Alliger, Jeremy

Biographical / Historical Note

Jeremy Alliger founded Dance Umbrella in 1979, although it started its programming and services in 1981. What began as a relatively small, one-person operation eventually became a multi-million dollar, award winning operation, working with choreographs, performers and groups including Mark Morris, Bill T. Jones, Sankai Juku, STOMP, and Savion Glover . Alliger was the artistic and executive directer of Dance Umbrella from 1980 to 2000. In 2002, he became the executive pro-ducer of Alliger Arts, which has worked with such performers as Stan Strickland, Heidi Latsky and Lisa Bufano. He also worked with the Faith Quilts project, and had an interest in hip-hop, tap dance, as well as marginalized or traditionally overlooked dancers. In fact, his work with the dancers of AXIS, a group made of up disabled and abled-bodied dancers, won him recognition as an advocate for those with disabilities. He also created the International Festival of Wheelchair Dance with Dance Umbrella. He continued to work with groups and performers who were disa-bled when he founded Alliger Arts, and created the GIMP Dance project which worked with Lisa Bufano, a women who began dancing after she lost her legs during this time.

Alliger graduated from Emerson College in 1975, and won an Alumni Achievement Award in 1992 from the College. Other awards include the State of Massachusetts Commonwealth Award, the Na-tional Disability Rights Eagle Award. In addition to his work with Dance Umbrella and Alliger arts, Alliger has been a panelist, speaker or board member for multiple organizations, including the Na-tional Endowment for the Arts, the MacArthur Foundation, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Performance Network, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, the Cambridge Arts Commission, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Boston Dance Alliance, and Tanec Prahn.

Before founding Dance Umbrella, Alliger worked lighting dances, a job in the seventies that he credits with forming his passion for dance. However, he came to prominence with Dance Umbrel-la, focusing on bringing dance to Boston.