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Research Guides

Chamber Dance Company Archive: Louis Falco

A unique collection of video documenting the UW Chamber Dance Dance Company's over 25 year history of performing modern dance classics.

Selection from Louis Falco's "Escargot"

Louis Falco

Louis Falco

American dancer and choreographer

I would like to create earthquakes on stage

                                          Louis Falco

Born New York, 1943. Died March 26, 1993.

Louis Falco studied with José Limón and Charles Weidman and was considered an extraordinarily gifted dancer and charismatic performer. Falco’s choreography in the late 1960s and 1970 (EscargotThe SleepersCaviar, and Journal) exhibited a casual intimacy and self-exploratory zeal that was emblematic of the era’s social revolution. In the 1970s spectacular displays of technique, chiseled physicality, and explorations into the use of technology in dance, theater, and music began to flourish. It was Falco who became one of the first choreographers to experiment with rock bands on stage, surreal props (such as giant Styrofoam fish in his dance, Caviar), lasers, holograms, infinity boxes, and video monitors. His dances were some of the forerunners of today’s high-tech, computer generated, mass-media entertainment. Falco’s dances have an engaging and easily accessible theatricality exemplified by his explosive choreography for the movie Fame, which launched him on a new career in mass media that later led him to choreograph for music videos for Prince and other musical artists. Falco died of AIDS at the age of 50.

Watch Louis Falco's Escargot at the Media Arcade in Vol. 12 of the Chamber Dance Company Archive (DVD UWDP 001 v.12).