History/Biography

Roberta Escamilla Garrison Born in San Francisco, at 5 years old she began studying at the San Francisco Ballet School under the tutelage of Harold Christiansen.

Moving to New York in '66, she intensely lived the great season of ferment which animated Manhattan in the Sixties and the Seventies. The wife of the well known jazz musician,Jimmy Garrison, she breathed the electrifying atmosphere of the New York Jazz scene and the limitless climate of the post modegeneration of American choreographers who gathered at the legendary Judson Church.

After having studied with Merce Cunningham, Dan Wagoner (who danced with Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and Paul Taylor), and Thelma Hill (Horton technique), she made her New York debut dancing with Marilyn Wood's "Celebration Group" in a multi-media performance in the windows, lobby, revolving doors, and the plaza of the Seagrams Building on Park Avenue. Further, she studied, danced and collaborated with Elaine Summers and Viola Farber; two pretigious dancer-choreographers who respectively come from the Judson Church and the Cunningham Company. With these choreographers Garrison took part in performances and happenings in theatres, lofts, museums and the streets of New York.

Her choreographic activities began in '73 when she performed with pianist Dave Burrell and bassist Jimmy Garrison in various New York City schools in a program sponsored by the City Culteral Council. Her sensibility for the language of Jazz brought her to the discovery of an original approach to choreography through improvisation. Her continued research created the possibility to realize various collaborative performances with esteemed musicians such as Dewey Redman and David Murray (sax), Henry Threadgill (reeds), Joe Chambers (drums and piano), Amina Claudine Myers (voice and piano), and Fred Hopkins (bass).

In 1979 she came to Italy to participate in the festivals "New Dance" organized by the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna and " la Musica e una Donna Meravigliosa" in Rome, Naples and Rosetta Degli Abruzzi. On this occasion she worked with saxaphonist Maurizio Giammarco vocalist Jay Clayton. This same trio became a sextet with the addition of another vocalist, Sheila Jordan, bassist Harvey Swartz and a second dancer, Joseph Fontano, which was perfomed at the Experimental Intermedia Foundation during New York City's "Dance Week" in the Spring of 1980.

Settling in Italy, she intensified her rapport with Jazz: with singer Maggie Nichols and pianist Irene Schweitzer, she created a trio that debuted in Genova, Bologna and Torino, and went on to perforn in Verona, Paris, London, and Zurich. In 1981 at the Accademia Filarmonica of Rome, once again with M. Giammarco and Maggie Nichols plus two bassists Giovanni Tommaso and Marcello Melis, she presented an evening work entitled "Every Day Company". This became the name of her Company that she founded thereafter.

In 1982 at the Teatro Orione, in collaboration with pianist Antonello Salis, she presented and performed with the new Every Day Company her pieces "One Woman" and "Running". As a result of these performances, she was recognized by the Italian Cultural Ministry and awarded her first grant which she continues to receive annualy.

Since then the Every Day Company has been invited to participate in pretigious Dance Festivals in both Italy and abroad. She has also taken part in various Jazz Festivals such as "Jazz, Oh Cara" (Bari 1981) as a soloist with pianist Rita Marcotulli's group. She was commisioned to create an evening's work (Dig In) for the Company and a five piece band by the twin Festivals of Vignola ("Jazz In'It) and Berchidda (Time In Jazz). She also performed in a trio with Antonello Salis and Sandro Satta at the "Europa Jazz Festival" in Noci and still another trio with Giovanni Tommaso and Massimo Urbani at the Festival at Rocella Ionica.

She has collaborated with many musicians to create works for her Company: Antonello Salis, Sandro Satta and Riccardo Lai ("Senza Sosta", "Songs", "Looking Home"); Rita Marcotulli, Maria Pia De Vito, Furio di Castri ("Looking Home", "Love Medicine"); Roberto Gatto, Danilo Rea, Matthew Garrison, Arto Tuncboyacyan, Enzo Pietropaoli, ("Passing Through") and Mario Crispi ("Around The World"). She also choreographed a piece "Slow Blues To Freedom" with 12 classic recordings of Blues in Jazz.

Another impoprtant aspect of Garrison's work is her teaching. Through seminars, stages and master classes held all over Italy and her daily classes in Rome, she has introduced her interpretation of the Cunningham technique and raised new generations of Italian dancers. In her adopted city of Rome, she taught for seven years at the Accademia Nazionale di Danza, as guest artist, both technique and composition at the highest professional level (Corso di Perfezionamento). She was guest teacher for two years for the scholarship students at the Centro Internazionale di Danza and in 1988 she founded the Dance Depatment at St. Stephen's School which has become a recognized and credited course. At the beginning of 1990 the Every Day Company joined forces with Aurelio Gatti's Mimo Danza Alternativa and founded MDA Produzioni Danza. In the following years choreographers Nicoletta Giavotto, Roberto Pace, Michael McNeill, Marianna Troise, Fabrizio Monteverdi, and Sandra Fuciarelli came under the umbrella of MDA with the idea of creating a common center for artistic research and of the realization of various choreographic productions.

After years of intense and prolific choreographic work with her company, after a continued exploration of the dialogue between dance and Jazz, after many collaborations with great musicians, nurtured and inspired by these together with her highly original improvisations, Garrison has realized a mature and recognizable personal artistic style.