About

Janessa Clark (American/Swedish) is a BESSIE Award nominated choreographer, performer, and installation artist. Her practice combines dance, movement, video, language, and social engagement. She holds an MA in Performance Practices and Research from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London where she also received distinction for her thesis Vicious Terrain: Rupturing Choreography through Co-Authorship. Janessa also holds a BFA in Choreography from the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University where she received the Undergraduate Award for Excellence for her choreographic work. She founded and directed the New York City-based dance collective, Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX, from 2001-2012 and in 2012 dissolved KILTERBOX to form nomadthenewcompany, which worked from Stockholm until 2017. Janessa now creates work under her own name.

As a dancer and performer, Janessa has collaborated with acclaimed artists such as Tino Sehgal, Gina Gibney/Gibney Dance, Noemie Lafrance Sens|Production, Michael Cole, Laura Peterson Choreography, Lior Lerman, and Disa Krosness among others. She has collaborated on performative photographic/visual art projects with Alex Yudzon, Martin Cooper, Christopher Matthews, and Craig Wells.

Janessa’s recent accomplishments include a 2024 Lake Studios Berlin residency, a 2023 BAX Summer Space Grant, a 2022 Visiting Artist Residency at Loyola Marymount University, a 2021 BESSIE Award nomination for Outstanding Production for her work Communion, the 2020 Crojik’s Largesse from the Croft Residency and a 2019 Artist Fellowship in St. Petersburg, Russia through CEC ArtsLink’s prestigious Back Apartment Residency program. Prior to that she was a 2018-19 Artist in Residence at Jamaica Center for Arts and a 2018 resident at THE VISIONARY Artist Residency in Mt. Vision, NY. Janessa’s choreography and installations have been presented throughout the US and Europe most notably at HERE Arts Center (NY), Danspace Project Out-of-Space (NY), the DANCENOW Festival (NY), the Webber Douglas Performance Space (London), SDVIG and NCCA (St. Petersburg), CounterPULSE (SF), Teatro Victoria (Spain), Teatro Cicca (Spain), and Danscentrum (Stockholm). She was the choreographer and a performer for the prize-winning short film Squeeze Play (2004 d. Chiedu Egbuniwe) and has had her own film work presented throughout the US and Europe including at the Stockholm Dansfilm Festival, Thessaloniki Cinedance International, ViDEOSKiN Film Festival in Yukon Territory, the Jakarta Dance Festival, Cinedanza in Modena, Italy, Moving Bodies in Bulgaria, and the Triskelion Dance Film Festival. Janessa has received grants from Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Swedish Arts Council, the Croft Residency, and Harlem Stage among others.

An accomplished dance pedagogue, Janessa specializes in dance improvisation, choreographic practices, filmmaking, sounding bodies, repertory, and modern dance technique. Her classes, workshops, and courses have been on programs in the US at Dance New Amsterdam, Steps on Broadway, New York University's Summer Dance Festival, the College at Brockport, Old Dominion University, and Montclair State University, and internationally at the University College of Dance/DOCH and Balletakademien (Stockholm), Luleå Tekniska Universitetet (Luleå, Sweden), SDVIG (St. Petersburg), and iKapa Dance Theater (Cape Town, South Africa).

Currently, Janessa is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance in the Theater Arts department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and is touring her newest film A Torch in the Machine which just won Best Dance Film at the Berlin Indie Festival. She is developping the concept for a new long-term live work Cold Storage, and redirecting her research practice into the possibilities of A.I. for Choreography. Janessa’s New York BESSIE-nominated work Communion, a response to the Covid-19 crisis, has screened at the Barry Art Museum in Norfolk, VA, the Soundance Festival in Berlin, HERE Arts Center in New York as a three-week in-person installation, American Dance Festival’s Movies by Movers, and at the Bates Dance Festival.

Janessa resides in Brooklyn, NY.

Awards, Residencies & Prizes

Dance Tech Residency (2024) Lake Studios Berlin

Parent Artist Space Grant Recipient (2023) Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX)

Visiting Artist in Residence (2022) Loyola Marymount University

I:I Official Selection 2021 Thessaloniki Cinedance International Festival Greece

Nominee for Outstanding Production: Communion, 2021 NY Dance & Performance Awards/The BESSIES

COMMUNION Duet # 5 Official Selection, 2021 Lights Dance Festival Seattle, WA

COMMUNION Official Selection, 2021 American Dance Festival/Movies by Movers, Durham, NC

I : I Official Selection, 2021 Screendance Festival, Stockholm

COMMUNION DUET # 5 Official Selection, 2021 Screendance Festival, Stockholm

COMMUNION DUET # 5 Official Selection 2021 Opine Dance Film Festival, Philadelphia

FCA Emergency Grant, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York, NY

FCA Emergency Grant Covid-19 Fund, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York, NY

BIPOC Artist Emergency Grant, Arts Administrators of Color Network Washington D.C.

Crojik’s Largesse Grant, The Croft Residency Boyne City, MI

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2019 Moving Images Festival Modena, Italy

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2019 Jakarta Dance Carnival Indonesia

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2019 Dance Moves Videodance Festival Nicosia, Cyprus

Artist in Residence (2018/19) Jamaica Center for the Arts Queens, NY

Artist Fellowship (2019) CEC ArtsLink Back Apartment Residency St. Petersburg, Russia

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2019 Screendance Festival Stockholm, Sweden

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2019 Oklahoma Dance Film Festival Tulsa, OK

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2019 Utah Dance Film Festival Orem, UT

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2019 Midwest RAD Festival Kalamazoo, MI

Int’l Cultural Exchange Grant Future Becomes Past (2018) Konstnärsnämnden/Swedish Arts Council

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2018 Stockholm Dansfilm Festival Stockholm, Sweden

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2018 Phoenix Dance Film Festival Phoenix, AZ

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2018 Triskelion Arts Dance Film Festival Brooklyn, NY

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2018 Divulge Dancers' Film Festival Hollywood, CA

Future Becomes Past Official Selection 2018 Thessaloniki Cinedance International Festival Greece

Artist in Residence (2018) THE CHURCH Artist Residency Mt. Vision, NY

Kensington Unicorn Official selection 2017 Stockholm Dansfilm Festival Stockholm, Sweden

Translate, Intertwine, Transgress Choreographer/Architect lab Moderna Museet Stockholm, Sweden

Commissioning funds for (inner)views I-VII Harlem Stage Fund for New Work

Commission support for Pith and Blowback Manhattan Theater Source/Estrogenius Festival

Commission support for Laura WOW Cafe Theater

Commission and European tour support for Tesseract Thompson & Knight Foundation

Commissioning Funds for (inner)views I-VII Gibney Dance, Inc Women at Work Prize

Residencies Tesseract (2005), Volution (2010), Future Becomes Past film (2018) DanceNOW Silo Residency

Janessa’s 2018-19 EtM Choreographer + Composer Residency at the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning was made possible by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the George L. Shields Foundation, The Reed Foundation, AOH Foundation, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for their support of the EtM Choreographer + Composer Residencies. The residency program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.