Maria Gillespie

Gillespie (she/they) is a choreographer, performer, dance and somatic educator. She is a CLMA Laban Bartenieff Movement Analyst, certified Pilates teacher, and Professor of Dance at UW-Milwaukee. Gillespie’s choreographic research examines embodied storytelling through the auto-ethnographic performance, somatics, translation studies, narrative storytelling, and new media inquiry. She creates long-form choreographic performance installations that bridge performance as auto-ethnographic feminist practice to rewrite narratives designed from colonial destruction. Gillespie’s performances chart a path for meaning making as they outline the pre and post lingual knowledge archived through dancing. She draws upon her kinesthetic practice as a corporeal nexus in which auto-ethnography, storytelling, and interdisciplinary performance inaugurate a new translation practice.

Gillespie explores dancemaking as a liberation practice and a form of choreographic writing in the body through gesture to explore restoring/rewriting history, embodied subjectivity, and future making. She has enjoyed choreographic commissions with numerous universities and loves bringing improvisation methodologies, embodied anatomy, and choreographic thinking to students of all backgrounds. She directs MG/The Collaboratory and Hyperlocal MKE, both dedicated to interdisciplinary collaboration and improvised performance practice. Gillespie developed the community teaching project, Parts of the Whole-The Body is Home, to share kinesthetic learning and expressive experiences with youth impacted by the carceral system. Her approach to community practices is based on the belief that liberation begins in the body.

As her research is grounded by collaboration, she continues to make work with long time collaborators, Nguyễn Nguyên and Kevin Williamson. Her interdisciplinary projects have included making works locally with Present Music, Danceworks MKE, Renaissance Theaterworks, visual artists Nirmal Raja, Lois Bielefeld, Portia Cobb, Christal Wagner, Glenn Williams, Nathaniel Stern, Sonja Thomsen, and Mike Rea. She has collaborated with composers such as Ginormous, Tim Russell, Devin Drobka, and Barry Paul Clark and presented works nationally and internationally with Nguyên, Williamson, Erik Speth, and Fabio Altenbach.

She received an MFA in choreography from UCLA’s Department of World Arts & Cultures/Dance and a BFA in dance from SUNY Purchase. Gillespie founded and directed LA-based Oni Dance (2003-2015) and was named one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch". Gillespie's dances... "ricochet between vulnerability and strength with razor-sharp shifts in intensity and intent" (LA Times) and have been presented nationally and internationally. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally at venues including The Ford Amphitheatre, The Getty Museum, the Roy and Edna Disney/Cal Arts Theater (REDCAT), UCLA's Department of World Arts & Cultures, Cal Arts, The Fowler Museum, Highways Performance Space, Joyce SoHo and CounterPULSE. Gillespie has performed and taught in Beijing, Guangzhou, Tokyo, and Mexico City.  She has taught at numerous universities including UCLA Department of World Arts & Cultures/Dance, Cal Arts, Loyola Marymount University, Beijing Modern Dance Festival and was a choreographic and teaching resident in Mexico City with A Poc A Poc. Choreographic commissions include The Getty Center, Loyola Marymount University, Scripps College, Pomona College, Cal State Long Beach, Utah Valley University, University of Florida, and Santa Monica College dance departments.

While residing in Los Angeles, she performed and toured extensively with Victoria Marks, Helios Dance Theater, and additionally performed with Simone Forti, David Rousséve, and Joe Goode. Noted as a "charismatic, mighty performer with a distinct vision" (LA Times), Gillespie is a four-time Lester Horton Award winner (2002-2005). Gillespie’s dance film, Saliendo, shot on super 8, was presented in Dance Camera West’s film festival. Gillespie has received grants from Wisconsin Arts Board, Milwaukee Foundation, The Durfee Foundation, The Irvine Foundation, and from UWM’s Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, The Center for International Education, and Office of Research. She was a 2014 UWM Global Studies Fellow. She enjoys being a UWM Research Mentor with Student Undergraduate Research Students (SURF) and received the 2019 Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and was a 22/23 Milwaukee Artist Resource Network mentor. Gillespie is a 2024-25 Advancing Research and Creativity (ARC) grant recipient.