Homer Avila
New York, NY
Homer Avila was active as a choreographer since 1982. As co-artistic director of Avila/Weeks Dance, his work was presented in New York at the Guggenheim Museum, the Joyce SoHo, Pace University and other venues. Internationally, the company has performed in Barcelona, Spain; London, England; and Nagoya, Japan. He taught dance workshops in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Spain and Japan. Avila was the recipient of a 2000 fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts; he also received sustained support from the Harkness Foundation, Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation and the Alan Gordon Foundation. As a dancer, he performed with artists such as Twyla Tharp, Bill T. Jones, Ralph Lemon, and Momix. Avila passed away in 2004. He was 49 years old and lived in New York City.
Body of Work In Progress
Homer Avila
Artist Bio(Body of) Work in Progress is a series of collaboratively created solo and duet dances. Avila, who received a leg and hip hemi-pelvechtomy in 2001, initiated residencies with several major choreographers, including Bill T. Jones, William Forsythe, Alonzo King, and Victoria Marks. Together they created original dances, specific to Avila’s altered physicality, that illuminate implicit contradictions in the way bodies are traditionally viewed as abled or disabled, normal or abnormal.