Banning Bouldin

Biography

Banning Bouldin is a choreographer, educator, and arts leader based in Nashville, Tennessee.
She is the Founder and Artistic Director of New Dialect, a contemporary dance organization
she established in 2013 to cultivate rigorous artistic practice, community engagement, and
equitable access to dance education in the American South. Through her leadership, New
Dialect has produced more than a dozen original works, presented over 1,800 workshops, and
performances, and developed innovative programs serving artists, youth, and community
members throughout the United States.

A graduate of The Juilliard School (BFA), Bouldin is completing an MFA through Bennington
College in partnership with the Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier, France. Her
creative and scholarly research explores movement as a mode of knowing, embodied
cognition, disability studies, and practice-as-research methodologies. Her current work
investigates the relationship between sensation, perception, and creative practice, with a
particular focus on making visible forms of knowledge generated through lived experiences of
disability.

As a performer and collaborator, Bouldin has worked internationally with recognized artists and companies including Cullberg Ballet (Sweden), Hubbard Street, Camille A. Brown, Lar
Lubovitch, Trisha Brown Dance Company, and Aszure Barton & Artists. Her choreographic and
educational work has been supported by organizations including the National Endowment for
the Arts, Jacob's Pillow, the Mellon Foundation, South Arts, and the Tennessee Arts
Commission.

Bouldin is committed to fostering inclusive learning environments that encourage curiosity,
critical inquiry, creative risk-taking, and collaborative discovery through movement