About…
“Few artists have been so successful at combining humor, pathos, and philosophical inquiry in such a loose, wide ranging format, or have managed to distill it with such vitality.” Jim Demetre, Artdish, 2010
Artist profile made for Seattle Channel in 2008
Amy O’Neal is a performer, choreographer, dance educator, the creator of AmyO/tinyrage, and was the co-director of locust (music/dance/video) with musician/composer Zeke Keeble from 2000-2010. locust produced 6 evening length works, several shorter works and dance videos, and was presented by On the Boards (Seattle, WA), Seattle Theater Group at the Moore Theater (Seattle, WA), The Myrna Loy Center (Helena, MT), Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out (Becket, MA), Joyce Soho (New York, NY), TBA Festival (Portland, OR), Bates Dance Festival (Lewiston, ME), University of Montana (Missoula, MT), SUSHI Performing Arts (San Diego, CA), the Southern Theater (Minneapolis, MN), ODC Theater (San Francisco), Kyoto Arts Center (Kyoto, Japan), Next Moment Film Festival (Tokyo, Japan), and Danza Sin Fronteras Festival at UNAM, Mexico City (2010).
Amy has taught at Velocity Dance Center in Seattle since 2001 and with the Dance This program through Seattle Theater Group since 2004. She is the lead teaching artist for STG’s Young Choreographers Lab which she has helped to develop. She has taught and/or conducted residencies at the University of Washington, Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle), University of Idaho, Idaho State University, University of Montana, Texas Woman’s University, University of Oregon, Lane Community College (Eugene, OR), Northwest Vista College (San Antonio, TX), Pacific Northwest Ballet (Seattle), and Contemporary Prefectural Museum (Okinawa, Japan), and Dance New Amsterdam (NYC). Her work has been commissioned by Spectrum Dance Theater directed by Donald Byrd (05 and 08), Cornish Dance Theater, Moving Current (Tampa, FL), and Seattle Theatre Group (05 and 09).
As a performer, she worked with the Pat Graney Co. (99-01), Scott/Powell Performance (97-04), and performed in Mark Haim’s acclaimed “Goldberg Variations” (06). Amy was the lead singer of Zeke Keeble’s band Marrow from 2003-2006. Amy also frequently collaborates with musician/comedian, Reggie Watts. She performed in his show “Disinformation” at the TBA Festival (Portland, OR), the Under the Radar Festival (New York, NY), the Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh, PA), the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and ICA Boston. She choreographed for Reggie Watts’s music video “Fu.. Sh.. Stack” released by Comedy Central in 2010 and she has choreographed for commercials, most recently, XBox.
For her work with AmyO/tinyrage and locust, Amy has received funding from the Seattle Mayors Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, the international DanceWEB scholarship (2000), the Mary Levine Fund, Artist Trust (GAP and Fellowship) , 4 Culture, the Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, the National Dance Project, the National Performance Network, The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the Creative Capital Foundation. Amy has been awarded creative residencies at Bates Dance Festival (07), Headlands Center for the Arts (08), the US/Japan Choreographers Exchange through Dance Theater Workshop and the Japan Society (09), Velocity Dance Center Choreographer in Residence (2011). Amy holds a BFA in dance from Cornish College of the Arts.
“AmyO/tinyrage is an unexpected gift.” -Brittany Shank, Seattle Dances 2010
In 2007, Amy O started filming duets with people while traveling to teach and perform in 9 different cities in the US and Japan. The accumulation of all 35 duets filmed turned into her first AmyO/tinyrage project. The live dance/video piece, entitled too, premiered at the TBA Festival in Portland OR September 10-12 2009 and again at the Northwest Film Forum in Seattle in March 2010.
Working under the moniker, Amy O/tinyrage, Amy makes art happen on a project to project basis creating solo dance work, group dance work, video, music, and curatorial experiments.
