MEGAN MAYER
Photo by Theo Goodell.
Minneapolis, MN
Dancing Labs Resident Artist
Megan Mayer is an artist working with choreography, dance, experimental video and photography. She obsesses over minimalism, mimicry, tenderness, wry humor, empathy, fake bad timing and exacting musicality. Her work offers glimpses of internal terrain and unexpected expressive delicacies. By exposing tiny emotional undercurrents concerning the body, Mayer constructs a unique perspective of what dance can be: virtuosity in vulnerability and victory in a gesture. Drawn to the edges of the experience of performing: the anticipatory rapid heartbeat before going onstage, and the regretful relief after exiting, her work often reveals where that switch lives in the body. Mayer’s work has been recognized by The Right Here Showcase commission (2016), a MN SAGE Award for Dance in Outstanding Design for Soft Fences (2015), a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant (2014), a residency at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography in Tallahassee, Florida (2012), a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Choreographers (2010) and a Jerome Foundation Travel Study Grant (2010). Professionally based in Minneapolis since 1991, Mayer hold a B.A. in Dance from the University of Minnesota.
Mayer came to NCCAkron in July 2019 to develop (FW) Redux, dance for four performers including Mayer, Charles Campbell, Matt Regan and Greg Waletski, with additional sound design by Matt Regan.
In 2016 she presented a first draft of This is supposed to be my fertile window, a dance inspired by the duality of singer Dusty Springfield's stage fright and powerful voice. (FW) Redux looks at this work 3 years later and asks: How best to deal with anxiety in such a troubled time? How do we persist when we’re all broken? What can we contribute during this time of racial/political/artistic unease? Who gets to claim and define gender?
During Mayer's time in NCCAkron, she joined the list of NCCAkron artists who have worked with Akron's Chill Artisan Ice Cream to create a custom flavor and made "Well, It Felt Like Love," a lemon-and-chocolate combination inspired by a Shangri-Las lyric.