Choreography

Dana Genshaft

Princess Grace Award:
Choreography Fellowship, 2018

Born in Moscow and an immigrant to the US in 1989, Dana has trained with some of the most established schools in the world. Dana Genshaft danced professionally with the San Francisco Ballet from 2000-2015, promoted to soloist in 2008. Her repertoire ranges from works by Petipa, Balanchine, Wheeldon, Forsythe, McGregor, Morris, Ratmansky among others. Dana began choreographing in 2014, creating movement for dance films and music videos. Most notably for George Harrison’s iconic ballad ‘Say When’. She also received several nominations for the SFDanceFilm festival from 2014-16.

Although rooted in tradition, her choreographic voice seeks to explore, implement and expand on a wide range of vocabulary and choreographic devices. In 2016, Dana created her first dance-theater work entitled “Portrait” for SFDanceworks' inaugural season. Based on the life and times of Victorian author and early feminist, George Sand, the solo explores transformation and binary conformity. Nominated for excellence in concept design by the Isadora Duncan Committee, “Portrait” is now being adapted to a dance film.

In 2016, Dana was also awarded a fellowship with the New York Choreographic Institute, followed by a commission with American Ballet Theater Studio Company for its 2016-2017 Season. In The fall of 2017, Dana was selected for a residency with ODC Theater, where she continued to explore narrative structures; “REELs”, inspired by movie monologues and well known soundtracks, a reflection on modernism. Most recently, Dana partnered with composer Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini to develop a full evening work based on a children’s novel written in 1929 by Austrian author, Felix Salter. A story often thought to be a metaphor for the events leading to the Second World War.  Dana is looking forward to her first commission with the Washington Ballet in the spring of 2019.