UMass Boston

Choreography, Modern Dance, Dance History, Improvisational Dance

Kelley Donovan splits her time between Boston and New York City, teaching and choreographing in both cities. She has performed work by Ann Carlson, Amy Spencer & Richard Colton and Liz Lerman. Her work has been produced in Boston by World Music/Crash Arts, Tufts University, Lesley College, MIT, Mobius, Harvard, Mass College of Art, Salem State College, and the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston. She has shown work at Movement Research, DanceNow NYC, The Merce Cunningham Studio, The Duo Theater, Joyce SoHo, The Hatch, WAX, Green Space, and the 92nd St. Y in New York City. The New York Times and Boston Phoenix cited her work as among the best of 2009 and she has received financial support from The Artist Foundation of Boston and a Harkness Space Grant from the 92nd St. Y. Donovan studied choreography with Mark Morris and Bessie Schönberg and received a BA from Bradford College in 1989.  

She is director of Kelley Donovan & Dancers, a troupe which creates dance that investigates the internal world of transformation and expresses the intimate self through movement, ranging from soft fluidity to athletic physicality. Exploring the gray area between the extremes of purely classical modern dance and theatrical narrative, Donovan creates movement rich with imagery, experienced viscerally and expressive of transformation.