ALEX KETLEY
Artistic Director / Choreographer / Filmmaker
Alex Ketley is an independent choreographer, filmmaker, and the director of The Foundry. Formally a classical dancer with the San Francisco Ballet (1994-1998), he performed a wide range of classical and contemporary repertory with the company in San Francisco and on tour throughout the world. In 1998 he left the San Francisco Ballet to co-found The Foundry in order to explore his deepening interests in choreography, improvisation, mixed media work, and collaborative process. With The Foundry he has been an artist in residence at many leading art institutions including Headlands Center for the Arts (2001 & 2007), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (2002), The Yard (2003), the Santa Fe Art Institute (2004 and 2006), the Taipei Artist Village (2005), ODC Theater (2006 & 2017), the Ucross Foundation (2007), and the Vermont Performance Lab (2014). The Foundry has produced full evening length works that have received extensive support from the public, funders, and the press.
As a choreographer independent of his work with The Foundry, Alex Ketley has been extensively commissioned to create original pieces for companies and universities throughout the United States and Europe. For this work he has received acknowledgement from the Hubbard Street National Choreographic Competition (2001), the International Choreographic Competition of the Festival des Arts de Saint-Saveaur (2004), the National Choo-San Goh Award (2005), the inaugural Princess Grace Award for Choreography (2005), the BNC National Choreographic Competition (2008), three CHIME Fellowships (2007, 2008, and 2012), four Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Residencies (2007, 2009, 2014, and 2015), the Gerbode-Hewlett Choreographer Commissioning Award (2009), and the National Eben Demarest Award (2012). His pieces and collaborations have also been awarded Isadora Duncan Awards in the categories of Outstanding Achievement by an Ensemble (2009), Outstanding Achievement in Choreography (2011), and Outstanding Achievement by a Company (2011 & 2012).
In 2011 his AXIS Dance Company work To Color Me Different was presented on national television through an invitation from the show So You Think You Can Dance. With The Foundry in 2012, he began a new project entitled No Hero which explored what dance means and how it is experienced by people throughout more rural parts of the American West. The video projection Alex designed for No Hero was nominated for a 2012 Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design.
In 2013 he began an appointment as a Lecturer at Stanford University’s Department of Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS). In that same year he was also awarded the first Princess Grace Foundation Choreography Mentorship Co-Commission Award (CMCC), a MANCC Media Fellowship, and a Kenneth Rainin Foundation New and Experimental Works Grant which he used to work on a collaborative project with Miguel Gutierrez exploring rural communities throughout the South (No Hero - Part 3). Also in 2014 he created and premiered his dance film The Gift (of Impermanence) which has continued to screen at film festivals internationally, as well as winning the 2015 Artistry Award from the Superfest International Disability Film Festival.
During 2016 he spent time in Salt Lake City teaching for Salt Dance Fest and creating a new work for SALT Dance Company. Later in that year he had a six week residency and created a new work for Ballet Met in collaboration with the Columbus Symphony and Opera Columbus. Highlights of 2017 include the Stanford MainStage performances of No Hero, teaching and commissions in NYC and Seattle, as well as the final iteration of Deep South which was fully supported through a tech residency and performances by ODC Theater in San Francisco and featured some of the Bay Area's most notable performer/choreographers in the work.
For 2018 he was commissioned to create new work in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tampa, Seattle, Indianapolis, Albuquerque, San Diego, Chicago, and New York.
Along with his direction of The Foundry, his various independent projects, and his appointment at Stanford, he worked closely with Summer Lee Rhatigan on the initial creation of the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance (founded in 2004), an organization where he served as the Resident Choreographer for fourteen years until its closure in 2018. Stemming from a classical foundation, the school was deeply invested in advanced students learning and growing though the engagement of contemporary choreography.
