Deborah Black is a dance theatre artist, writer, and teacher.

Deborah’s teaching and performance practice is informed by the meeting of dance and theatre and includes Six Viewpoints improvisation, Grotowski, Floor Barre, and postmodern philosophy.

The further intersection of her writing and physical practice is supported through a collaboration with poet Alyson Hallett and poet/mover Scott Thurston. She was able to develop her interdisciplinary approach as a 2022 Gardarev Artist-in-Residence.

She is the founder and facilitator of an on-line community of artists studying and researching the Six Viewpoints and is one of the four stewards of Mary Overlie’s Legacy Project. She and Sophia Treanor recently premiered a dance theatre duet left for them by Mary Overlie before her passing in 2020. This project is supported by the Harold Clurman Center for New work in Movement and Dance Theater and had its North American premiere in June, 2023.

Deborah is currently a Master’s student in the Dance Education Program at NYU and recently taught an advanced curriculum course at Queens College. Previously, she taught physical theatre and dance at the Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Tilburg. She taught guest and master classes at Goldsmith’s University London, NYU’s Experimental Theatre Wing, Drama Studio London, Capilano University, Ohio University, Skidmore College, Rowan University, James Madison University, University of South Florida, as well as private workshops in New York City and all across Europe.

While living in Rotterdam (NL) from 2013-16, she created and toured with the Tuning People (BE) and Ymist (NO).

She performed in Ann Hamilton’s exhibition, An Event of A Thread, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York as an associate artist with Anne Bogart’s SITI Company. Deborah adapted and performed two commissioned solos of Deborah Hay from 2008-2019 in the US and in Europe. She danced in the works of Mary Overlie, Susan Rethorst, Anneke Hansen, Peter Sciscioli, Lorelei Bayne, Naomi Goldberg-Haas, and Fitzgerald and Stapleton.

Deborah has collaborated extensively with Mary Pearson, Margot Basset, Davina Cohen, Siobhán K. Cronin, Geneviève Beth Grady, Caroline O’Meara, Kinderenvandevilla and Sasha Welsh. These pieces were presented at the TANK (NY), Judson Church (NY), Lucky Trimmer Tanz Performance Serie (DE), ArToll (DE), Fort 8 (BE), Roulette (NY), Joyce SoHo (NY), Manhattan Repertory Theatre (NY), Dixon Place (NY), Earthdance (MA), AUNTS (NY) and more.

Together with Siobhán K. Cronin received funding from the Jerome Foundation in 2010 to travel to Childress, TX to research the town, the people, and its landscape and develop their ethnographic performance making tools. She continues to be informed by this collaboration.

She studied the Alexander Technique with June Ekman (2006-2013), Six Viewpoints with Mary Overlie (2011-2019), Grotowsky with Erica Fae and Stephen Wangh (2015) and has trained frequently with the SITI Company (2010-2017). She received a BFA with honors in dance with a second major in art history from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts (1999-2002).