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- Peter DiMuro
- Ann Brown Allen
- Olivia Blaisdell
- Albulena Borovci
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tPeter DiMuro has woven a career as a dancer, actor, choreographer, director, teacher, facilitator of creativity and as an arts engager for more than forty years.
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Born in a small town in northern Illinois, population 150 in the 60's, there was no way to forecast a life ahead working in the arts, creative practice and communities of all kinds. The DiMuro family's working class roots- farmers, machinists, restaurant owners - did not hold the promise of such a life. Before the relative freedom of purchasing his first used car when he was 15 ('67 Tempest Pontiac, aquamarine blue) with money from his job at an arts and craft store, television was the fantasy land and image maker for a budding gay teen, and the tool of awareness of a larger. world.
Exposure to "show dance" on early variety shows (Jackie Gleason's June Taylor Dancers, Carol Burnett's Ernie Flatt Dancers) was certainly an influence. But it was a moment in summer of 1969- when the news in a single broadcast - was it Walter Cronkite reporting? - held stories about both Judy Garland's funeral and reports of rioters at a bar that catered to homosexuals in New York's Greenwich Village that became a visceral awareness of a connection to worlds beyond Round Lake, Illinois.
______________
Peter's current creative umbrella is Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion, a company that develops and performs works of dance and dance/theatre. Through evidence in their collaborations and in the transparency of process leading to products, the company cultivates dance/arts literacy, advocacy and engagement.
The company existed project to project from the early 2000's, but began to commit to regular creation and presentation of work in 2013, when Peter returned to Boston to direct The Dance Complex. In these eleven years, the company has been awarded several creative residencies, including a multi-year Boston Center for the Arts residency, Boston Dance Alliance's 2014/15 Rehearsal and Retreat Fellowship, held at the Vermont Performance Lab; a year long residency at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; and a year long residency at the Rose Kennedy Greenway, creating new work for dance on site.
As Executive Artistic Director of The Dance Complex, he continues to invest in advancing the craft of choreography and the field of dance, creating an arc of programs for young-to-established dance-makers. He was Artistic Director of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange 2003-2008, capping a 15-year relationship as performer and lead-artist with the company founded by MacArthur "Genius" Lerman. His career has taken Peter and his work to over 46 of the US states, and to Hong Kong, Japan and throughout Europe.
Peter was fueled by his early experiences growing up in a small midwestern town, gay in a world that was barely coming to an understanding of alternative lives when the AIDS crisis came to further fuel hate and misunderstanding. Peter began making dance for musical theatre (thank you June Taylor and Ernie Flatt) but as the AIDS crisis grew, exponentially affecting the gay community (the terms "queer" or LGBTQ+ were not used as they are now), he turned to bringing text into his work, so there would be no mistaking the subject matter. These were not metaphorical landscapes of movement; these were studies about a particular people, about bridging the (then) binal world of straight and gay.
Works created during this period included "Waltz", named one of the top ten dance events of the 1990/91 season by The Boston Phoenix. The work utilized film created by Robert Lawson and the poetry of David Craig Austin, with live performance by sign language interpreter David Seabolt and Peter as performer. Subsequent works include a series of letters from family that dealt with multiple comings out around alcoholism, mental health and the legacy of maleness of a majorly straight America.
In the late 90's, "Near/Far/In/Out" and the alternative family inspired un-Nutrcacker, “Gumdrops and the Funny Uncle”, appeared in the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange repertory and engaged inter-generational casts including LGTBQ+ community members and allies, alongside the professional dancers of Dance Exchange and PDM company. These intersectional and intergenerational casts were some of the first instances in the US of a spectrum of queer people, including transgender individuals, in a touring dance company.
Both on his own and while a member of the Dance Exchange, Peter has led intensives, workshops and created choreography throughout the world. In the states, he has taught, created works and performed at the American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, the Florida Dance Festival, Point Park University, Boston Conservatory, and has collaborated with rabbis, teen Hmong Dancers, shipyard workers, police, active duty and veteran military, immigrant families, cancer survivors.
Recent works from the early 2010 extend the questions of family and relationships: "Dos Hombres", a duet for Columbian born Elver Ariza-Silva, an adult survivor of polio, and Nino de los Reyes, an internationally renowned flamenco star from Madrid explore machismo and softness in multiple languages and cultures; a commission from The Boston Conservatory allowed the creation of "Archive & Etchings", made with support from the Alzheimer's Association of Massachusetts & New Hampshire, explore the relationship with care-givers to partners dealing with memory loss.
Landmarks Orchestra has commissioned several works, including a collaboration between PDM and Jean Appolon Expressions, as well as a reimagining of Aaron Copland's "Rodeo", first commissioned by choreographer Agnes de Mille to create her famous ballet. With permission of the Copland estate, PDM created a new work for a premiere at Landmark Orchestra's Hatch Shell concert series in 2017.
