Molissa Fenley is a choreographer, modern dancer, and part-time associate professor of dance at Mills College. She has accepted commissions from Deutsche Oper Ballet of Berlin, Australian Dance Theatre, The Ohio Ballet, and The Pacific Northwest Ballet, and has won two New York Dance and Performance Awards ("Bessies") in choreography.[1] In 2000 she was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.
Fenley was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, and spent most of her childhood in Nigeria, except for a few years in upstate New York and two years of boarding school in Spain. She earned her bachelor's degree in dance from Mills College in 1975.[1]