LEMON, Ralph 1952-

PERSONAL: Born August 1, 1952, in Cincinnati, OH; married Mary Good; children: Chelsea. Education: University of Minnesota, B. A., 1975; also studied dance with Zvi Gotheiner, Cindi Green, Zena Rommet, Ping Chong, Meredith Monk, Viola Farber, and Nancy Hauser.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Office—P.O. Box 143, New York, NY 10011.

CAREER: Mixed Blood Theatre Company, Minneapolis, MN, founding member; Nancy Hauser Dance Company, Minneapolis, dancer, 1977-79; Meredith Monk/The House, dancer, 1979-81; Ralph Lemon Dance Company, founder and artistic director, 1985-95; Cross Performance, artistic director, 1995—; Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, CT, associate artist. Produced first evening-length concert, 1981; also performed with Dana Reitz, Blondell Cummings, and Bebe Miller; conducts master classes, composition workshops, and participates in artistic residencies throughout the United States, Mexico, and Europe; collaborated on documentary video Konbit with Lionel Saint Pierre, Dan El Diaz, and Zao, and film Three with Isaac Julien and Bebe Miller. Major works include Joy (1990), Folkdance/Sextet (1991), Phrases Almost Biblical (1992), Their Eyes Rolled Back in Ecstasy (1993), Killing Tulips (1993-95), Threestep (Shipwreck) (1995), Geography, Part 1: Africa (1997), and Geography, Part 2: Asia (2000).

MEMBER: Danspace Project at St. Marks Church, board member; Dance/USA, 1989-91.

AWARDS, HONORS: National Endowment for the Arts choreographic fellowships, 1986-88, 1992-94, 1995-97; New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, 1986, 1992, 1998; American Choreographers Award, 1987; Boston International Choreography Competition, gold medal, 1988; New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) award, 1987; Cal-Arts/Alpert Award, 1999; National Theatre Artist residency program grant, Theatre Communications Group, 1999.

WRITINGS:

(With photographer Philip Trager) Persephone, poems by Eavan Boland and Rita Dove, text by Andrew Szegedy-Masak, Wesleyan University Press (Middletown, CT), 1996.

Geography: art/race/exile, performance text by Tracie Morris, afterword by Ann Daly, Wesleyan University Press (Hanover, NH), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS: Ralph Lemon is a critically acclaimed American choreographer and dancer who has expanded his artistic vision to include other creative disciplines and cultural traditions. He discovered dance while studying literature and theater at the University of Minnesota and began working in New York City during the modern dance boom of the early 1980s. After running his own company for ten years, Lemon has chosen the less restrictive task of heading the Cross Performance organization in 1995. In this capacity, he has worked on film and video projects and the multimedia series Geography, a three-part collaboration with artists from Africa, Asia, and America. This project also resulted in the publication of the book Geography: art/race/exile, which documents Lemon's experiences in Africa using journal entries, photographs, drawings, and dance scores. Lemon previously worked with photographer Philip Trager on Persephone, a volume that includes poems by Eavan Boland and Rita Dove.

Early on, Lemon developed a reputation for creating philosophically motivated, introspective work. His studies with Wigman-based choreographer Nancy Hauser instilled a sense that artistic expression was more important than technical training. When Lemon came to New York City to dance with Meredith Monk's company, he began doing his own choreography with an informal group of dancers and in 1981 premiered his first dance pieces. In 1985 he formed his own company and was soon earning critical praise, awards, and NEA funding. In an article for Dance, analyst Christopher Reardon described Lemon's choreographic style from this period as being "smooth, organic, and enigmatic."

In 1995 Lemon disbanded his company to devote more time to other art forms, including writing and the visual arts. He contributed to the making of Konbit, a video documentary about the Haitian community in Miami, and the film Three with choreographer Bebe Miller and filmmaker Isaac Julien. The multi-faceted Geography trilogy was scheduled to fill a seven-year span. Combining live, evening-length performances with a book, gallery exhibits, and video, the project began in Africa, where Lemon collaborated with dancers and drummers on Geography. He sought to combine his own postmodern style with traditional forms in a production that examined racial and cultural identities. An interest in Zen Buddhism took Lemon to Asia for the second installment, titled Tree, which mingled modern dance and hip hop with traditional Indian, Chinese, and Japanese performances. The third segment was to explore Lemon's roots in the American south in a work called Home.

Reviews of the book Geography showed it to be an illuminating component in this enormous project. Dance critic K. C. Patrick judged that the book had growing relevance, with its reflections on African and African American existences. A Publishers Weekly writer called the book a "searching, brutally frank travelogue." The writer deemed that Geography was at its strongest "when Lemon hones in on the physical, spiritual, and cultural contradictions inherent in his attempts at placing the rhythm-based sensibilities of the African dancers into formal Western structures," valuing it as a cultural study as well as an examination of artistic endeavors. Lemon's prose, which reminded the critic of the work of poet Bill Luoma, was said to add to the book's appeal.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

International Dictionary of Modern Dance, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1998.

PERIODICALS

Dance, September, 2000, Christopher Reardon, "Pilgrim's Progress," p. 64; December, 2001, K. C. Patrick, review of Geography: art/race/exile, p. 76.

Publishers Weekly, November 27, 2000, review ofGeography: art/race/exile, p. 67.*