Jody Sperling, artistic director of Time Lapse Dance, is a dancer, choreographer, and dance scholar based in New York City. Sperling has gained an international reputation as an expert on Loie Fuller and as a contemporary interpreter of Fuller's style of dancing. Sperling has lectured and/or performed at colleges, universities, festivals, and conferences in the US, Canada, Ireland, Italy, and Russia. Sperling's interest in this historic figure began in 1997 with The Butterfly Dance, a collaboration with film choreographer and dance historian Elizabeth Aldrich commissioned by the Library of Congress. Since then, Sperling has created five Fuller-inspired solos, including The Serpentine Dance (1999, after the 1891 original), The Magic-Lantern Dance (2000, a collaboration with the American Magic-Lantern Theater), Dance of the Elements (2002), La Nuit (2003), and Debussy Soirée (2005). Recently, Sperling has expanded the Fuller vocabulary into group works: Ghosts (2008); the trio Roman Sketches (2007), co-commissioned by Vermont Performance Lab, LLC and Marlboro College, and now in the touring repertory of the Netherland’s renowned Introdans Company; and the septet Ballet of Light (2007), a reinterpretation of Fuller’s 1908 original, commissioned by the University of Wyoming with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts/American Masterpieces program.

Sperling's interest in history also encompasses other eras: she has performed Yvonne Rainer's 1960s landmark Trio A, while 16th-century galliard steps served as inspiration for her dance Orlando. Sperling has served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Dance History Scholars and a regular presenter at the Society's conferences. She holds an MA in Performance Studies (NYU, 1996) and a BA in Dance and Italian (Wesleyan, 1992). In addition to her proficiency in Fuller-style dancing, Sperling is also a hoop dancer and hoop instructor, and also has studied and made dances for low-flying trapeze. Sperling's articles have appeared in Dance Magazine, The Village Voice, The SDHS Conference Proceedings, and other publications, including the six-volume International Encyclopedia of Dance (Oxford University Press, 1998), for which she served as Illustrations Editor.

Photo by Adam Keller