David Thomson
David Thomson is an interdisciplinary artist working in the fields of music, dance, theater and performance. He initiated The Sustainability Project as a platform for research to create and expand resources and the discourse surrounding ideas of financial, artistic, and personal empowerment in the performing arts community.
Biography
Thomson is a creator and collaborative artist. He has worked with a wide range of artists including Trisha Brown, Bebe Miller, Ralph Lemon, Sekou Sundiata, Tracie Morris, Meg Stuart, Marina Abramović, Yvonne Rainer, David Bowie, Maria Hassabi and Kaneza Schaal among many others. Thomson has been recognized as a USArtist Ford Fellow, as well as receiving fellowships from NYFA, Yaddo, MacDowell and The Rauschenberg Foundation. He is currently a LMCC Extended Life Artist Fellow (2018-21). He has served on the faculties of Movement Research, NYU/Experimental Theater Wing, Sarah Lawrence, The New School, Barnard, Bennington and Pratt as well as teaching internationally. He has served as an artist advocate, board member, arts administrator and mentor. An ongoing advocate for dance/performance and the empowerment of artists, he was one of the founding members of Dancer’s Forum and has served on the boards of Bebe Miller/Gotham Dance, Dance Theater Workshop and New York Live Arts.
In 2017, Thomson initiated The Sustainability Project in collaboration with Kate Watson-Wallace, which serves as a platform and practice for research that seeks to expand the discourse surrounding ideas of financial, artistic, and personal empowerment within the arts community. At the heart of this work are larger questions around aspects of care, community, and resources that feed and support each artist’s individual ecosystem of sustainability as well as the larger systems that they work within.
Thomson began dancing at Haverford/Bryn Mawr Colleges and later received his BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from SUNY Purchase. He was a visiting faculty member at Bennington for Spring 2020.