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Peter Sparling
Peter Sparling is Thurnau Professor of Dance at University of Michigan. A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and The Juilliard School, Sparling danced with the companies of José Limòn and Martha Graham while also forming Peter Sparling Dance Company before leaving New York for Ann Arbor in 1985. As a regisseur of the Martha Graham Trust, he has since staged Graham's works on his own company and on companies all over the world. He has held residencies at the American Dance Festival, at numerous American universities, and in London, Australia, Portugal and Taiwan. He is a recipient of the 1998 Governor's Michigan Artist Award and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and Arts Foundation of Michigan. Sparling has collaborated extensively with composers, poets, actors, visual artists and scientists. He has written texts for performance and has been published in the Michigan Quarterly Review, Choreography and Dance and Ballet Review. He was commissioned by the Detroit Institute of Arts to create work for both the Detroit 300: Artists Take on Detroit: Projects for the Tricentennial and the exhibit Degas and the Dance. A videographer and teacher of screendance at UM, his videodance, Babel was selected for the 2007 New York Dance on Camera Festival and 2008 American Dance Festival, Film & Video Festival and has toured the world. He spent autumn, 2011 as a resident of the Cité International des Arts in Paris. He recently collaborated on Photoformance for UMMA's Project Gallery and is presently completing a video montage to open performances of the Martha Graham Dance Company's 2012 season.