KATIE DUCK BIOGRAPHY
Born in Oxnard California (1951), Katie Duck is a dancer, choreographer and teacher. She began performing in plays and musicals as a teenager, attended the University of Utah as a modern dance major and then joined the Salt Lake Mime Troupe touring in the United States and Europe. (1973-9).
She left the United States in 1976 to live in Amsterdam, Holland in solo productions, in productions with Carlos Traffic, Jango Edwards (friends roadshow) and in improvisations with Amsterdam music artists Ernst Reijseger (cello), Tristan Honsinger (cello), Sean Bergen (sax) and Michael Moore (sax). She changed her name to Katie Duck while touring her first solo in Europe “duck play” in 1976.
In 1979, she moved to Italy where she formed the company Gruppo. She toured through out Europe with her one-hour productions Rutles, The Orange Man, Brown eye Green eye and Mind the gap and participated in free lance improvisation collaborations with Julyen Hamilton, Kristie Simpson and Steve Paxton among others. In 1986 she accepted a senior lecturer position at Dartington College of Arts teaching for the theater department as head of the choreography course. In 1991 she accepted a part time post at the Hogeschool voor de kunsten (AHK) dance departments in Amsterdam teaching movement research, improvisation, composition and technique.
Throughout her career she has worked with music artists who share her passion for live time performance and the integration of music, text and dance within compositions for performance. She has performed in duet and in ensembles with music artists Derik Bailey, Han Bennink, Andy Moor (the EX) and many others. Katie created the music and dance project MAGPIE in 1995-2005 in Amsterdam to reflect her work with improvisations musicians. Magpie toured in Europe, the USA, Asia and Scandinavia and received national funding from 2002-2006 for tours within the Netherlands from the Nederland fonds voor the podimkunsten. In 2006 she evolved Magpie into an umbrella organization.
Katie has initiated numerous dance and music improvisation on-going events in her three bases Holland, Italy and England. Her initiatives in Amsterdam include an Improvisation festival at the Frascati Theater (1994-9), a monthly improvisation series at the Fijnhout Theater (1992-3), the Muiderpoort Theater (1994-9), The Melkweg Theater (2000-2001) and OT301 Cultural center (2002-2006).
By 1988 she discovered the Internet evolution and created an international focus group for email announcements, a youtube presence by 2002 with her home videos and continues to encourage artists to build their Internet presence as part of their creative work.
Presently Katie holds a yearly five-week improvisation summer course and the collective workshop orgelpark in Amsterdam. She is contracted with the AHK theater school in Amsterdam for the SNDO choreography department and for the Modern Dance department. She re launched her Magpie project in 20011 in collaboration with Alfredo Genovesi.
Extended Bio Interviews, Essays, Articles
Katie Duck, Alessandro Certini, Chrolotte Zerby Katie Duck and Carlos Traffic “Love Story” 1980
“Rutles” 1982
Fall Festival -- Movement Research with Danspace Project 2007
