Click here for resume Press: "...solid technical facility, a postmodern sensibility, a fondness for minimalist music and a strong sense of the theatrical... hypnotic" -- The Boston Globe "Nicole Bindler’s name is ubiquitous in the local dance community as an active organizer of dance events as well as a freshly innovative performer" -- The Jewish Advocate "One of the most impressive young women on the local scene" -- The Boston Herald "hilarious... caused a small uproar" -- Distortion Music Magazine "The festival's most stirring performance... eerie intensity" --Signal to Noise "Nicole Bindler’s “Print” is the most engaging – if most confounding – performance on the docket" --Philadelphia City Paper "extremely diverse" --Dustin Hurt, Director of Bowerbird "Nicole Bindler is a frequent contributor to the avant-garde creative energy of Philadelphia." --Teresa Shockley, Director of the Community Education Center "among the most extraordinary things I've ever witnessed" -- Cadence Biography: Nicole Bindler, (b.1977), choreographer, improviser, educator and bodyworker, is an experimental dance artist whose work ranges from personal and political commentaries to abstract explorations of form. Her movement vocabulary is inspired by her studies of new dance, dance-theater, butoh, contact improvisation, yoga, body-mind centering, feldenkrais and martial Arts. She has choreographed over fifteen original dance works and has performed over 100 improvised dances in cities throughout the U.S., Canada, Argentina and in Berlin and Tokyo. Some notable venues include, Links Hall, Williamsburg Art neXus, The Joyce Soho, The Somerville Theater, The Creative Alliance, The Theater Project, The Kennedy Center. In August 2004, her solo "Places I've Never/Been" was performed in Quito, Ecuador by dancer, Stephanie Sherman. Bindler has performed in The High Zero Festival, The Transmodern Age Festival, The Shawinigan Street Theater Festival, The Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues and Ideas, The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, the D.C. Improvisation Festival, the Performance Mix Festival and the nEW Festival. Her work has been supported by Philadelphia Dance Projects and Dance Advance. Bindler holds a degree in Muscular Therapy from the Muscular Therapy Institute and a BA in Dance and Poetry from Hampshire College. Some of her most influential teachers have been Wendy Woodson, Felice Wolfzahn, Cathie Caraker, Rythea Kaufman, Jessica Newman, Deborah Butler, Debra Bluth and David Brick. She has taught New Dance, Improvisation, Contact Improvisation and Experiential Anatomy in Boston, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and throughout Argentina. She has taught massage fundamentals at the Massage Arts Center in Philadelphia. Bindler has performed in the work of Linda Diamond, Heather Azano-Brown, Brenda Divelbliss, Jennifer Hicks, Debra Bluth, Ju-Yeon Ryu, Leah Stein, PIMA Group, Zaitoun Dance Troupe and has collaborated with dancers Hana van der Kolk, Lailye Weidman, Alli Ross, Joe Burgio, Daniel Abraham, Teresa Czepiel, Jessica Newman, Melisa Putz, John Luna, Emily Sweeney, Alissa Cardone, Ayako Kato and Asimina Chremos. She has worked with many experimental musicians including Bhob Rainey, Greg Kelley, Jonathan Vincent, Vic Rawlings, Mike Bullock, John Berndt, Katt Hernandez, Chris Cooper, Kyle Bruckmann, Ernst Karel, Axel Dorner, Andrea Neumann, Annette Krebs, Dan Breen, Andy Hayleck, Kristen Toedtman, Audrey Chen, Le Quan Ninh, Carol Genetti, Susan Alcorn, Sean Meehan, Kate Porter, Helena Espvall, Leonel Kaplan, Leandro Barzabal, Tim Feeney, Dustin Hurt, Jack Wright, James Ilgenfritz, Tim Albro, Gene Coleman, Raed Yassin, Christine Sehnaoui, Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui, The Signal Quintet, Ko Ishikawa, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Ryuko Mizutani, Bill Horist, Gregory Reynolds and Reuben Radding among others, and with visual artists, Janene Higgins, Walter Wright, Paul Santoleri and Bilwa. Bindler recently completed a dance for the camera, "Rosemary, That's for Remembrance", with collaborator, Loren Groenendaal. She is a member of the Spontaneous Performing Artists Network, and she directs the 20 member company: "Amnesiac Music and Dance", formerly the Philadelphia New Dance and Music Ensemble, which was featured in the Sept 2006 issue of Philadelphia Magazine. More Press It takes a certain kind of dance group to have members improvise a performance for five hours. Nicole Bindler, of 22nd and Fitzwater streets, is the mastermind behind such a company and its latest show — its first Fringe appearance. "I find [improvisation] to be just a really intense process to sort of notice the mind and how the mind composes in the moment," the director of the Philadelphia New Dance and Music Ensemble said. Founded only a year ago, the company includes six musicians, 14 dancers and has conducted seven performances. "My goal is to really have the dancers be artists in their own right with autonomy and a sense of ownership in their work," the 29-year-old said. "Usually, I just perform in my own community … which is great because I love my community, but it’s always great to reach out to the larger Philadelphia community. --South Philly Review Nicole Bindler’s “Print” is the most engaging – if most confounding – performance on the docket. Based on Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others about the way we process war photography, dance improviser/choreographer Bindler has her way with the newspaper, constructing a performance that examines America’s relationship with – and ultimate subservience to – the media, especially in times of war (though you could stretch the interpretation to include times of national tragedy). --Philadelphia City Paper Bindler's Friday night solo performance was one of the festival's bigger suprises. It was a severely silent solo outing, the absence of music amplifying the sound of Bindler's feet hitting the floor, her legs gazing against the fabric of her clothing. She was illuminated by a single stage lamp, casting a skewed cone of light from one side of the room to the rear and turning her contorted poses and postures into towering shadows. What was so unexpected was the eerie intensity she established. Free-improv musicians rarely make direct eye contact with their audience; eyes closed or looking elsewhere is just the nature of the music. Bindler's frequent stares into the audience felt like a dare that no one accepted. --Signal to Noise The second piece was a solo performance by Nicole. Responding to ‘50s beach music, Nicole, dressed for the part, stared behind us into the imaginary eyes of a dreamy lifeguard, her expression cycling slowly from an anticipatory smile to the pain of rejection as she was advised by the song that she mustn’t talk to the lifeguard, then back again to delirium. The extreme contrast was hilarious and caused a small uproar as she cycled through again. --Distortion Music Magazine With five pairings of improvising musicians and experimental dancers, this Bowerbird-presented evening always faces the potential of feeling like Crash (the sex-and-car-wrecks one, not the schematic-diagram-of-racism one). But Philly dancer Nicole Bindler and Baltimore bowed metal/electronics manipulator Andy Hayleck are interpreting another J.G. Ballard novel, the close-to-home environmental apocalypse The Drought. When's the last time you saw the Pennsylvania Ballet dance to worldwide famine? --Philadelphia City Paper