JANESSA CLARK is a BESSIE Award-nominated choreographer, dance filmmaker, performer, and installation artist. Her practice combines dance, video, new technology, and language to create movement-driven art for stage, screen, and site-specific environments. The work created nourishes a desire to challenge traditional modes of choreography and spectatorship through co-authorship. She holds an MA in Performance Practices and Research from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London where she also received distinction for her thesis Vicious Terrain: Rupturing Choreography through Co-Authorship. Janessa also holds a BFA in Choreography from the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University where she received the Undergraduate Award for Excellence for her choreographic work. She founded and directed the New York City-based dance collective, Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX, from 2001-2012 and in 2012 dissolved KILTERBOX to form nomadthenewcompany, which worked from Stockholm until 2017.
As a dancer and performer, Janessa has collaborated with acclaimed artists such as Tino Sehgal, Gina Gibney/Gibney Dance, Noemie Lafrance Sens|Production, Michael Cole, Laura Peterson Choreography, Lior Lerman, and Disa Krosness among others. She has collaborated on performative photographic/visual art projects with Martin Cooper, Christopher Matthews, Mary Trunk, and Alex Yudzon.
Janessa’s recent highlights include a 2025 SLIP Residency at Moulin/Belle, a 2025 Harvestworks Technology Immersion Program Fellowship, a 2024 Lake Studios Berlin residency, a 2023 BAX Summer Space Grant, a 2022 Visiting Artist Residency at Loyola Marymount University, a 2021 BESSIE Award nomination for Outstanding Production for her work Communion, the 2020 Crojik’s Largesse from the Croft Residency and a 2019 Artist Fellowship in St. Petersburg, Russia through CEC ArtsLink’s prestigious Back Apartment Residency program. Prior to that she was a 2018-19 Artist in Residence at Jamaica Center for Arts and a 2018 resident at THE VISIONARY Artist Residency in Mt. Vision, NY. Janessa’s choreography and installations have been presented throughout the US and Europe most notably at HERE Arts Center, the DANCENOW Festival, the Webber Douglas Performance Space, SDVIG and NCCA (St. Petersburg), CounterPULSE (SF), Teatro Victoria (Spain), Teatro Cicca (Spain), and Danscentrum (Stockholm). She was the choreographer for the 2004 prize-winning short film Squeeze Play directed by Chiedu Egbuniwe, and has had her own film work presented throughout the world, recently winning Best Dance Film at the Berlin Indie Film Festival. Janessa has received grants from Foundation for Contemporary Arts, MIT, the Swedish Arts Council, the Croft Residency, and Harlem Stage among others.
An accomplished dance pedagogue, Janessa specializes in dance improvisation, choreographic practices, filmmaking, sounding bodies, repertory, and modern dance technique. Her classes, workshops, and courses have been on programs in the US, Europe, and South Africa.
Currently, Janessa is part of the Theater Arts faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she just premiered her dance and technology piece VOLTA. She has also redirected part of her research into the possibilities of emergent technology and A.I. for choreography.