Awards / Residencies / Projects
Awards
Artistry Award from the Superfest International Disability Film Festival
The Gift (of Impermanence), dance film - 2015
Princess Grace Foundation Choreography Mentorship Co-Commission Award (CMCC)
2013
MANCC Media Fellowship
2013
Kenneth Rainin Foundation New and Experimental Works Grant
2013
Isadora Duncan Award Nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design
No Hero video projection - 2012
National Eben Demarest Award
2012
Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Fellowships (4)
2007, 2009, 2014 & 2015
Isadora Duncan Awards (4)
Oustanding Achievement by an Ensemble 2009
Oustanding Achievement in Choreography 2011
Outstanding Achievement by a Company 2011 & 2012
Gerbode-Hewlett Choreographer Commissioning Award
2009
CHIME Fellowships (3)
2007, 2008 & 2009
BNC National Choreographic Competition
2008
Inaugural Princess Grace Award for Choreography
2005
National Choo-San Goh Award
2005
International Choreographic Competition of the Festival Des Arts De Saint-Saveaur
2004
Hubbard Street National Choreographic Competition
2001
Residencies
2019
Perry Mansfield Company Residency
2004-2018
Resident Choreographer, SF Conservatory of Dance
2014
Vermont Performance Lab
2007
Ucross Foundation
2007 & 2001
Headlands Center for the Arts
2017 & 2006 & 2017
ODC Theater, San Francisco
2006 & 2004
Santa Fe Art Institute
2005
Taipei Artist Village
2003
The Yard
2002
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
2007, 2009, 2014, 2015
Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC)
Commissions
& FOUNDRY PROJECTS
2018
C’est la Fin: Vrai Cœur
SF Conservatory of Dance (Final Work)
FAIL/FAIL (ecstatic discernment)
Stanford University
C(r)O(e)N(o)S(r)T(i)R(e)U(n)C(t)T
Westside Dance Los Angeles
I Am You, Fully and Truly
Men In Dance Festival, Seattle
Ballast (Particulate Rage, Love & Recovery)
University of South Florida
10to9x11
University of Indiana
Bio(Graphic) Solo
Created for Mercedes Mize, New York
2017
Deep South (No Hero Part 3)
The Foundry
2016
Twisted 2
Ballet Met, Symphony, & Opera
Stilled Mave
Salt Dance Company
2015
In Defense of Regret
collaboration: Bobbi Jene Smith & Maurya Kerr
The River
New Dialect, Nashville, TN
POEM
The Foundry
2014
Arena
Ballet Leipzig
The Radiant Ocean
The Julliard School
Swan Lake: Recalibrated
Stanford University
The Gift of Impermanence
Dance film
AXIS Dance Company
Vermont (No Hero Part 2)
The Foundry at Vermont Performance Lab
2013
The Span
California State University Long Beach
Ciao'
Spellbound Junior Ensemble, Rome, Italy
Midnight Drifter
Florida State University
2012
Five Objects (in Isolation & Solitude)
NYU Tisch School of Dance
No Hero Part 1 - The West
The Foundry
Low Down
The Foundry with LEVYDance
2011
The Radiant Ocean (of Proud Vanishing Beauty)
The Juilliard School
Happiness
BNC Colorado
Terra Incognita, Revisited
San Francisco West Wave Festival
Intershop
Ballet Leipzig, Germany
Rarities and Oddities
BNC Colorado
New.Base.Line
University of Texas at Austin
Arena
Ballet Leipzig, Germany
2010
Please Love Me
The Foundry
Gerbode Hewlett Choreography Award
Wave Atlas
Arc Dance, Seattle
The Offering
BNC Colorado
2009
Silt
Ballet X
Rauschen 13
BodyTraffic
Kill the Anthem
BNC Colorado
2008
Monument
ODC Theater, CA
For You
Groundworks Dance, OH
Vessel
AXIS Dance Company
If Ever (an Ocean) Relinquished
Dance Works Chicago
Duo
ARC Dance, Seattle
This Act of Three Collisions
BNC Colorado
To Color Me Different
AXIS Dance Company
2007
Imprint
The Foundry w. Christian Burns
ICARUS/RISE
The Translation Project
Drift
Ballet Met
Kyrie
Stanford University
The Cypher Construct
San Francisco State University
2006
Lost Line
The Foundry
The Marking of Apology
Robert Moses KIN
Careless
SFCD Company
West Wave Dance Festival
2005
Second Memory
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
The Wish for Even Ground
North Carolina School for the Arts
Syntax
The Foundry w. Carol Snow
Funded by Creative Work Fund
Untitled
Taipei Arts Village, Taiwan
2004
Mondriaan
Hubbard Street 2
Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur
Trace Fulfillment (Rework)
Reworked for Florida State University
Joygame (Intro)
Headlands Center for the Arts - Moving Pictures Festival
Dallas
The Cowell Theater
2003
Fragments Repeat Forever
Hubbard Street 2
Anticipate Loss
LINES Ballet School
Within Once
The Foundry at The Yard
The Fleshing Memory
The Foundry
2002
Kid Thunder
The Foundry
2001
Trace Fulfillment
Hubbard Street 2
Capacity from Shallowness
The Foundry
2000
Sea Green and Blue Already Rising
Alonzo King's LINES Ballet
TarJMB
Marin Civic Auditorium
Yosemite (video)
The Foundry
1999
PaintParkTalk
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Current Form
The Foundry
1998
Salt Flat Pieces
The Foundry
...........................
2004-2018
As Resident Choreographer of the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance Alex Ketley has consistently made between four to six pieces for the advanced students each year. An archive of this work exists at the Conservatory and the school has been an invaluable laboratory for the development of his work.