Over the span of 2022- 23, Peter led a cohort of companies including PDM, working with the Rose Kennedy Greenway to create a festival of site-specific dances. Jean Appolon Expressions, Continuum, Chavi Bansal, along with PDM, created for distinct works revealed on the Greenway in Fall of 2023. This premiere followed engagement with national and locally based artists and the cohort of companies over a year's time, participating in research led by Liz Lerman, Paloma McGregor, Pioneer Winter and Brooke Stanton, that helped broaden the choreographer's awareness of issues of indigeneity, immigrations, ancestry and intersectionality.
New projects include bringing forth Queer Family stories, aided by drag queen community members, to create Queer Family Story Hours.
Peter was named a White House Millennial Artist, a Mayor of Boston/ProArts Arts Award recipient, and his work has received grants/support from the National Performance Network, the Mass Artists’ Foundation, Mass Cultural Council, MetLife Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2010, he represented the US as an emissary for the Department of State in Madrid, adjudicating an international competition for emerging artists. Peter was an Artist-in-Residence for the inaugural cohort of the Mayor of Boston's AIR program in 2015, the recipient of an Arts Fuse Award in 2016. and a lifetime achievement award from Salem State University. Peter was named the 2018 inaugural choreographer-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, following in the steps of his former director and friend, Liz Lerman, who was the inaugural choreographer in a long line of visual artists at the museum.
As director of The Dance Complex, he continues to shepherd the organization journeying out of COVID, and through a refocusing on intentional support on the diverse dance forms - and the people who dance and make them- from the world over.
He has served on the boards of the Dance Umbrella/Boston, National Performance Network, Dance/USA, Capitol Region Educators in Dance Organization, and as panelist for New England Foundation for the Arts, Maryland State Arts Council, DC Commission for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and as faculty for NEFA’s RDDI in Illinois and New England. He was host and creative consultant to VelocityDC, an annual DC based showcase, and continues to speak on dance and creativity throughout the country. He engages non-artists in workshops on creativity in the workplace by teaching/facilitating in corporate settings, including for clients like Whole Foods.
Peter received an MFA in Dance from Connecticut College under Martha Myers and Gerri Houlihan; a BFA in Theatre from Drake University, with early study under Sally Garfield, and continued study in New York, Boston and at the American Dance Festival.
______________
Born in a small town in northern Illinois, population 150 in the 60's, there was no way to forecast a life ahead working in the arts, creative practice and communities of all kinds. The DiMuro family's working class roots- farmers, machinists, restaurant owners - did not hold the promise of such a life. Before the relative freedom of purchasing his first used car when he was 15 ('67 Tempest Pontiac, aquamarine blue) with money from his job at an arts and craft store, television was the fantasy land and image maker for a budding gay teen, and the tool of awareness of a larger. world.
Exposure to "show dance" on early variety shows (Jackie Gleason's June Taylor Dancers, Carol Burnett's Ernie Flatt Dancers) was certainly an influence. But it was a moment in summer of 1969- when the news in a single broadcast - was it Walter Cronkite reporting? - held stories about both Judy Garland's funeral and reports of rioters at a bar that catered to homosexuals in New York's Greenwich Village that became a visceral awareness of a connection to worlds beyond Round Lake, Illinois.
______________
Peter's current creative umbrella is Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion, a company that develops and performs works of dance and dance/theatre. Through evidence in their collaborations and in the transparency of process leading to products, the company cultivates dance/arts literacy, advocacy and engagement.
The company existed project to project from the early 2000's, but began to commit to regular creation and presentation of work in 2013, when Peter returned to Boston to direct The Dance Complex. In these eleven years, the company has been awarded several creative residencies, including a multi-year Boston Center for the Arts residency, Boston Dance Alliance's 2014/15 Rehearsal and Retreat Fellowship, held at the Vermont Performance Lab; a year long residency at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; and a year long residency at the Rose Kennedy Greenway, creating new work for dance on site.
As Executive Artistic Director of The Dance Complex, he continues to invest in advancing the craft of choreography and the field of dance, creating an arc of programs for young-to-established dance-makers. He was Artistic Director of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange 2003-2008, capping a 15-year relationship as performer and lead-artist with the company founded by MacArthur "Genius" Lerman. His career has taken Peter and his work to over 46 of the US states, and to Hong Kong, Japan and throughout Europe.
