About Freefall

The performers led by Lynn Marie Ruse and Lynn Brown speak, dance, and gesticulate with commitment and abandon. -Toronto Globe and Mail

FREEFALL is a low-tech, high-concept dance-theater company headed by Artistic Co-Directors Lynn Brown and Lynn Marie Ruse. We create dynamic, theatrical dances with emotionally evocative themes.

Across 15 years, 7 full evenings and numerous environmental projects, FREEFALL has continued to produce dance theater that speaks to a broad and varied audience. From downtown's Here Arts Center to Symphony Space on upper Broadway, and on tour to the South, Midwest and abroad, FREEFALL has pleased audiences and critics alike. We have staged dances specifically for the decaying splendor of the Lower East Side's Angel Orenzanz Synagogue, and choreographed Stravinsky's Pulcinella, which we performed with the Orchestra of St Luke's and three opera singers for 5,000 NYC public school students.

Environment being so important to our vision of dance, we often choose to work in unconventional settings. Environmental projects have included:

  • In the Hour of Dreams and Longing, for the gardens at Wave Hill with composer Edward Ratliff.
  • Remember These Shores, set in a little yellow life raft and performed in the waters surrounding NYC, and (using plungers as paddles) on-stage at DTW.
  • A Permanent Thought, a large-scale community project in the East Village. It became a ritual that was re-conceived with fifteen different populations and sites as diverse as a Manhattan baseball diamond and a Long Island gym.
  • High Windows, a promenade performance through Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art.

 

Lynn BrownLynn Brown holds his MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a BS in theater from Northwestern University.  He has performed nationally and internationally with Keely Garfield, Pooh Kaye, Jody Oberfelder, and Victoria Marks.  Brown is a founding member of Brave New World Repertory Theater in Brooklyn.  His work has been presented extensively in Chicago and New York since 1987.  He is currently a Teaching Artist in Dance for the Lincoln Center Institute.

Lynn Marie RuseLynn Marie Ruse holds a Professional Diploma from the Laban Centre in London and an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.  She has performed with Henry Montes in London, The Moving Company in Florida, Clarinda MacLow, Aiden Teker, Athena Molloy, and Rebecca Moore in NYC.  Ruse actively choreographs for various theater companies, including Phenomenon for Nerve and Mac Wellman’s Why the Y in Ybor for the Moving Company.  Her choreography has been presented by Dance Force (Hechscher State Park and the World Trade Center), The Florida Dance Festival, The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, and Wave Hill. She is a Teaching Artist in Dance for Lincoln Center, a Vinyasa yoga instructor, and an occasional costume designer.