Bill Shannon Explained

Bill Shannon
Birth Place:	Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Known For:	Performance Art
Occupation:	Performer
Website:	whatiswhat.com

Bill Shannon (born 1970) is an American artist who resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Shannon holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.^[1] Born with a degenerative hip condition,^[2] he developed a way to express himself through dance and skateboarding on crutches.

Performances

Performances and video work include:

• Kaaitheater, Brussels
• Performance Space 122, NYC
• The Kitchen, NYC
• Sydney Opera House Studio Theater, Australia
• Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
• Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, OR
• Central Park SummerStage, NYC
• Dance City, Newcastle, England
• Contact Theater, Manchester, England
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
• Arizona State University, Tempe
• The Exit Festival, Cretiel, France
• Amman International Festival of Independent Theater, Amman, Jordan
• Holland Festival, Amsterdam
• Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland
• URB Festival, Helsinki
• Melbourne Fringe Festival
• Teatro de la Ciudad in Monterrey, Mexico
• "Work It Out" music video by RJD2 (2007)
• 'Life flows better' Visa advert, (2009)

In 2002, he completed a project with Cirque du Soleil choreographing parts of their production Varekai.^[3]

His visual and multimedia art have been exhibited in contemporary museums, galleries and fairs include:

• ArtDC in Washington, DC (2007)
• Kiasma
• Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art in Finland (2005)
• Tate in Liverpool, England (2003)
• Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco (2005).

Awards

• Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch" in 2001
• John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003
• Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2000)^[1]
• Colbert Award for Excellence: The Downtown Arts Projects Emerging Arts Award
• Pennsylvania Council of the Arts Interdisciplinary Arts Fellowship
• Wynn Newhouse Award in 2010

Grants

• National Endowment for the Arts
• the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts
• Jerome Foundation
• New York Foundation for the Arts
• New York State Council for the Arts
• James E. Robison Foundation
• Bossak-Heilbron Charitable Foundation
• The Harkness Foundation for Dance
• Arts International: The Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals.

Competitions

• 2000: Mantis Battle (Solo Category) in NYC; placed second in ProAms Florida (Abstract Category)
• 2002: Most Creative Street Dancer by the LA Urban Dance Festival.

External links

• Official site
• Turning the Tables: Artist and performer Bill Shannon keeps audiences off balance (Pittsburgh City Paper)
• Boundaries Blurred: Hip Hop Dance and Disability
• Bill Shannon 'Crutchmaster' in his acclaimed work, Spatial Theory
• Visa advert

Notes and References

1. http://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/grant_recipients/billshannon.html Bill Shannon
2. Web site: Bill Shannon, the 'CrutchMaster,' Break Dances on Crutches. The Middlebury Campus. Prouty, Kate. 2002-04-10.
3. https://web.archive.org/web/20070907093521/http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/showstickets/varekai/creators/shannon.htm Bill Shannon