Terre Unité Parker

Experimental Dance Artist and Movement Educator

Dance is our birthright. It is a way to relate to the world around us through our senses. Anybody of any age, ability, and level of experience can be a dancer as long as they understand their body’s unique capabilities for creative expression. As my teacher, Anna Halprin, often says, “Any movement can be dance when it is performed with awareness.” In performance, I explore the full range of physical, emotional, and imaginal potentials of the dancing body. I grapple with and re-vision culturally prescribed ways of being and our relationships to the earth, earth others, each other, and our physical selves. In my classes, I create a safe environment for each student to study their physical capabilities from the inside out, explore self-expression through movement, and form a creative community.

Terre Unité Parker is an experimental dance artist who creates performance for indoor and outdoor environments, opportunities for intergenerational and participatory dance, and video installations. Parker’s classes, community events, written dance scores, performances, and dance videos serve to bring participants into close, intimate contact with the environment and provide a joyful experience of collective creativity. She teaches community classes in the Pioneer Valley (MA).

From 2003 – 2010, Parker was a member of postmodern dance pioneer Anna Halprin’s dance company and performed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and abroad. Parker’s collaborative work has recently been presented at the Midsummer Serenade Festival (Landscape Score created with Taira Restar, Sequerciani, Tuscany, Italy 2012) and named a Finalist at Videoholica Festival (All Flesh Is Grass created with Iu-Hui Chua, Varna, Bulgaria 2012). Parker has also taught and performed original work nationally and internationally in Bali, Java, Romania, and China. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College (B.A. Magna Cum Laude 2002) and Goddard College (MFA Interdisciplinary Arts 2012).