the Village Voice), Chris Elam’s work for Misnomer has toured to over 300 theaters in fourteen countries, and the breadth of his creativity is exhibited by artistic collaborations and projects with Bjork, the Sundance Channel, Apple Computers and the Danish Dance Theater.
Having choreographed since the age of 14, Elam founded Misnomer during his senior year of college. He graduated from Brown University in public policy, focused on federal involvement in the arts, and computer science, before receiving his MFA in Dance from NYU Tisch. An active teacher, he has served as faculty at Brown University and The State Conservatory for the Arts in Turkey, and has been a guest choreographer and teacher at over twenty universities.
An advocate for the smart use of technology for audience engagement in the arts, Elam has been an invited speaker at many of the country’s foremost arts, business and technology conferences, including Fortune Magazine’s Brainstorm: TECH, the National Arts Marketing Project, and TEDxEast. Elam serves on the advisory board of the Americans for the Arts’ National Arts Marketing Project, and frequently participates in panels to provide advocacy for the arts.
An active traveler, Elam’s contemporary choreography is informed by inter-cultural research and exploration. In 1999 Chris spent seven months with a Topeng dance master in Indonesia, training and performing in temple ceremonies. Misnomer accompanied him to Brazil in 2001 to perform and teach. The following year, Chris taught for six months at the Conservatory in Turkey; and in 2004 he spent three months in Havana choreographing on DanzAbierta, a national dance company of Cuba. In 2005 he performed in Ireland on a European Cultural City Commission, which led to a commission in Holland in 2006 with the interactive technology group Blue Noise Dept.


Brynne Billingsley received her BFA in dance from the University of Southern Mississippi. Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, she moved to New York City in 2003 and began collaborating with other artists making dance, photography, and other creative projects in and around the city. Brynne currently teaches Pilates and continues to pursue her interests in learning, teaching, and making dance.
Jennifer C. Harmer is a founding member of Misnomer Dance Theater. Since graduating from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, she has worked with Sara Pearson/Patrik Widrig & Co., Mark Dendy, Tina Croll, Axis of Eve, Dance Anonymous, the Kinesis Project, and was a senior company member with Murray Spalding Movement Arts for four years. Jennifer is a certified Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis instructor, as well as a Bagua practitioner and enthusiast.
Coco Karol grew up in Boston where she studied at The Boston Ballet and under friend and mentor Marcu Schulkind. Karol graduated with a BFA in Dance from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She has had the pleasure of getting to work closely with many interesting artists such as the singer Bjork and film collective Encyclopedia Pictura, composer Inhyun Kim, designer Jennifer Gonzales, director Steven Cook and magazine Beautiful Decay. Karol has been a member of Chris Elam's Misnomer Dance Theater since 2005, where she enjoys being a part of Elam's creative process. Karol built and ran an experiemental performance space in Brooklyn called the Petri space- a small petri dish concept, dedicated to experimentation, education, community and roof top gardening. Her artistic collaborations have been shown at D.U.M.B.O. Under the Bridge Festival, New York Studio Gallery, Galapagos, Brooklyn Ballet, Symphony Space, Death By Audio, and Aunts collective. She has had the privilege of dancing for Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance, Christopher Williams, Luke Gutgsell, Jose Navas and Steven Petronio.
Campbell grew up in Chicago, IL and was a competitive rhythmic gymnast until the age of 17. She received her BFA in dance performance from Ohio State University in 2006 and joined Misnomer Dance Theater in 2009. Jenny currently works with Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance and has had the pleasure of working with Karl Anderson, Jane Franklin, and Amanda Selwyn. She is a certified yoga teacher and teaches privately throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Val Loukiano is from the Ukraine where he graduated with honors from the Zhitomir Dance Academy and was named Ukrainian National Ballroom Champion. After a two-year stint in the Army, where he was a leading performer in its Military Dance Ensemble, he graduated from the Moscow University of Art with advanced degrees in Performance and Choreography. Val has toured Europe and Asia with folk troupes, variety revues, and musicals.
“Chris Elam has fashioned a distinctive, engagingly bizarre choreographic style. His skill and clarity of vision delight the soul.” - Jowitt, The Village Voice
“Wonderfully strange and unpredictable choreography.” - Seibert, The New Yorker
Misnomer Dance Theater finds tenderness, humor, and absurdity in peoples’ efforts to relate to one another. Whether between adolescent sisters, estranged lovers, business partners, or animalistic creatures, Artistic Director Chris Elam invents characters that work hard to form meaningful exchanges, sometimes producing poignant and awkward tenderness, at other moments yielding fiercely dismal misunderstandings.
Elam uses physical illusions as a tool to investigate personal and group transformation. An arm sprouts out of an ear, a person becomes an ostrich, five dancers appear to share a single head and dance a maudlin jig. Assertive contact partnering in which dancers climb upon each other to form improbable human architectures serves to fuse performers into unusual entities.
Drawing from his extensive training in both traditional Balinese and Modern Dance, Elam establishes the human body as a site for cultural exchange. This is achieved by creating wildly kinetic movement that integrates the tense and sculptural quick-action style of Balinese dance with Chris’ own broken-flow modern movement.
Larry Henry
Director of Partnerships and Development
Rob Capili
GoSeeDo Product Manager
Jeremy Williams
Community Manager
Janet Tharp
Financial Manager & Bookkeeping