Noted by the Seattle Times as "one of the most independent of Seattle's independent choreographers," A.C. Petersen has been creating dances since 1983. A.C. Petersen Dance develops, produces and presents dance/performance works, assembling an advisory team, artistic team, and performers as each project takes shape.

Petersen's inspirations range from Sumo ritual (Ozeki, a collaboration with Seattle Kokon Taiko), to Japanese Tea ceremony (Chado, presented by the Northwest Asian American Theatre), to children's stories (The Girls of St. Madeleine's, with composer Garrett Fisher). Frequent collaborators include Fisher, with whom Petersen has created several works, Seattle Kokon Taiko, and lighting designer Meg Fox, who has designed lights for her work since 1990.

Ms. Petersen has been awarded grants from the King County and Seattle Arts Commissions, as well as the Bossak/Heilbron Foundation. Her work has been produced and presented by On the Boards, the Northwest Asian American Theatre, the Seattle Aquarium, Bumbershoot Arts Festival, and Vacouver B.C.'s Powell Street Festival, and has been commissioned by Seattle's D-9 Dance Collective, and Seattle Kokon Taiko.

In her first year of performing, she worked with choreographer Pat Graney, who utilized spoken text and pedestrian movement (her first work with Graney was Ida, where she spoke the text of Gertrude Stein while walking, running, and rolling on the floor). From that point, Petersen rejected traditional movement vocabularies she had acquired from her training in ballet, jazz and modern dance. She shifted her focus to the development of a "pedestrian" movement vocabulary, which draws from movement that humans do every day, although a more specific vocabulary is developed during the creation of each work.
Sonna d'Oro, performed by the company at Bellevue Community College, was her first foray into a non-traditional movement vocabulary, and integrated American Sign Language, text from Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book, as well as sleep and sleepwalking movement. While performing in the Eastide Moving Company, Petersen also performed in works by choreographers Gina Gibney, Jesse Jaramillo, and Penny Hutchinson. As she pursued choreography, Petersen continued to study modern dance with the late Daniel Chick at Dance Center Seattle, and ballet with Hannah C. Wiley at the University of Washington.

Currently, She is working on projects in a variety of mediums: writing, set design, audio and radio.

contact: acpete AT acpetersendance.org