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Joe
Chvala; photo by Warwick Green
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Joe
Chvala is the founder and artistic director of the Flying
Foot Forum. He has spent most of his career based in New York City,
Gothenburg Sweden, and since 1990, Minneapolis. During this time,
he has worked as a director, choreographer, writer, composer, performer,
designer and teacher for opera companies, experimental and non-experimental
theater companies, concert dance venues, performing arts academies,
and universities. The range of Chvala's work has been described as
"somewhere between Sammy Davis, Jr. and Samuel Beckett"
and has earned him such titles as "Fred Astaire on acid"
and "the Agnes DeMille of tap." Chvala
founded the Flying Foot Forum in 1991. Since its inception, the
Flying Foot Forum has been one of the most prolific dance companies
in the Twin Cities, gaining recognition from the local, national,
and international arts community. Over the years, the Flying Foot
Forum has created numerous original percussive works that have toured
from New York to Paris and from the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival
to Little Falls, Minnesota, meeting with sold out houses, standing
ovations and rave reviews. |
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In addition
to the many works he has choreographed for Flying Foot Forum, Chvala
has choreographed and directed for a variety of theater and dance
companies including the Ordway Music Theater in St. Paul, the Minnesota
Opera, The Guthrie Theater, The Children’s Theatre Company,
Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, Chanhassen Dinner Theaters,
Park Square Theatre, the Walker Art Center and Zenon Dance Company.
Chvala
has held the Cowles Chair in the Dance Department of the University
of Minnesota four times and is currently a member of its adjunct
faculty. He has received numerous choreographic and interdisciplinary
fellowships and grants from such organizations as the National Endowment
for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Bush Foundation,
the Jerome Foundation, Intermedia Arts Minnesota, the Minnesota
Dance Alliance and the McKnight Foundation. He is also the recipient
of Ivey and Sage awards for theater and dance.
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