Christopher
Williams has danced with Tere O’Connor
Dance, Douglas Dunn & Dancers, and Rebecca Lazier’s TERRAIN. He
has also performed for critically acclaimed artists such as Yoshiko Chuma
& The School of Hard Knocks, Fred Ho, John Kelly, Yvonne Meier, Jon Kinzel, Renée Archibald, Edisa
Weeks, Risa Jaroslow, Eliza Miller, Nanine Linning, Beppie Blankert, Charles
Atlas, Wendy Rogers, Lisa Gonzales, and Anita Cheng.
As a puppeteer, Christopher
has worked with the award-winning master puppeteer Basil Twist, both serving as the Ballet Captain for the puppets’
choreography as well as performing the title role in his version of the ballet Petrushka.
In addition, he has toured with the award-winning work of Dan Hurlin, including
Everyday Uses for Sight no. 3 and Hiroshima Maiden, and has also
performed in the work of Erin K. Orr and Lake Simons. His own puppet works have
been performed in the Late Night Cabaret of Jim Henson International Festival
of Puppet Theater, at HERE Arts Center as
part of the Puppet Parlor, at P.S. 122,
through the Arts at St. Ann’s Puppet Lab, and at Dixon Place.
He has collaboratied with many distinguished artists
including Colombian visual artist Rosario López, composers Gregory Spears, Robert Een, Peter Kirn, David Griffin, and Ivan Jiménez, choreographer Kindra Windish, with
members of The New York Consort of Viols, and with members of the internationally renowned vocal
ensembles, Anonymous 4 and Lionheart.
He received a New York
Dance & Performance “Bessie” Award in 2005 for his work Ursula and the
11,000 Virgins and an impromptu Ishmael Houston-Jones “Messie”
Award in 2009 for his work The Golden Legend, which was listed
among the 10 best dance performances of 2009 by Joan Acocella of The New Yorker
magazine. His various works have been shown both locally in many New York
City venues including City Center, Danspace
Project, Dance Theater Workshop, Dance New Amsterdam, Joyce SoHo, Symphony Space, Galapagos Art Space, BRIC Studio, HERE Arts Center, P.S. 122, La Mama Experimental Theater Club, One Arm Red, The John Ryan Theater, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational
Center, Solar One, The Mulberry Street Theater, Judson Church, The Spiegeltent, nationally in
Kalamazoo, Michigan, and internationally in the Casa del Teatro Nacional in
Bogotá, Colombia. He has also been commissioned to set original choreography on
dancers part of Island Moving Co. as well as on student dancers at Princeton
University, New York University′s Tisch School of the Arts, and Sarah Lawrence College.
Christopher is the
recipient of grants from The Jim Henson
Foundation, The Greenwall
Foundation, The O′Donnell-Green
Music and Dance Foundation, The American Music Center, and the 92nd Street “Y”
through the Harkness Dance Foundation, and was a commissioned artist of Dream
Music Puppetry through the Here Artist Residency Program. He has received a fellowship from The Foundation
for Contemporary Arts, a Bessie
Schönberg Memorial Endowed Fellowship for a residency at the Djerassi
Resident Artists Program, and a fellowship
from the Bogliasco Foundation for a residency at The Liguria Study Center for the Arts
and Humanities in
Bogliasco, Italy. He has also been an artist in residence at the Joyce SoHo, Dance New Amsterdam, The White Oak Plantation, Yaddo, The Yard, Bates Dance
Festival, and through Movement
Research. He currently serves on
the Artist Advisory Board for Danspace Project and lives in Sunset Park, Brooklyn
