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Scott Heron discovered the joy of dancing while studying liberal arts at Colorado College. A move to Austin to study art at the University of Texas led to an accidental meeting with radical dance pioneer Deborah Hay. He participated in four of her large group workshops and has continued a long relationship with her, occasionally touring as a guest of the Deborah Hay Dance Company and interpreting her works from written texts. He is featured in her books “Lamb at the Altar” and “My Body the Buddhist.” In the mid ‘80s he performed with her company in New York City and then stayed there to pursue a career in dance.
Bypassing any formal studies, he quickly fell in with the mid-'80s East Village scene where he danced and performed with a group of experimentalists and improvisers centered around Movement Research and Performance Space 122. During this time he performed in the works of just about anyone who asked him to, including Jennifer Monson, Yvonne Meier, Sarah Schulman, Carmelita Tropicana, Sarah East Johnson, DD Dorvillier, Linda Austin and countless others while developing his own work as a choreographer and performer. His solo and group work has been presented in practically every downtown New York venue including Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dixon Place and especially Performance Space 122 which has commissioned four evening-length works. Musical collaborators include sound designer Brendan Connelley, composer Corey Dargel, bassoonist Leslie Ross and guitarist Chris Cochrane. He received a 2003 New York Dance and Theater “Bessie” Award for his body of work as a performer. Trusting the intelligence of his whole body, his dances stem from a process of open practice of the unknown. Transformations, wigs, heels, and sumptuous sets made from trash often make an appearance. Unafraid of bizarre and passionate states, he nonetheless finds classical elegance and beauty while dancing too. He is a founding member of Circus Amok, a gender bending, free, outdoor, political theater troupe. He has been developing his skills as a juggler, stilt dancer, tumbler and slack rope walker every summer in the parks and gardens of the five boroughs for a dozen years. In the mid-’90s he discovered a group of Faeries living on a 250 acre farm named IDA in rural Tennessee and whimsically left vibrantly expensive New York to live in a barn in a deep hollow next to a little creek. There he experienced rural life, learning to cook and bake for large crowds and growing organic vegetables while dancing outdoors, making work to present in New York and continuing to tour with Cathy Weis Projects, Deborah Hay and Circus Amok. Ready for a change at the turn of the century he settled in New Orleans, one of the few places in the country with distinct, indigenous culture where he runs the Sidearm Gallery and Theater in a cinder block room attached to his house that was once a Chinese laundry. Many recent projects focus on collaboration. He has been making dances with HIJACK of Minneapolis for over 10 years. They have toured up and down the Mississippi River stopping in Colorado, Russia and in New York at PS 122 and Dixon Place. He made "Like me more like me", an evening length piece with Thomas Hauert/ZOO which has had over 20 performances in 8 countries. He and Layard Thompson premiered "Twink Spree Melee" in 2012 at the New Orleans Fringe Festival. Currently he is working on "Appalachian Spring Break" with Brendan Connelly which will have performances in New Orleans and Minneapolis before premiering at JACK in Brooklyn in December 2015. He is currently in residency at the Contemprary Arts Center through the New Orleans Distillery residency. |
