Farrell Dyde:
CLASS OF 1966
Littleton High SchoolClass of 1966
Littleton, CO
Farrell's Story
Farrell is from Houston, Texas. Farrell's schools include Littleton High School. Farrell later attended University of Colorado Boulder (Theatre and Dramatic Arts). Farrell works(ed) at Artistic Director of FDDT.
Farrell's interests include Brian Eno. Music Farrell likes includes Brian Eno.
One of Farrell's favorite quotes is:"G.B. Shaw.".
More about Farrell:"The boy occasionally suffers from delusions of grandeur.
Farrell Dyde has created over 100 original choreographic works of varying dimension and approach for his own company and many other companies and institutions. An original member of the CAM choreographers in Houston, he is the only modern dance choreographer in the Southwest selected to create a world premiere ballet for Houston Ballet (1983 & 1985). Firmly dedicated to new music, Farrell commissioned renowned British composer Michael Nyman (of The Piano fame) to create an original score to accompany his second work for Houston Ballet, Basic Black.
A former athlete and actor, Farrell taught Pilates based conditioning for 9 years at the Physical Conditioning Centre in Houston directed by Elizabeth Jones Boswell. In 1994 he was selected by the United States Information Agency/Arts America to teach, choreograph and perform in Kiev, Ukraine as a Cultural Specialist opening doors for better relations between that country and the U.S. In 1991 Global Enterprises chose him to introduce modern dance to SKD, a 90 year old performing company in Tokyo, Japan. He toured extensively as a soloist and has presented work in New York (at The Cubiculo, Dance Theatre Workshop and other venues) and other parts of the U S. and abroad.
The Farrell Dyde Dance Theatre has received support from such agencies as the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, The Cultural Arts Council of Houston/Harris County, The Brown Foundation, The Cullen Performing Arts Trust, Exxon, Tenneco and many others.
Farrell was born in New York City and grew up in Denver, Colorado. He initially dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player, but gave that up in high school to become an actor. After being named best actor at Littleton High School, he attended and graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a degree in theatre appearing in over thirty productions -- including work as a scholarship actor with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. While there, he studied modern dance with Charolette Irey (Short), Marilyn Cohen and Nancy Spanier. In Denver he worked with Al Brooks and Maxine Munt at the Changing Scene Theatre, where in 1970, he presented his first independent concert ...Expand for more
of choreography -- almost by chance -- when a scheduled group canceled out its dates. The concert was a revelation and after that, he decided that he would devote his life to becoming a choreographer.
After a stint of intensive ballet study with Valerie Roche in Omaha, Farrell went to New York where he took classes from a variety of well-known teachers (including the famed Maggie Black, Gus Solomons Jr., Dan Wagoner and others) -- eventually winning a scholarship to the Martha Graham School. He stayed for only a short while, however, finding that philosophically he was not in the Graham camp – having been deeply influenced by a summer of study with Merce Cunningham in 1968. He had also been profoundly affected by study with post-modernist, Rudy Perez, whose highly charged, emotional minimalism and no-nonsense, everyman approach ignited something new, while re-connecting Farrell with his theater background. In 1974 he founded what is now Farrell Dyde Dance Theatre and in that same year he won his first choreography fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 1975 the company moved to Houston, Texas and it is there that Farrell Dyde was afforded the time and support to find his own creative voice and choreographic style -- one that synthesized ideas and techniques gleaned from both theater and dance augmented by voracious reading on a variety of subjects from art history to Zen.
Farrell has additionally served the dance field as an associate profeesor in dance at the University of Houston at Clear Lake under the direction of Jan Stockman Simonds, as director of Dayton Ballet School , as executive director of Helander & Company in Boulder, Colorado, and more recently as director of external affairs for Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in New York.
In 2004, Farrell returned to Houston to continue his artistic work: exploring new ways of making dances that express inwardly driven motivations as they are affected by the outside forces of an evolving world. In March 2005 he presented Corrective Measures , a solo work celebrating 3221 Milam – the alternative arts space that he founded and that served as one of Houston’s first such spaces giving artist’s of all kinds an opportunity to present their work in an informal, accessible venue.
Since then, he has created two full evening solo dance theatre works: Persona Non Gratis (2006) presented at Barnevelder Movement Arts Center and An Anatomy of the Night (2008) presented at Houston Met Dance Center.
He is currently at work planning and fundraising for two major conerts projected for the 2010-1011 Season in Houston.".
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