Kanopy Dance Blends Martha Graham and Pop Culture

Kanopy Dance Company, located in Madison, Wisconsin, is a professional modern dance company that began 31 years ago. Currently, it is under the direction of Lisa Thurrell and Robert Cleary. Born and raised in Madison, Thurrell trained and danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company in New York between 1987 and 1995. Around this time, she guest taught choreography at Kanopy and as the previous director was leaving, decided it would be a good opportunity to become Kanopy’s director. Cleary started in much the same way as a guest director. With training as an athlete and a ballet dancer, he brings a postmodern style to Kanopy’s repertoire. Only recently has Kanopy added ballet and jazz as supplementary classes.

“We are a rarity in that we are one of the only modern training dance schools. The focus is modern dance technique. A lot of it is the Graham-based technique,” says Thurrell. The students do not enter competitions, but they perform a couple times each year. Another unique quality of Kanopy is the focus on students showing their own choreography. Although the studio is not an academy, some of its students go on to become professional dancers. This summer two 14 year old dancers from Kanopy went to New York to study with the Martha Graham School. Along with the school, Kanopy has a professional company of 6-9 dancers. Most dancers come from either professional dance studios elsewhere or they have degrees in dance. The company performs three shows each year at the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison, giving them a strong local audience.

Their September show, Bright Lights, will focus on Middle Eastern culture, family and friends gathering together. The focus of the show is to remind people although it’s really easy to stereotype that part of the world, we all have fun with family and friends. Kanopy will blend its choreography side by side with the Riad Middle Eastern Dance Compan to create an exuberant experience.