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Marlies Yearby

Marlies Yearby is an artist activist, choreographer and director with a global perspective. She creates original works across various platforms including theater, film and diverse multimedia. Ms. Yearby developed her “In Our Bones Creative Process” as an acknowledgement of the legacies, lived experiences, memories, and day to day energies ever present in the moving bodies at work. Ms. Yearby’s work is internationally recognized. She is the Tony award nominated and Dora Award-nominated choreographer of the musical RENT and she received the Drama League Award for the Los Angeles production of RENT. Her work was licensed for the movie production RENT, and she is the choreographer of the CINECAST of RENT’s final Broadway performance. Currently she has remounted the 20th Anniversary Tour of RENT, which is now in its 5th year. She has gained critical acclaim for her role as Director and Choreographer of composer Craig Harris “Brown Butterfly”, a multimedia celebration of the life and times of Muhammad Ali, "The Greatest", Ms. Yearby was the founder and director of Movin’ Spirits Dance Theater and received commissions, while the company was active, from Harlem Stages, Kansas Lied Center for the Performing Arts, MASS MoCa, The Exit Festival France, PS 122, The American Dance Festival, Lincoln Center Out Of Doors, and Jacob's Pillow to name a few. Ms. Yearby has had the pleasure of directing works from writers Laurie Carlos, Sekou Sundiata, Carl Hancock Rux and Nadine Mozon. Ms. Yearby is the director and founder of the project DanceHackIt, a virtual performance space of dancers live streamed. Recently Ms Yearby Directed and Choreographed in collaboration with Aku Kadogo on poet Jessica Care Moore’s “Salt City”, an Afro-futuristic fantasy inspired by the salt mines of Detroit. Ms. Yearby adapted Ms. Moore’s “Salt City” poems, through her role as dramaturg, into the script for “Salt City” in order to prepare it for the stage. This adaptation was performed at the Charles H. Wright Museum in Detroit, Michigan. Currently Ms Yearby is musing her newest project Seed Awakening On The Eve Of Blue addressing the crisis in real food, environment and health as commodity in disenfranchised communities globally and right here at home