About Clare
Clare Cook, Artistic Director of Clare Cook Dance Theater, is a choreographer, teacher, and dancer. Her work has been seen in venues across New York City and Louisiana. Her choreographic work appears in contemporary dance, experimental theater, musical theater, opera, and film. Her choreography has been part of productions at the New York Musical Theater Festival, Ars Nova's ANT Fest, HERE Arts Center, Fringe NYC, Berkshire Fringe Festival, Planet Connections Festival (Best Choreography Award), the Bohemian National Hall and JCC in Manhattan with productions for Opera Slavica, as well as productions at NYU (Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program), Columbia University and The New School for Drama. She is a member of The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and is currently the tour choreogrpaher, re-setting Susan Stroman's choreography for the National Tour of Woody Allen’s musical, Bullets Over Broadway.
As a dancer, Clare has worked with ChristinaNoel & The Creature, Yin Yue Dance, colectivodoszeta/Carlos A. Cruz Velazquez, Yoo & Dancers, expandance, Christopher Williams, Ivy Baldwin, Kay Cummings, Jim Martin, and Raw Delivery/Carrie J. Brown, She has performed across NYC at Dance Theater Workshop, St. Mark's Church, Joyce Soho, La Mama, Duo Theater, Webster Hall, Bushwick Starr, John Ryan Theater, and The Tank, among other venues.
photo by Molly TorianClare holds an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. While at NYU, Clare also trained extensively under pilates Master Teacher, Kathy Grant, and upon graduation served as the teaching assistant to Ms. Grant for two years. Clare remained on faculty at Tisch Dance, teaching pilates to undergraduate and graduate students for seven years. In Summer 2010, Clare was a guest teacher at Louisiana State University, teaching modern dance in the Department of Theater and she served as the Education Director for the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. She has also taught movement and dance for the Metropolitan Opera Guild’s education program and ballet and modern dance at Dancewave in Brooklyn.
Clare's early dance training was at Delarue Dance Centre under the direction of Carol Delarue in Lafayette, Louisiana, from which she continued her dance training at Louisiana State University, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and The Ailey School in NYC. While living in Louisiana, she performed extensively for the Cangelosi Dance Project and worked with choreographers and teachers; Kris Cangelosi, Susan Quinn-Williams, Nan Giordano, Jose Traba, Irene Rampino, Kathleen Spinazzola, Molly Buchmann, and Susan Perlis. In Louisiana, Clare's choreography has been shown at the Manship Theater, LSU Union Theater, BREC Theater, and a recent collaboration with the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra at the Heymann Performing Arts Center.
Read an article about Clare in Overture Magazine, May 2014
