Known for her “wonderful insistence on making art about complex ideas” (Janice Steinberg, SanDiego.com), Rebecca Bryant addresses current societal phenomena while blurring the distinctions between artistic disciplines. Coming from a visual art background, Bryant creates performances that combine both pre-determined and improvised movement with text, video, sound, technology, and objects. Critics have called her work “humorous, subtle, and provocative” (David Lemberg, Artscape Media), “exploding with suggestions” (Zachary Whittenburg, Chicago Dancemakers Forum), and “a stunning and witty experience” (Nancy Wozny, Dance Source Houston). Bryant has performed her work in 26 states across the U.S. and in Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Spain, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Her projects have received support from residencies at Djerassi Resident Artist Program (California) and Guapamacátaro Art and Ecology Residency (Mexico), as well as a Puffin Foundation grant. Recognized for her intelligent dancemaking, Bryant’s work has been selected for Gala Concerts at multiple American College Dance Association conferences (2000, 2012, 2013, 2016). Her piece on gun culture, ASKQUESTIONSLATER, was selected for the 2016 National College Dance Festival held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
In addition to numerous solo projects, Bryant is an active collaborator. She is co-founder of the Past Modern Performance Duo (dance/percussion/new media) and worked extensively with the Lower Left Performance Collective for 13 years. Bryant’s frequent projects with musicians, visual artists, theater artists, poets, and dancers have brought her into creative relationships with over 120 artists from diverse backgrounds, including the multi-national music collective Trummerflora, African-American poetry group Collective Purpose, Chicano/Latino collective The Taco Shop Poets, Korean-American hip hop choreographer Grace Jun, Argentine filmmaker Paula Zacharias, Polish theater director Jurek Sawka, and German visual artist Fabian Winkler. She has danced with renowned and emerging choreographers including Victoria Marks, Nina Martin, Wally Cardona, Kim Epifano, Shelley Senter, Lionel Popkin, Liam Clancy, Marianne Kim, Sandra Mathern, Randé Dorn, and Manuelito Biag. She has set her work on dance ensembles in the US and abroad, inclusing students at University of Florida, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Winthrop University, Western Washington University, California State University Long Beach, California State University Fresno, University of California San Diego, and Purdue University.
Bryant has taught both nationally and internationally, with workshops and classes at festivals, universities, community colleges, K-12 public schools, and in the community. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at California State University Long Beach, where she teaches contemporary dance praxis, improvisation, and pedagogy. Bryant has taught workshops in New York, Stockholm, Oslo, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Philadelphia, San Diego, and at the Los Angeles Improvisational Dance Festival, West Coast Contact Improv Jam (Berkeley, CA), Texas Dance Improvisation Festival (Houston, TX), Contact Festival Freiburg (Germany), TransContact Festival (Romania), Kontakt Budapest Festival (Hungary), and at 23 universities across the US.