ARTIST STATEMENT
I often ask myself how I can be a fuller, more expressive artist. I believe the answer is within the act of creation and collaboration in discussion, experimentation, and research into the historical, societal, and conceptual ramifications of the body. I believe that the physicality of dance can be matched on emotional, and intellectual levels in order to yield work that expands beyond its own aesthetic ego and is impactful to society.
This ethos is directly informed by my work as a collaborator, and co-director of the dance collective BODYSONNET. BODYSONNET, is a group of dance makers who create site-specific works in residency style models inspired by communities where dance is not readily available.
Review for Post:ballet's feature film Lyra
"Eurydice wears the most traditionally feminine costume (despite the boots) yet, becoming ever more fierce and ragged in her defiance of her fate, Moscelyne ParkeHarrison seems to throw herself about with the most abandon of anyone; her final failure to break free of the clutch of Atropos is a devastating shock."
- 48hills (Independent San Francisco news + culture)
MOSCELYNE PARKEHARRISON is the Associate Artistic Director, Company Dancer and Resident Choreographer of Post:ballet, and co-director of BODYSONNET. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School (’19) where she received the Joseph W. Polisi Award for Artist as Citizen. Moscelyne pursued additional training at Hubbard Street Pro (’20) and Walnut Hill School for the Arts (’15) and summer workshops including b12, Banff Centre for the Arts, and Jacob’s Pillow.
During her education she had the pleasure of performing new works by Helen Simoneau, Katarzyna Skarpetowska, Roy Assaf, Hannes Langolf, Ryan Mason, Iztok Kovac and Stefanie Batten Bland, as well as the repertoire of José Limón, Ihsan Rustem, Nacho Duato, Martha Graham, Bill T Jones, Crystal Pite, and solos by Robin Dekkers and Johannes Wieland.
Moscelyne dances professionally on the East and West Coast with Post:ballet, Liss Fain Dance, and Deborah Slater Dance Theater. She has also worked professionally with Sharp & Fine, David Michalek, Francesca Harper, Liz Gerring, and Helen Simoneau. She is director of NEFA and MassCulturalCouncil award winning dance collective BODYSONNET. The collective has created and premiered nine site specific works in the Berkshires, Hudson Valley, New York City, and Northwest Arkansas and premiered three dance films since launching in 2020. This past July BODYSONNET led their first international residency and film creation in Cologne Germany.
Moscelyne’s choreographic works have been performed at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Alice Tully Hall, the Hudson Guild Theater, The Studebaker Theater (Chicago), the Foundry West Stockbridge, Triskelion Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Cowell Theater, Heron Arts, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Salesforce Tower Park, and at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. She has received support and commissions from Lines Training and Summer program, Post:ballet, the Anthony Quinn Foundation, Berkshire Taconic Foundation, and Metropolis Ensemble for her choreographies.
Moscelyne is a current dance faculty member at Berkeley Ballet Theater, and teaches open classes at ODC and City Dance SF. She has taught workshops at Berkshire Pulse, HAVEN, UC Davis, and the Lines Training Program and Dance Center. She teaches Modern Dance Technique (informed by Graham, Cunningham, and Limon), Contemporary Technique, Improvisation Workshops, Choreographic Skills, Ballet Technique and Contemporary Ballet. She has volunteered for Dance for Parkinson's Disease. Moscelyne also develops programs and leads accessible movement classes and lecture demonstrations, including the series 'Art in the Moment' which featured a multidisciplinary group of performers and toured to hospitals, psychiatric and pediatric facilities in the Greater Manhattan Area. She is a consultant at Collegiate Arts Prep.