Esther M Neff

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Website: http://www.panoplylab.org

Esther Neff is a librettist, social arts practitioner, theatre-maker, performance artist, video and visual artist, writer, etc. She grew up on an organic farm in Indiana and was unschooled K-12 and went to the University of Michigan for a BFA in performance. She founded the Panoply Performance Laboratory (PPL) in 2004 and currently co-organizes the collective with composer Brian McCorkle. PPL has created a full length film, In the Company of Eshu, full-length operas The Last Dreams of Helene Weigel or How to Get Rid of The Feminism Once and For All, and On the Cranial Nerves of Barbarians, parts I, II, and III of the documentary trilogy The Transformational Grammar of the Institutional Glorybowl (Schooled and Unschooled, Workforce/Forced Work, and Institute_Institut), a museum/installation/software/video,The Silviculture Museum, and many other performance art, video, and theater works including collaborations with new music ensemble thingNY (TIME: A Complete Explanation in Three Parts). Esther has developed projects through the Residency@ chashama, Swing Space from LMCC, through a residency at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (Institute_Institut) and through a residency the Performance Project @ University Settlement. She has shown work at Dixon Place, The Brecht Forum, Manhattan Theatre Source, Gathering of the Tribes Gallery, the cell, The Brick Theater, ABC No Rio, University of the Streets, Impact Theater, University Settlement, The West End Theater, Surreal Estate, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and in pop-up galleries, parking lots, during FIGMENT and SUPERFRONT's Public Summer at Industry City, and in collaboration with Dina Keller, on the Theresienwiese (where the Oktoberfest is held) in Munich GE, in public parks, at The Public Theater, and elsewhere. Esther was one of the founders of the Internationalists Directors Collective, is a Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab alum, has studied at the Royal Shakespeare Company, with OyamO and Anne Carson (winning two Hopwood awards for writing at U of M) and directed for the late Arthur Miller. Esther also teaches dukokinetics, a method for post-dramatic performance, and is also a curator and cultural organizer (PERFORMANCY FORUM, conferences, exhibitions). Esther lives in Brooklyn and works at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). She is currently working on the project NATURE FETISH. Blog action: www.panoplylab.wordpress.com

Categories: Teaching Artist, Storytelling, Sculpture, Public Art, Performance Art, Multi-Cultural, Mixed Media, Installation / Site Specific, Green / Sustainable, Environmental, Directing, Conceptual, Choreography, Activism, Visual Arts, Theater