Peter was fueled by his early experiences growing up in a small midwestern town, gay in a world that was barely coming to an understanding of alternative lives when the AIDS crisis came to further fuel hate and misunderstanding. Peter began making dance for musical theatre (thank you June Taylor and Ernie Flatt) but as the AIDS crisis grew, exponentially affecting the gay community (the terms "queer" or LGBTQ+ were not used as they are now), he turned to bringing text into his work, so there would be no mistaking the subject matter. These were not metaphorical landscapes of movement; these were studies about a particular people, about bridging the (then) binal world of straight and gay.
Works created during this period included "Waltz", named one of the top ten dance events of the 1990/91 season by The Boston Phoenix. The work utilized film created by Robert Lawson and the poetry of David Craig Austin, with live performance by sign language interpreter David Seabolt and Peter as performer. Subsequent works include a series of letters from family that dealt with multiple comings out around alcoholism, mental health and the legacy of maleness of a majorly straight America.
In the late 90's, "Near/Far/In/Out" and the alternative family inspired un-Nutrcacker, “Gumdrops and the Funny Uncle”, appeared in the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange repertory and engaged inter-generational casts including LGTBQ+ community members and allies, alongside the professional dancers of Dance Exchange and PDM company. These intersectional and intergenerational casts were some of the first instances in the US of a spectrum of queer people, including transgender individuals, in a touring dance company.
Both on his own and while a member of the Dance Exchange, Peter has led intensives, workshops and created choreography throughout the world. In the states, he has taught, created works and performed at the American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, the Florida Dance Festival, Point Park University, Boston Conservatory, and has collaborated with rabbis, teen Hmong Dancers, shipyard workers, police, active duty and veteran military, immigrant families, cancer survivors.
Recent works from the early 2010 extend the questions of family and relationships: "Dos Hombres", a duet for Columbian born Elver Ariza-Silva, an adult survivor of polio, and Nino de los Reyes, an internationally renowned flamenco star from Madrid explore machismo and softness in multiple languages and cultures; a commission from The Boston Conservatory allowed the creation of "Archive & Etchings", made with support from the Alzheimer's Association of Massachusetts & New Hampshire, explore the relationship with care-givers to partners dealing with memory loss.
Landmarks Orchestra has commissioned several works, including a collaboration between PDM and Jean Appolon Expressions, as well as a reimagining of Aaron Copland's "Rodeo", first commissioned by choreographer Agnes de Mille to create her famous ballet. With permission of the Copland estate, PDM created a new work for a premiere at Landmark Orchestra's Hatch Shell concert series in 2017.
Over the span of 2022- 23, Peter led a cohort of companies including PDM, working with the Rose Kennedy Greenway to create a festival of site-specific dances. Jean Appolon Expressions, Continuum, Chavi Bansal, along with PDM, created for distinct works revealed on the Greenway in Fall of 2023. This premiere followed engagement with national and locally based artists and the cohort of companies over a year's time, participating in research led by Liz Lerman, Paloma McGregor, Pioneer Winter and Brooke Stanton, that helped broaden the choreographer's awareness of issues of indigeneity, immigrations, ancestry and intersectionality.
New projects include bringing forth Queer Family stories, aided by drag queen community members, to create Queer Family Story Hours.
Peter was named a White House Millennial Artist, a Mayor of Boston/ProArts Arts Award recipient, and his work has received grants/support from the National Performance Network, the Mass Artists’ Foundation, Mass Cultural Council, MetLife Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2010, he represented the US as an emissary for the Department of State in Madrid, adjudicating an international competition for emerging artists. Peter was an Artist-in-Residence for the inaugural cohort of the Mayor of Boston's AIR program in 2015, the recipient of an Arts Fuse Award in 2016. and a lifetime achievement award from Salem State University. Peter was named the 2018 inaugural choreographer-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, following in the steps of his former director and friend, Liz Lerman, who was the inaugural choreographer in a long line of visual artists at the museum.
As director of The Dance Complex, he continues to shepherd the organization journeying out of COVID, and through a refocusing on intentional support on the diverse dance forms - and the people who dance and make them- from the world over.
He has served on the boards of the Dance Umbrella/Boston, National Performance Network, Dance/USA, Capitol Region Educators in Dance Organization, and as panelist for New England Foundation for the Arts, Maryland State Arts Council, DC Commission for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and as faculty for NEFA’s RDDI in Illinois and New England. He was host and creative consultant to VelocityDC, an annual DC based showcase, and continues to speak on dance and creativity throughout the country. He engages non-artists in workshops on creativity in the workplace by teaching/facilitating in corporate settings, including for clients like Whole Foods.
Peter received an MFA in Dance from Connecticut College under Martha Myers and Gerri Houlihan; a BFA in Theatre from Drake University, with early study under Sally Garfield, and continued study in New York, Boston and at the American Dance Festival.
Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion (PDM) is under the fiscal sponsorship of The Dance Complex. Tax deductible donations can be made through The Dance Complex's website. Follow this link, and select Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion when making your donation.