WALLY CARDONA - choreographer, dancer, teacher and artistic director of WCV, Inc.

After many years of creating works that demanded highly controlled conditions in order to be made, choreographer Wally Cardona’s current process is one of softly undoing, initiating intimate collaborations where ways of doing can mutate in proximity to others.

his work has been presented nationally by baryshnikov arts center, brooklyn academy of music's next wave, danspace project, EMPAC, jacob's pillow, the joyce theater, The kitchen, new york live arts, park avenue armory's under construction series, portland institute for contemporary art and - for 6 consecutive years - the river to river festival.

Honors include a Bessie Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an inaugural Doris Duke Artist Award, a NYFA Fellowship, an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship, a Creative Capital Award and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Creative Research Grant.

residencies include a six-year LMCC Extended Life Residency, a Danspace Project/Robert Rauschenberg Captiva Project Residency, a Krannert Center Reflective Time Residency and a New York Live Arts Live Feed Residency.

As a performer, he has appeared in multiple works by Ralph Lemon, David Gordon and Deborah Hay and in Matthew Barney’s film, Secondary.

In dialogue with David Gordon since 1994, Cardona first appeared in his work as a part of The Matter at MoMA / 2018, performing the original score for the Muybridge solo and the duet Close Up. Two years later, he assisted Gordon in the making of The Philadelphia Matter - 1972/2020, a video performance by a "virtual dance company" of 30 Philadelphia performers. The following year, he was a co-producer and performer in The New Adventures of Old David (What Happened 1978–2021), a video work based on Gordon’s 1978 What Happened.

Born in California and raised in New Mexico, Cardona lives and works in New York City.

@wallycardonax

SELECTED works include:

TIMES FOUR / David Gordon: 1975/2025, cardona's reconception of David Gordon and Valda Setterfield's Times Four (1975), performed alongside Molly Lieber

The Set Up: Island Ghost Sleep Princess Time Story Show, a 7-part dance made over the course of six years with dance artists from Bali, Java, Cambodia, Myanmar, Okinawa, France and India

a plump single-color bulb, or a dance, a trio for a man, ball and mallet, with original music performed live by Jonathan Bepler

given in the black box, two metal pipes join joanna kotze, molly lieber and cardona, with music by jonathan bepler

TOOL IS LOOT, resulting from games of aesthetic disorientation, made with Jennifer Lacey and composer Jonathan Bepler

Interventions 1-7, made from encounters between Cardona and the requests and opinions of a sommelier, astrophysicist, architect, social activist, visual artist, group of acousticians and community activist

Really Real, a “people piece” for 100 individuals, including new music by Phil Kline performed by the full Brooklyn Youth Chorus

A Light Conversation, a physical dialogue on aesthetics vs. ethics, love, commitment and sacrifice, made with swiss/british choreographer Rahel Vonmoos

Site, a craft-work for wood, paper, tape and the Capital High School Band of Helena, MT

Everywhere, a work for five dancers, 400 columns and 50 boomboxes

teaching

cardona is currently teaching ineffable but we practice, in partnership with movement research. in NYC.

He has taught composition and creative process at the juilliard school, Performance/Phenomenon: Philosophy into Physical Practice at the new school, creative process at nyu tisch school of the arts and held workshops at festivals and institutions  throughout the u.s. and abroad.