Claire Porter

Claire Porter (born December 23, 1942) is an American choreographer/comedian known for blending comedic monologues with dance movement. She is also an award-winning performer, author, and dance educator whose dance works, which she refers to as Portables, have been produced by various dance organizations, college theater programs and venues around the world.
Biography
Claire Porter was born in New Britain, Connecticut, where, as a child, she was a star athlete and danced in a local studio. After she earned her BA in Mathematics from the College of New Rochelle in New York, she became a computer programmer for G.E. Analytical Engineering in Schenectady, New York. Porter returned to her dancing roots after witnessing a performance by Maria Tallchief. She then attended Sonoma State University in California from 1969 to 1973. At Sonoma State, she studied dance, taught Family Dance, Exercise, and Children's Dance, and directed a dance company of 12 members. Porter eventually moved from California to Ohio to study dance at Ohio State University. It was there that Porter discovered Laban Movement Analysis and began exploring gestures, acting, writing, and voice. She later received her certification for Laban Movement Analysis at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies NYC. She earned her MA in Dance from Ohio State and has continued the exploration of gestural movement as a teacher, choreographer and performer.
Porter has been a resident of Teaneck, New Jersey.
Major works
Portables
Porter's Portables are a number of comedic movement monologues and group theater dance pieces. Although these works have taken the comedic route, they were not initially created to be funny. The comedic interpretation was a result of how her audience viewed her works. She came up with the name Portables when she was leaving Ohio State University. It is a pun on Porter's last name as well as a sentimental way of signifying that she planned to take her dance works with her when she graduated. She is also said to call her works Portables because they can be performed in both small and large spaces. Each Portable is about 12 minutes in length, so about 5 or 6 Portables are performed at each concert.
Portables: solo works and some brief descriptions
Namely, Muscles
Piano – A pianist is ready to perform for an audience, but the piano hasn't arrived
Lost in the Modern – Contemplation of modern life and art
Green Dress Circle
Fund Raiser – A solicitor for funds has to deal with a hostile audience
Fitness Digest – A physical fitness teacher conducts a class of imaginary pupils
Homestretch
Dining Out – A calm diner grows increasingly tipsy.
Slipping into Weather
Lecture
Ordering Greens
Mulch
If My Words Wore Boots
Planted Feet
Portables: group works and some brief descriptions
It’s About Time
Time Walking
Walk Walk Walk
Between the Lines
Frieze Frame
Boot Reports
Too Much on My Plate – Waiters and waitresses struggle with more than just the specials of the day
Sweeps
Panel – Two men and two women make up the International Decisions Panel, which makes decisions about the possibility of making decisions.
Critical reviews
“Panel, though often amusing, lacked a truly effective comic punchline. However, Laura Clayton's nervous score perfectly matched the nervous choreography.”
“The solo was intermittently funny. But Ms. Porter is rather self-conscious about it all, and Piano becomes an unfulfilled one-joke piece.”
“Ms. Porter made her points economically. She could have roamed nervously about, demonstrating outlandish exercises; she could have assigned other dancers the roles of timid or bumbling students. Instead, she kept her sketch a solo and sat on a stool. And by doing little - but by doing everything so that the slightest movement counted - she made Fitness Digest a satirical cartoon drawn in black ink with the sharpest of strokes.”
“The effect of "Fitness Digest" was of wandering into an aerobics class conducted by a mild-mannered lunatic at breakneck speed.”
“The setting was a little restaurant surrounded by trees festooned hauntingly with coats, designed by Power Boothe. A wistful blank-faced waiter, played by Ms. Porter, prepares the table then leaves, to be followed onstage by Ms. Porter as the diner. She looks at first like a beautiful, solitary young woman Jacques Tati might spot across the room in a seaside cafe. Her diner is pure Beatrice Lillie by the end, tipsy on pink wine but still tilting at the world. It is deft physical comedy of a high order, as poignant as it is funny.”
“While Ms. Porter refers to her short, engaging works as “portables,” in other hands they could easily become trifles. But she doesn't obscure her work with pretense; the first goal is to entertain, and in her best efforts she achieves even more.”
"Porter's deliciously wild humor erupts through her studies like fire. Her subsequent gestural analysis is as rigorous as any anthropological kinesic study. Her work is smart, musical and skilled." - H. B. Kronen, The Morning Union, Springfield, MA
"Droll and beautifully observed character studies." - Burt Supree, The Village Voice
Teaching experiences
Wagner College
Grand Valley College where she worked on gestural pieces including a piece in American Sign Language
Columbia Teachers College where she taught Choreography and Laban Movement Analysis
Hope College
Manhattanville College
Purchase College
Connecticut College
CASE Western Reserve University
Books by Claire Porter
Dynamics in a Bag (self-published) – teaches about the range of dynamics in movement
Namely, Muscles (self-published) – book of 37 poems on over 68 muscles
Don’t Answer That (under construction) – bag of question cards to help choreographers create dance pieces
Laban Bag – The Effort Qualities (under construction) – bag of theatre game cards for understanding Laban's Effort Qualities
Nominations, awards and achievements
Received numerous National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowships
Received numerous New Jersey State Council on the Arts Choreography Fellowships
Awarded the College of Arts and Sciences’ Creative Achievement Award at Ohio State University
Awarded the Mather Professorship at CASE Western Reserve University
Nominated for the CalArts/Alpert Award
References
External links
Video from PENTACLE of Claire Porter performing in Fund Raiser
Claire Porter/PORTABLES
PENTACLE About: Claire Porter/PORTABLES
PENTACLE Artist Gallery: Claire Porter/PORTABLES
1942 births
Living people
American choreographers
College of New Rochelle alumni
Ohio State University alumni
People from New Britain, Connecticut
People from Teaneck, New Jersey
Sonoma State University alumni