STATEMENT
I work collaboratively with diverse groups of dancers and make dances for a variety of performance settings. In addition to making material myself, my dances include material that is generated by the performers in response to instructions, visual images/scores, movement problems and other tasks. As material is fragmented, rearranged and passed from one performer to the next, it is personalized and reshaped by the dynamics and phrasing of each dancer. Presented in a series of changing contexts, elements are isolated, magnified, repeated, made transitional and events are located in space and sequenced. The object/the outcome of the process is necessarily unknown and, perhaps, uncertain, but the process, like a trip to another place, can be exhilarating.
The resulting dances develop a non-linear and non-narrative field defined by movement that embraces the beauty and possibility of irregularity. Through unusual perspectives on interaction, moments of connection and beauty are revealed where least expected. Rather than mirroring given structures, these dances embody the decisions and processes by which material was produced. Movement and design resonate freely with one another in an unfixed, associative manner.
My dances do not have main characters. They do not depict situations. My dances have no hidden meanings. They are not puzzles to be solved and they do not need program notes to be validated. Meaning is not imposed on the audience. My dances are there to be looked at and imaginatively completed by the viewer
I think the body has its own compelling intelligence, which finds pathways for getting from here to there and is expressive of personal experience, physical training, personal inclination, taste. As an artist I am trying to move beyond what I already know. The process I have developed for making dances enables me to encounter what I don't know; it requires me to move beyond my own unspoken assumptions. And I value the opportunity that dance making provides to bring a group of people together to work on a common project.
BIOGRAPHY
Daniel McCusker is a dancer, choreographer and educator. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Drama & Dance at Tufts University, teaching modern dance, ballet, composition and special topics courses. He moved to Massachusetts, in 1994, to teach at Holy Cross, from Portland, ME, where, for seven years he directed Ram Island Dance, a community arts organization with a small resident repertory company, adult classes, a children's program and a presenting program. Prior to moving to Maine, he lived and worked in New York City, where, in addition to presenting his own work, he performed in the work of many young choreographers and danced for seven years with the Lucinda Childs Dance Company. A native New Yorker, he studied with Alfredo Corvino, Judy Padow and at the Cunningham Studio.
Mr. McCusker has been a guest in many university dance programs, has taught at Summer Stages Dance II, the American College Dance Festival Association, and the American Dance Festival. He has been a guest choreographer for many college dance companies, several regional dance companies, Portland Stage Company and the Ballet Project at Jacob’s Pillow.
Recent projects include a choreographic residency on Salt Spring Island, in British Columbia, where he facilitated a creative process for a large group of community dancers; a teaching residency in Singapore; Variations in 4 spaces for many people with visual collaborators, Rick Fox, John Kramer, Deb Todd Wheeler and musical direction by Chris Eastburn; Gray Area a duet with Robbyn Scott that was performed in Vancouver, Salt Spring Island and Cambridge, MA; and Consent to Gravity, a collaborative project for Island Moving Company, Newport, RI, with choreographer Carol Somers, musical director Chris Eastburn, the Providence String Quartet, and project director Thomas Palmer that was performed at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Wheaton College, Massachusetts College of Art, and RISD.