Interview with Choreographer Eliza Renner

I am Eliza Renner, one of the choreography students going virtual this spring. I am honored to feature my work alongside my classmates- I miss dancing with you all!

I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and certainly, a large chunk of my heart lives back east. I completed my BA in theatre and education studies at Middlebury College in Vermont in 2018. In the autumn of that year, I moved to Austin to apprentice with Rude Mechs, the Austin-based theater collective I had admired from afar. I spent the next thirteen months gloriously immersed in their world, developing my artistry and administrative skills, and learning from the brilliant makers and shakers of the collective. I plan to stay here in Austin a while! This is my third course at ACC, all with Darla Johnson. I am primarily an actor, but the introduction of Dance into my life, specifically compositional improvisation, has burst my world open! Dance is about taking care of my body. Dance connects me to the divine. Dance is exercise. Dance is listening and communing. Dance lifts us out of our word-bound lives and expresses the inexpressible! I am so grateful to my ACC and Austin dance communities.
Some of my most salient artistic influences of this moment include Andrea Olsen, Deborah Hay, Rude Mechs, Hannah Hoch, the natural world, Bread and Puppet Theater, Trash, possibility, world-making, boundless play, oxymoron, contradiction, the foolish and profound, God or lack thereof, clowns, new ways to do old things, and ritual.