BIOGRAPHY
David Gordon
David Gordon (director, choreographer, and co-writer of Punch and Judy Get Divorced) performed in the companies of James Waring and Yvonne Rainer in the 1960s, and in the 1970s he was a founding member of the improvisational group the Grand Union. In 1971 he formed the Pick Up Performance Company (incorporated in 1978 as a non-profit organization), which helps to support and administer his work in live performance and media. He is a Guggenheim Fellow (1981 and 1987) and has been a panelist and chairman of the dance program panel of the NEA. His video work has appeared on Great Performances, Alive TV, the BBC, and Channel 4/Great Britain. The Mysteries and What's So Funny?, written and directed by Gordon with music by Philip Glass and visual design by Red Grooms, was awarded a Bessie Award and an Obie Award. The script was published in Grove New American Theater. Recently Gordon collaborated with Ain Gordon on The Family Business, which premiered at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City in February 1994, received an Obie Award, and was presented at New York Theatre Workshop and at the Mark Taper Forum in 1995. They collaborated again on the text for Punch and Judy Get Divorced, which premiered at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia in May. He directed and choreographed the original production of Shlemiel the First for the American Repertory Theater and the American Music Theater Festival, as well as the national tours of the show. He received a National Theatre Artist Residency Grant (funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by TCG) to work with the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and he directed and choreographed The Firebugs by Max Frisch for their mainstage in 1995. He is currently working with Ain Gordon on a commission from the Mark Taper Forum.