Merián Soto

Boyer College of Music and Dance
Dance
Professor Emerita

Office Location

1700 N Broad 309B

Phone

Biography

MA, dance education, Columbia University
BA, dance, New York University

Award winning choreographer Merián Soto has been creating and presenting solo, group, and collaborative pieces in her native Puerto Rico, across the US and internationally since the mid-seventies. She has collaborated extensively with MacArthur award-winning visual artist Pepón Osorio on full-evening works such as Historias (1992) and Familias (1995), hailed as models for works created with communities.

As Artistic Director of the Bronx-based Latino arts organization, Pepatián, she developed and curated national and international projects featuring Latino new dance and performance artists including ¡Muévete! and Rompeforma: Maratón de Baile, Performance & Visuales, the international Latino artists’ festival in Puerto Rico from 1989-1996.

Soto is known for her experiments with Salsa - the dance and music of Pan-Latino collective experiences - in critically acclaimed works such as Así se baila un Son (1999) Prequel(a): Deconstruction of a Passion for Salsa (2002) and La Máquina del Tiempo (2004).

Since 2005 has created an extensive series of dances with branches including the award-winning One Year Wissahickon Park Project (2007-08), What is Love? (2007) (commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts), Postcards from the Woods (2009), Branch Dances at Wave Hill (2011-12) and SoMoS (2012).

Soto is the recipient of six Choreographers Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Artist Fellowship by New York Foundation for the Arts and numerous project grants from institutions such as Dance Advance, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Lila Wallace Arts Partners Program, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, and NALAC Fund for the Arts. Her writings on dance have been published in Heresies Magazine and Movement Research Journal.

In 2000, Soto received a New York Dance and Performance Award "BESSIE" for sustained choreographic achievement, and in 2008, a Greater Philadelphia Dance and Physical Theater Award “ROCKY” for her One-Year Wissahickon Park Project. She is a PennPAT roster artist.

Works and Publications

2012 SoMoS (We Are) full evening site specific performance
Circulations, collaboration w/ Marion Ramírez
2011-12 Branch Dances @ Wave Hill, NYC, series of four seasonal performances
Wissahickon Reunion, Philadelphia, series of four seasonal performances
2011 Branch Dance #847
2010 Winter Dance
Noemí’s Dance
2009 Postcards From the Woods commissioned by the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival
Branch Dance # 437
2007-08 One Year Wissahickon Park Project
2007 What is Love? Commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, NYC
Balancing Acts
2006 States of Gravity and Light #2
States of Gravity and Light #1
Three Branch Songs
2004 La Máquina del Tiempo (The Time Machine)
2002 Prequel(a): Deconstruction of a Passion for Salsa, solo work. Commissioned by the Joyce Theater in New York City.
1999 Así se baila un Son (How to Dance a Son Montuno), commissioned by Central Park SummerStage, NYC
1998 Pelea de Gallos (The Cock Fight), group work commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (NYC) & Hostos Center for Arts & Culture (Bronx).
1996 Todos Mis Muertos, (All of my dead ones), solo performance.
1995 Familias, full evening collaboration with visual artist Pepón Osorio. Commissioned by the Hostos Center for Arts & Culture.
1992 Historias, full evening collaboration with visual artist Pepón Osorio. Commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (MA), Dance Theater Workshop in New York City and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.
1990 Sacude (Shake), solo work.
Broken Hearts, full evening collaboration with visual artist Pepón Osorio. Commissioned by Dance Theater Workshop (NYC).
Referencias (References), performance duet created in collaboration with visual artist Pepón Osorio.
1989 Tú y Yo (You and me), solo dance.
1988 No Regrets , full evening collaboration with visual artist Pepón Osorio., Commissioned by Performance Space 122 and Dance Theater Workshop in New York City.
1987 Wish You Were Here, full evening collaboration with visual artist Pepón Osorio.
Puerto Rican Trivia, collaboration with visual artist Pepón Osorio.
Pachanga en dos Medios (Pachanga in Two Mediums), video work. .
¡Cha Cha! Usa la cabeza! (Girl! Use your head
Saints on Wheels, collaboration with choreographer Patti Bradshaw and visual artist Pepón Osorio.
1986 How to Dance the Cha-Cha-Cha
Chúpate esta en lo que te mondo la otra (Suck on this one while I peel you another one), full evening collaboration with visual artist Pepón Osorio. Commissioned by Performance Space 122 (NYC).
Premiere: Performance Space 122, NYC 1986.
¡Ay! Gran Poder de Dios (Oh! Great Power of God!), collaboration with choreographer Patti Bradshaw and visual artist Pepón Osorio.
1985 Cocinando (Cooking), collaboration with visual artist Pepón Osorio. Commissioned by the Institute for Art and Urban Resources at PS1, Queens, NY.
Underconstruction , collaboration with choreographer Patti Bradshaw and visual artist Pepón Osorio.
1984 Xón
1983 Escalio (Tillable Land), collaboration with choreographer Patti Bradshaw and visual artist Pepón Osorio.
1981 Negro (Black), solo
Blanco (White), solo
Premiere: Malanga Space, NYC, 1981.
Also performed at: Experimental Intermedia Foundation, NYC, 1981.
1980 Sueño de Malanga (Malanga Dream), trio.
Premiere: Performance Space 122, Avant-Garde Drama Festival, NYC, 1980. Also performed at: Malanga Space, NYC, 1981; Experimental Intermedia Foundation, NYC, 1981.
Flor de Caimito, solo.
Premiere: Symphony Space Theater, NYC, 1980.
1979 El Agua Viva (The Living Water), full evening solo performance. Premiere: El Museo del Barrio, NYC, 1979.