Monica Gillette

Born in Los Angeles and grew up training in classical ballet with The Stanley Holden Dance Studio and the Joffrey Ballet.  She continued her training in contemporary dance with several choreographers in Los Angeles and New York, where she worked with Johannes Wieland and Noemie Lafrance, among others.  In 2007, she was a danceWEB scholarship recipient at Impulstanz in Vienna, and has been working in Europe since 2008, both as a performer and performance maker. She is part of the artist driven network Sweet and Tender Collaborations through which she has collaborated on projects in France, Portugal, and Germany, as well as The Fajr International Theater Festival in Tehran, Iran.  In 2010 she co-created an evening length work with António Pedro Lopes called Lights on Doesn’t Mean We’re Home, which was co-produced by Escrita na Paisagem, Teatro Micalense and DEVIR/CAPA, with additional support by the Gulbenkian Foundation.  In 2013, she co-created a piece with Clint Lutes called Misalliance, produced by Theater Freiburg with support from Le Pacifique.  From 2009-2011 she was a member of the dance ensemble, Physical Virus Collective (pvc), at Theater Freiburg, Germany, and has continued to work there since 2012 as a dancer and choreographer.  In 2012, the solo piece “Virus,” directed by Tom Schneider, which engages a constant interplay between dance and a live camera attached to the body was invited to the Machol Hadash Festival in Jerusalem, Israel.   Monica also attended film school at Loyola Marymount University in California and worked in Hollywood as a film editor on such shows as “The Sopranos” and “Crime & Punishment“. She has worked as a freelance editor for the TED conferences for their TEDtalks on TED.com and from 2007 to 2009 kept a dance video blog of her travels at www.danceminute.com. In 2014, she will work in collaboration with scientists and philosophers from University Freiburg on the intersection between dance and movement disorders, specifically related to Parkinson’s and Epilepsy.