Robert Mark Dance was founded as a creative home for choreographer Robert Mark Burke in 2015. Originally based in New Jersey, Burke’s initial mission was to bridge the gap between the NJ seasoned dance audience and newcomers to the art form. His work offers a mixture of high caliber physicality and virtuosic movement paired with abstract emotional impact. He was honored “New Jersey’s hottest young talent” in 2015 after premiering his first work at New Jersey Performing Arts Center as part of the Jersey (New) Moves Choreography Fellowship, which he made another appearance at in 2017. Since then, Burke has been supported and commissioned by various organizations, colleges and festivals including Dance on the Lawn (2015/18), Eryc Taylor Dance (2017/19), CoLab Arts (2014/16), Rider University (2016), Freespace Dance (2019), Spoke the Hub (2019) and Montclair State University (2018). Most recently, Robert Mark Burke was named a 2020 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Choreography Fellowship and, in that same year, commissioned to choreograph by 10 Hairy Legs.
Since its inception, Robert Mark Dance has also been seen at various New York City venues including thewildproject, Dixon Place, New York Live Arts, and Gibney Dance. In 2021, the company made its official premiere as a Queens artist when asked to participate in the Queensboro Dance Festival. Reestablishing themselves as a Queens based company, Robert Mark Dance seeks to establish deep roots within the borough’s diverse and buzzing community, partnering with artists and venues in order to continue bringing dance to a broad audience.
"As a choreographer and movement artist, I engage with others in order to create a body of thoughtful, experiential, and influential work. I celebrate the traditions of Modern Dance and Ballet, and use these forms, in combination with my background in hip hop, jazz and contemporary, to create work that challenges dancers through highly physical movement material. I emphasize body isolation, floor work and partnering to encourage dancers to access a sense of wild, groovy athleticism where confidence and freedom attach to emotion and narrative. This fusion of classical form and personal expression places my work in a world that is design oriented and methodical, while possessing a quality of accessible narrative and identifiable emotion." - Robert Mark Burke, November 2021
Learn More: http://www.robertmarkdance.org