Margaret Paek
Adjunct Instructor, Improvisation
BA Pyschology from UC San Diego
Margaret Paek is a performer, creative artist, community organizer and teacher dedicated to the process of collaboration and inspired by improvisation. She enjoys teaching solo, ensemble, and contact improvisation, contemporary dance technique, Hamilton Floor Barre, creative research, and all levels of gymnastics. As faculty at Movement Research and adjunct at Manhattanville College, she teaches contact improvisation. Margaret has also been adjunct faculty in contemporary dance at California State University San Marcos and has held residencies, workshops and/or choreographed for the University of California San Diego, Prescott College in Arizona, the American Dance Festival at Duke University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Purdue University, Texas Christian University and the Experimental Theater Wing at NYU.
During her ten years in San Diego, Margaret was a core artist and Education Coordinator with Lower Left Performance Collective, taught on-going classes, created and performed extensively, co-designed the training series "Construction Site", mentored emerging artists through the "Zero 2 One" program, and founded two community performance collectives. Since relocating to New York in 2006, she continues to collaborate with Lower Left and co-organizes and facilitates the annual programs "March 2 Marfa" in Marfa, TX and "Dance Ranch" in Marfa, TX and Berlin, Germany. Margaret taught, performed, and helped curate for the 2007 Movement Research Fall Festival on Improvisation and taught abroad for the Swedish Dance Alliance and the International Contact Festival in Freiburg, Germany.
Margaret has danced with a variety of collectives and artists, including Shelley Senter, Nina Martin, Lionel Popkin, Keith Hennessy, Deborah Hay, Mary Overlie, Charles Dennis, Team Djordjevich, Project LIMB, Stochastic Ensemble, the BodyCartography Project, Monica Bill Barnes, and Jean Isaacs' San Diego Dance Theater. Her cooperative and individual work has been presented at venues including Dixon Place, Starr Street Productions, Joyce SoHo, Judson Church and Danspace at St. Mark's Church in New York, Sushi Performance & Visual Art, Highways, ODC and CounterPulse in California, and the Crowley Theater and Barnevelder Theater in Texas. She was awarded a 2000 San Diego Dance Alliance "Tommy" Award for duet ensemble performance in Jane Blount's Linefold, and dance critic, Jennifer de Poyen, has called her "a dancer so full of wit and intelligence, you can't keep your eyes off her". (San Diego Union Tribune, 2002)
She is also currently on Movement Research's Artist Advisory Council, has authored articles in the movement journal, Contact Quarterly, and serves on the Board of Marfa Live Arts, developing performing arts programs for the community. With musician Loren Kiyoshi Dempster, she has been working on her most recent collaboration- a daughter born in 2010. Margaret received her BA in psychology from UC San Diego in 1997 and will receive her MFA from the Hollins University/ADF low residency program in 2011.
Adjunct Instructor, Improvisation
BA Pyschology from UC San Diego
Margaret Paek is a performer, creative artist, community organizer and teacher dedicated to the process of collaboration and inspired by improvisation. She enjoys teaching solo, ensemble, and contact improvisation, contemporary dance technique, Hamilton Floor Barre, creative research, and all levels of gymnastics. As faculty at Movement Research and adjunct at Manhattanville College, she teaches contact improvisation. Margaret has also been adjunct faculty in contemporary dance at California State University San Marcos and has held residencies, workshops and/or choreographed for the University of California San Diego, Prescott College in Arizona, the American Dance Festival at Duke University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Purdue University, Texas Christian University and the Experimental Theater Wing at NYU.
During her ten years in San Diego, Margaret was a core artist and Education Coordinator with Lower Left Performance Collective, taught on-going classes, created and performed extensively, co-designed the training series "Construction Site", mentored emerging artists through the "Zero 2 One" program, and founded two community performance collectives. Since relocating to New York in 2006, she continues to collaborate with Lower Left and co-organizes and facilitates the annual programs "March 2 Marfa" in Marfa, TX and "Dance Ranch" in Marfa, TX and Berlin, Germany. Margaret taught, performed, and helped curate for the 2007 Movement Research Fall Festival on Improvisation and taught abroad for the Swedish Dance Alliance and the International Contact Festival in Freiburg, Germany.
Margaret has danced with a variety of collectives and artists, including Shelley Senter, Nina Martin, Lionel Popkin, Keith Hennessy, Deborah Hay, Mary Overlie, Charles Dennis, Team Djordjevich, Project LIMB, Stochastic Ensemble, the BodyCartography Project, Monica Bill Barnes, and Jean Isaacs' San Diego Dance Theater. Her cooperative and individual work has been presented at venues including Dixon Place, Starr Street Productions, Joyce SoHo, Judson Church and Danspace at St. Mark's Church in New York, Sushi Performance & Visual Art, Highways, ODC and CounterPulse in California, and the Crowley Theater and Barnevelder Theater in Texas. She was awarded a 2000 San Diego Dance Alliance "Tommy" Award for duet ensemble performance in Jane Blount's Linefold, and dance critic, Jennifer de Poyen, has called her "a dancer so full of wit and intelligence, you can't keep your eyes off her". (San Diego Union Tribune, 2002)
She is also currently on Movement Research's Artist Advisory Council, has authored articles in the movement journal, Contact Quarterly, and serves on the Board of Marfa Live Arts, developing performing arts programs for the community. With musician Loren Kiyoshi Dempster, she has been working on her most recent collaboration- a daughter born in 2010. Margaret received her BA in psychology from UC San Diego in 1997 and will receive her MFA from the Hollins University/ADF low residency program in 2011.