Daniel Burkholder

Education

MFA, Dance, UW-Milwaukee
MA, Dance, American University
BA, Liberal Arts, Sarah Lawrence University

Biography

Daniel Burkholder is the Chair of the Department of Dance in the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Previously he served as the Director of the MFA in Dance program for 5 years. Daniel’s choreographic/improvisational work spans theatrical performances, site-specific events, immersive media, and screendance. Currently projects include Embodied Truth: Finding Ways to Move Together, a collaboration with NYC-based artist Kimani Fowlin, which uses dance, storytelling, and spoken word to explore race and gender through the lens of parenting. Daniel and Kimani have presented workshops, choreographed original performances, and performed in Milwaukee, Cincinnati, at the Dance and Somatic Conference and Performance Festival, with parents who were formerly incarcerated, and as guest artists at the International Dance Day Festival in Beirut, Lebanon. Daniel is also the creator and host of act/re/act, a podcast exploring improvisation across artistic forms through conversations with remarkable artists. Daniel also investigates improvisational performance, the integration of somatics (specifically The Feldenkrais Method) into dance training, and how MIndfulness practices can enhance and deepen artistic expression.

Daniel has created over 50 dance works that have been presented in theaters, non-traditional venues, in site-specific locations, and on the screen - venues include: Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 92nd Street Y, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Dance Place, along the Anacostia, Potomac and Milwaukee Rivers, Mid-West Regional Area Dance Festival (MI), Lynden Scultpure Garden Gallery (WI), Breaking Ground: Contemporary Dance and Film Festival (AZ), Danceworks Theater (MKE), 848 Community Space (SF), and as part of a week-long residency in Manta, Ecuador. He has taught at numerous festivals and intensives, including West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival, Texas Dance Improvisation Festival, and the Wild Meadows Improvisation Intensive. His work has been commissioned by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, James Madison University, Goucher College, among others. He was a Resident Artist at the Djerassi Artist Residency (CA), taught as a guest teacher for Cirque du Soleil, and was an artist-in-residence for 5 years at Georgetown University Hospital. He holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College, American University, and University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, he is also a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and a MNDFL Certified Mindfulness Instructor.

danielburkholder.com

Accolades

• UW-Milwaukee Graduate of the Decade (2018)
• UW-Milwaukee Faculty Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award (2023)

Recent Work