Julia Rhoads Artistic Director/Choreographer/Performer) is the founding Artistic Director of Lucky Plush Productions, and has created over 25 original works with the company including performance installations, 2 dance films and 8 evening-length interdisciplinary productions. Her independent work has been commissioned by Alaska Dance Theater, Mordine and Company Dance Theater, and twice for River North Chicago Dance Company, and she has choreographed for theater, performance and film companies including Lookingglass Theater, Redmoon Theater, Walkabout Theater, Hyperdelic, and M5, among others. Julia has received a Cliff Dwellers Foundation Award for Choreography, two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships for Choreography, a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award, and a fellowship from the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, and her collaborative work with Lucky Plush has been awarded a National Dance Project Production Award and a National Performance Network Creation Fund Award. In 2010, she was named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” and included in NewCity’s feature “The Players: The 50 people who really perform for Chicago”. Julia is formerly a company member of the San Francisco Ballet and collaborating ensemble member of XSIGHT! Performance Group, and she has been a guest artist with Beppie Blankert Danceworks, the Itinerant Theater Guild, and Baubo Performance Project. She earned a BA in History from Northwestern University and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute Chicago, and is currently the Theater and Performance Studies Dance Advisor at University of Chicago, and on faculty in the theater department at Columbia College Chicago.
movingtargetboston 