Ken Pierce

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Ken Pierce is an American performer, teacher and historian of Renaissance and Baroque-era dance. He trained in ballet and modern dance at the American Ballet Theatre School and the Merce Cunningham studio. He has performed with the most important companies in Europe and North America, including the Court Dance Company of New York, the New York Baroque Dance Company, Ris et Danceries (Paris), Danse Baroque Toronto, and the baroque dance trio Hémiole (Paris), of which he was a co-founder. He directs his own company, the Ken Pierce Baroque Dance Company, for which he has choreographed or reconstructed dances for guest performances with Tafelmusik, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Concerto Copenhagen, The King's Noyse, and the Boston Early Music Festival. Recent choreographies include dances for Les Élémens, Les Festes d'Hébé, Tirsi e Clori, Il Ballo delle Ingrate, and les Festes de l'Amour et de Bacchus; his choreographic credits also include Henry Purcell's King Arthur at the Boston Early Music Festival, and such twentieth-century premières as Les Plaisirs de Versailles, with Ex Machina Baroque Opera Ensemble; the masque Oberon, at Case Western Reserve University; and le Mariage de la Grosse Cathos at the Amherst Early Music Festival. He was assistant choreographer for Quelques pas graves de Baptiste, Francine Lancelot's baroque-style piece for the Paris Opera Ballet, whose cast included Rudolph Nureyev. Mr. Pierce has taught at summer dance and music workshops in the U.S. and abroad. He directs the early dance program at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts.