CHRISTIANA AXELSEN

Christiana Axelsen shares her time between New York City and Bainbridge Island, WA. She currently dances for Molissa Fenley (NYC) and Christopher Williams (NYC) and has had the pleasure of working with Beth Gill, Courtney Krantz, Dylan Crossman, Jules Skloot, Korhan Başaran, Mana Kawamura, Michou Szabo, Pam Tanowitz, zoe|juniper, and Raja Kelly and among others.

Her choreography has been presented in New York at DanceRoulette, The Invisible Dog, Mabou Mines, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Dixon Place, and the Women in Motion Salon Series; in Pittsburgh at the Space Upstairs; in Seattle at Velocity Dance Center and the Chamber Theater; in San Francisco at 848 Community Art Space; in Carbondale, Colorado at the Dance Initiative; and in Istanbul at the Akbank Sanat Contemporary Arts Center and Moda Sahnesi Theater. She has received support for her work from a Brooklyn Arts Council Community Arts Grant and a Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Bardwell Memorial Fellowship.

In 2018, she became the director of Bainbridge Dance Center, a dance school on Bainbridge Island, Washington. She delights in bringing professional artists to Bainbridge for residencies and teaching opportunities with her students. Guest teachers and residents have included Brian Lawson (NYC), Christopher Williams (NYC), Janet Charleston (NYC), Elise Knudsen (NYC), Emma Lawes (LA), Justin Lynch (NYC), Molissa Fenley (NYC), and Shannon Stewart (New Orleans).

Christiana has taught classes and workshops at Barnard College, New York University, Mount Holyoke College, Salt Lake City's Repertory Dance Theater, Seattle's Velocity Dance Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival’s Community Program in the Berkshires, Brooklyn Arts Exchange and100 Grand Studio in NYC, The Dance Initiative in Colorado, and Akbank Sanat Contemporary Arts Center and the Conservatory of Modern Dance at Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude with a degree in dance and geology from Mount Holyoke College and is a graduate of the Merce Cunningham Professional Training Program where she performed in several works alongside the Repertory Understudy Group.