ARCOS Dance directors Erica Gionfriddo ’06 (Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance) and Eliot Gray Fisher were invited by the city of Austin, Texas — a UNESCO-designated Creative City of Media Arts — in August 2021 to represent the United States in the City to City program. They collaborated through the rest of the year with artists Meiyan Chen (Karlsruhe, Germany) and Taeheon Lee (York, United Kingdom), on “told-hold,” an interactive, hybrid media performance piece inspired by the program’s theme: play. The project will continue its development over the next year. Visit arcosdance.com/told-hold to learn more about the collaborative process and to experience the work.
Gionfriddo is a dance artist, educator and somatic researcher who believes in the intelligent body each of us occupies. They are co-founder of ARCOS Dance, whose ongoing inquiry probes the intersection of technology and humanity through rigorous interdisciplinary experimentation. ARCOS’ recent work has focused on “hacking” consumer technologies, or repurposing them outside of their intended uses, into performance and developing an embodied cyborgian movement language. ARCOS’ experiments in transmedia performance have been presented at festivals and symposia, including the award-winning piece “The Warriors: A Love Story” (Edinburgh Fringe, Scotland) and “Domain” (Symposium of Philosophy and Dance, San Marcos, Texas).
They direct ARCOS’ professional development and training programming, which supports independent artists through multiple creative and fiscal platforms. Gionfriddo’s extensive experience with the GYROTONIC® method guides their pedagogy, which they bring in their capacity as an assistant professor of practice in the dance area at The University of Texas at Austin and as a national teaching artist. Gionfriddo also holds a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Hollins University.
Gionfriddo currently serves as assistant professor of practice in dance at the University of Texas at Austin and received the Shenandoah University Alumni of Excellence Award in 2017.
