Artistic Director of Terrain

ebecca Lazier is a Brooklyn-based dancer, choreographer and teacher. She grew up in Nova Scotia, trained at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and later moved to NYC, where she graduated from The Juilliard School. Rebecca’s first concert of her own work was in a gritty former gun factory in Hartford, CT and she has since created and presented work while living in Hartford, Los Angeles, Istanbul, and for the past ten years, in New York City. Recently, Rebecca received a grant from the Greater New York Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc., and was an Access Dance/USA, Scholarship Recipient for 2008 funded in part through a grant by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She has been artist-in-residence at Movement Research, The Joyce Theater Foundation, The Yard, and the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, where she was named Honorary Fellow supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Rebecca has received additional awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, Nova Scotia Arts Council, and faculty research grants from the Lewis Center for the Arts, Council of the Humanities and the Brown Fund at Princeton University.

This spring Rebecca has been commissioned to choreograph the restored version of the French composer Claude Debussy’s final masterpiece, the ballet The Toy-Box (La boîte à joujoux) at Princeton University; and was assistant choreographer to Millicent Hodson in her re-imagining of the 1927 ballet Le Pas d’Acier. Previous commissions include: American Repertory Ballet, Columbia College, World Special Olympics, Westport Arts Center, Trinity College, Hartford Conservatory, and Scotia Festival of Music. Rebecca has choreographed for theater productions with Bartlett Sher at Hartford Stage, Trinity College and Portland Stage, in addition to working with director Tim Vasen on Boris Godunov (Alexander Pushkin) at the Berlind Theater, NJ; and Ridiculous Fraud (Beth Henley) at McCarter Theater, directed by Lisa Peterson.

Rebecca is currently a Senior Lecturer in dance at Princeton University was previously on faculty at UCLA, Wesleyan College, Trinity College, Hartford Ballet/University of Hartford and the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, She was first artist-in-residence for a year at Mimar Sinan Conservatory is Istanbul, Turkey. Rebecca has been a guest artist at James Madison University (VA); Shenandoah Conservatory (VA); Canadian Children's Dance Theatre (Toronto); ACDFA Festivals (Muhlenberg College, Texas A&M, Penn State); Dance Nova Scotia (Halifax): Interlochen Arts Academy (MI); CalArts (CA); and returns each year to her native Nova Scotia to teach and perform. From 2003-2006 Rebecca was the festival director at the White Mountain Summer Dance Festival and Terrain was the company in residence.

Rebecca has moderated Studies Projects at Movement Research and facilitated Community Discourse for their Spring Festival. She has been a panelist/presenter at many conferences including: Dance USA Roundtable 2000, the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota, The Juilliard School Alumni, Philadelphia Dance Conference 2008/Limon Centennial Celebration, and delivered her paper Making Schoenberg Dance at the SoundMoves Conference at Roehampton University in London. She has been an adjudicator/juror for American College Dance Festivals, Canada Council, and Joyce Theater Foundation.