Choreographer and Dance Activist David Dorfman has been making movement-based dance theater since graduating with an MFA in Dance from Connecticut College in 1981. In 1987, he founded David Dorfman Dance in New York City with the intention of creating politically and socially relevant work. A life-long educator, David has been a professor at Connecticut College since 2004, where DDD is Company-in-Residence. David choreographed Broadway's Indecent, for which he was given a Lortel for its off-Broadway run, and has also received a 2019 USA Fellowship in Dance, a Guggenheim, 4 NEA fellowships, and a "Bessie." In his copious spare time, he has co-created and toured internationally (and at ADF) a body of tragi-comic physical theater with dear friend Dan Froot, entitled Live Sax Acts—and he continues to dance profusely with wife Lisa Race and son Samson Race Dorfman. David’s history with ADF is dearly cherished—beginning as a student in 1980-81, continuing as a performer with Kei Takei’s Moving Earth in 1982 and 1983, contributing as a faculty member in the 90s and 2000s, and DDD performances in Reynolds, most recently underground in 2006.

David Dorfman Dance
For almost 40 years, David Dorfman Dance (DDD) has created radically humanistic movement that seeks to de-stigmatize the notion of accessibility and interaction in post-modern dance by embracing audiences with visceral live performance. In advocating his mission, “to get the whole world dancing,” DDD has enjoyed broad and diverse audiences from Tajikistan to El Salvador. Closer to home, DDD has regularly performed in New York City at major venues, including The Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Joyce Theater, The Kitchen, Danspace Project, La MaMa, NYU Skirball, The Duke on 42nd Street, The Met Breuer, and the 92NY/Harkness Dance Festival. The company currently tours (A)Way Out of My Body which is inspired by out-of-body experiences and in 2024 will premiere truce songs, a new evening-length work about healing and the possible reincarnation of trust and peace. David, the company’s dancers, and artistic collaborators have also been honored with eight NY Dance and Performance ("Bessie") Awards. By sustaining a vision to create innovative, inclusive, movement-based performance that is radically humanistic, DDD maintains a core commitment to examine and unearth issues and ideas that enliven, incite, and excite audiences in dialogue and debate about social change and a myriad of other topics.