Shawn Bible

Shawn T. Bible grew up in Roseville, Michigan and received a BA in Social Science and Dance from Michigan State University and an MFA in Dance Choreography and Performance from the University of Michigan. He has been an active choreographer over the last several years, setting works for the Grand Rapids Ballet, Thodos Dance Chicago, Opera Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids Symphony, Trip the Light, Midwest RADfest, MOCA Detroit, Men Dance Michigan, Nosh Night at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Michigan Youth Arts Festival, Michigan Dance Day, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and ArtPrize. Bible is the recent second-place winner of the Third Century Screens (3CS) Competition through the University of Michigan Bicentennial Committee. Bible's interest in dance and technology was also featured in Bodies In Motion, a collaboration with Kingston University (UK) and the Amsterdam Conservetoire, in which dancers manipulated their environment through Wii controllers. Bible also utilized Kinect software in Vivaldi's Four Season's in Dance, performed by Thodos Dance Chicago, in which the dancers' movements manipulated the projections on the scrim in real-time. Shawn has studied film/video technology and modern dance technique in Australia, New York, San Francisco and Chicago. His videodance Dominique won a Rackham Film Festival award and he was awarded an International Institute Travel Grant to study Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel in Italy. Bible’s videodance Moonplay was featured in the Sans Sousi Festival of Dance Cinema at the Contemporary Museum of Art in Boulder, Colorado. Bible is also on the Board of the American College Dance Festival Association. Shawn's interest in technology stems from his experiences as a former graphic designer and Product Designer for the Joe Boxer clothing brand and Kmart Corporation prior to graduate school.

Bible is the artistic director of his modern dance company, shawnbibledanceco. which was established in 2007. shawnbibledanceco. continues to present throughout New York City and Internationally at the Lourdes Dance Festival (Paris, France), Battery Park Dance Festival, Ailey Citigroup Theatre, Joyce's DANY Studios, Shen Wei Dance Arts, ITE's Inception to Exhibition, Peridance's Salvatore Capezio Theatre, 14st Y's, Y-Cabaret, Dixon Place, Built On Stilts (Martha's Vineyard), The Center for Performance Research's Works-In-Process, Triskelion Art's WAXworks, Manhattan Movement Arts Center, Pushing Progress, DUMBO Dance Festival, Brooklyn Ballet's First Look, The Moving Beauty Series: The Series, Biomorphic Dance Festival, Green Space's Take Root, The Tank (WINNER of XYZnyc), and Abrons Arts Center as part of Fielday at the Field, and in Idaho, Atlanta, Michigan and Texas.

Shawn has been on faculty at Idaho State University, Texas Tech University and Grand Valley State University where he was a tenured Associate Professor and Dance Coordinator. He received a Distinguished Faculty Award in 2012. Shawn developed the GVSU Dance Program into a successful academic/conservatory based model that tripled in size during his leadership. Shawn rewrote the entire curriculum to meet NASD accreditation, designed all print/marketing/web materials, and developed relationships between the University and community schools and arts organizations. Shawn is a former Board Member of the ACDA (American College Dance Association) and Michigan Dance Council, prior to his move to NY. He moved to New York City in 2014 to focus on presenting his dance company. Shawn is currently a tenured Professor of Dance at Manhattanville University and the Chair of the Department of Dance & Theatre.