Aszure Barton
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Aszure Barton is a Canadian-American choreographer, director and innovator. She started tap dancing at the age of three and later began creating her own choreographies as a student at Canada's National Ballet School. Since then, her works have been performed on countless stages throughout the world, including the Palais Garnier, Mariinsky Theater, The Kennedy Center, The Alicia Alonso Grand Theater, Studio 54, Lincoln Center, and Sadler's Wells, as well as in museums and exhibits. She has also choreographed for theater, film, and opera, including Broadway. Early in her career, Aszure developed a working relationship with Mikhail Baryshnikov, with whom she collaborated on several projects.
In the early 2000s, she founded Aszure Barton & Artists in order to create an autonomous, interdisciplinary, and collaborative platform for process-centered creation, resulting in work that the US National Endowment for the Arts has equated to "watching the physical unfurling of the human psyche." Recently, this vision grew when she made her latest work for the company, this time in collaboration with her creative partner, acclaimed composer and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. The two premiered A a | a B : B E N D at Kampnagel and continue to tour the work internationally.
Over 30+ years of making dances, Aszure Barton has worked with celebrated artists and companies including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, Ballett Am Rhein, Bayerisches Staatsballett, English National Ballet, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Limon Dance Company, Martha Graham Dance Company, Nederlands Dans Theater, Sydney Dance Company, Teatro alla Scala, and Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka), among many others. In January 2024, she premiered a new work (Mere Mortals) at San Francisco Ballet in collaboration with British electronic music producer/DJ Floating Points and mixed media artists Hamill Industries — the first evening-length work created by a female choreographer in SFB's history, curated by Artistic Director Tamara Rojo. She is the current Resident Artist at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, where her newest work was called "exquisite, subversive, exhilarating and mildly offensive - as dance should be to move it somewhere new" (Chicago Tribune).
Aszure Barton continues to be an innovator of form, having contributed to an evolution of highly specialized dance and theater companies worldwide. She was the first Martha Duffy Resident Artist at the Baryshnikov Arts in New York and has received accolades and honors, including a Bessie Award for her work "BUSK". A recipient of the prestigious Canadian Arts & Letters Award (joining the likes of Oscar Peterson, Karen Kain, and Margaret Atwood), she is also an official ambassador of contemporary dance in Canada. As an educator, Aszure is regularly invited to collaborate with private, public and independent art institutions and forums around the globe.
Photo © Michelle Reid