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Donna Uchizono: State of Heads (1999)

May 7, 2025

Photo Above: Levi Gonzalez, Rebecca Cy, Donna Uchizono, "State of Heads, 1999." Video Still by Mark Robison. Photo Below: Levi Gonzalez and Donna Uchizono, "State of Heads," 2025. Photo by Rachel Keane.

Donna Uchizono's State of Heads (1999), with its “breathtaking” opening, explores the feeling of waiting. The title originated with the idea that the “heads” of states seem to be disconnected from the “body” of the country. The company used this image as a springboard from which to dive into the exploration of disjointed-ness and the passage of time in a state of hiatus, surprisingly creating a strange world of endearingly odd characters that are propelled by unseen undercurrents.

Uchizono reimagined State of Heads for a new generation of dancers to celebrate Danspace’s 50th Anniversary (2025). Performed to the “Bessie” Award-winning sound score by James Lo—the original cast, Levi Gonzalez, Rebecca Serrell Cyr, including Uchizono, who had not performed this work in 25 years, handed the baton over to a younger generation, Tim Bendernagel, Chelsea Hecht, and Paulina Meneses.

Please watch the 1999 documentation of State of Heads below.


State of Heads (1999)

Opening excerpt of State of Heads (premiered April 29, 1999 at Dance Theater Workshop, NYC)

Choreography, Donna Uchizono

Dancers, Levi Gonzalez, Shannon McCord and Donna Uchizono

Composer/Musician, James Lo

Lighting Designer, Stan Pressner

Donna Uchizono is a dance artist based in New York City and the artistic director of Donna Uchizono Company, which has performed throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Australia, and Asia. Uchizono has received public and critical recognition for her innovative movement language and distinct wit, recognized by notable collaborations with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Paula Vogel, David Hammons, and Oliver Sacks. In 2011, after decades of critically-acclaimed dance works that toured nationally and internationally, Donna Uchizono was identified by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (NYPL) and Dance Heritage Coalition as a master choreographer whose works require preservation. Donna Uchizono Company received 2021-2024 National Endowment for the Arts award for Phase One, Two and Three for the archival and preservation of her work. In addition to being a USArtist Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, and Bessie Award winner, Uchizono has been recognized by many awards including an Alpert Award in Dance and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, NEFA/National Dance Project, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, Altria Group, Inc., the Jerome Foundation, the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Arts International, Foundation for Contemporary Performance, National Performance Network, Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Greenwall Foundation, Meet the Composer, among others.

Uchizono is an active member of the dance community and supports new artistic voices through outreach and education programs. She has served as a mentor for Sugar Salon, DoublePlus at Gibney Dance Center, and currently through her own company’s choreographic mentorship program, Shared Choreographic Practice and is currently working with Kristel Baldoz through NCCAkron’s Dancing Lab’s Intergenerational Partnership. She founded the Artist Advisory Board at Danspace Project, initiated a panel series on issues in the Dance Field at Gibney, and has served as a grants panelist for various funding institutions.

Donna Uchizono was distinguished by the NYPL as the first and only American-born choreographer of Asian ancestry in the history of Modern Dance, to have received the recognition of both cumulative esteemed national awards and significant national and international touring of an eponymous dance company. With this odd distinction, she has been tirelessly reaching out to leaders in the field to address the problem of invisibility and omission faced by American born artists of Asian ancestry.