The Architects 

Born out of collaborations between Katherine Ferrier, Lisa Gonzales, Jennifer Kayle, Pamela Vail, and Kathy Couch dating back to the late 1980s. For over 20 years, the quintet has been engaged in celebrating composition through their commitment to collaborative movement research. The Architects have presented their work and taught master classes in such venues as the “Slice and Dice” performance series, N.Y.; Texas Dance Improvisation Festival; Chicago Dance Improvisation Fest; Improvisation Festival/N.Y.; Epiphany Dance Experiment, Chicago; Jazz Fest, Burlington, Vt. (in collaboration with Ensemble V, directed by Arthur Brooks); Improvised and Otherwise Festival of Sound and Movement, N.Y.; Big Range Dance Festival, Houston, Tex.; The Fringe Festival, Minneapolis, Minn.; The Flynn Theatre in Burlington, Vt.; Movement Arts Thorne’s in Northampton, Mass.; the University of Iowa; and Franklin & Marshall, Middlebury, Muhlenberg, and Keene State Colleges. They were the company in residence at Work in the Performance of Improvisation from 2001-2005 at Bennington College; in 2007 they toured to Helsinki, Finland and St. Petersburg, Russia to teach and perform. They offered “wiMICI” (winter Movement Intensive in Compositional Improvisation) each January from 2011-2013 in Tucson, Az., and 2018 marks the thirteenth year they have held MICI. In their professional and life-long devotion to choreography, improvisation, and teaching, The Architects bring a holistic and ferocious intelligence to the dialogue of dance-making and teaching, process and product, individual voice and ensemble composition, crafting, and opening to the unknown.