Ann Murphy, Dance View Times
Recently named ‘young choreographer to watch’ in ballettanz magazine, Lisa Townsend has been presented by festivals and performance organizations in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Europe. Her dances have been performed in numerous venues including St. Marks Church-in-the-Bowery, P.S. 122, Joyce SoHo, Dixon Place, Movement Research @ Judson Church, NYC's Annual dancenowfest, New Dance Alliance, Inc.’s Performance Mix, the American Dance Guild, Theater Geo, L.A.'s Annual Dance Kaleidoscope, Los Angeles Women's Theater Festival, for several performances at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (L.A.C.E.), and the Los Angeles Theater Center.
In 2002 Lisa relocated her company to the San Francisco Bay Area and has since been presented by ODC Theater, SF’s WestWave Dance Festival(‘03-‘07), the Marin Arts Council @ Marin Theatre Company, Women’s Work Series at Venue 9, Bare Bones and 8x8x8 in the East Bay, Marin’s Collaboration Dance & Music, Performance Showcase @ St. Aidan’s Church, raw & uncut @ Jon Sims Dance Center, CONCEPT Series, and at Dance Mission Theater, Project Artaud Theater, CounterPulse, and Cowell Theater.
Lisa has been commissioned by Off-Balance, the resident dance company at Modesto Junior College, and Big Moves Modern Dance Ensemble in San Francisco. She has also been commissioned by the Stockton Opera Association and Townsend Opera Players in Northern California, and has choreographed; Rigoletto, Amahl & the Night Visitors, Tales of Hoffmann, The Mikado, and I, Pagliaci. Her work with TOP on their original production, Opera! What’s That?, was performed as part of La Chalibaude Festival in Chateau-Gontier, Mayenne, and Paris, France.
In 2006 Lisa was a Creative Capital Workshop Fellow at the Headlands Center for the Arts. She has also received funding from the Marin Arts Council (Individual Artist & Career grant), Meet the Composer with Piro Patton and Dave Shaffer, Theater Bay Area CA$H, the Zellerbach Family Foundation and generous contributions from individual donors.
Lisa was been a resident artist at ODC Theater from 2005-08. Through this residency her company premiered Virile Streak in May 2006 and was then invited to bring Virile Streak to New York for a run of performances at Joyce SoHo, October 2006.
Piro Pattonand visual artist Heidi Sandvoll. In 2008 Lisa choroegraphed Gabriel Faure's Requiem, collaborating with musical director/conductor Molly Maguire and aerial artist Joanna Haigood.
Since 2009 she has been improvising with the Jazz trio three little words performing with company members in nightclub and cafe settings, dancing through and with audience members- creating short stories and uniquely intimate shared moments.
Currently Lisa is reconsidering Camus' L'Etranger through lens of dance theater and also working on her first dance film, CLUTCH.