Gesel Mason

Gesel Mason (Artistic Director, Choreographer, Performer) is Co-founder and Artistic Director of Mason/Rhynes Productions (www.mason-rhynes.org) and Artistic Director for Gesel Mason Performance Projects (gmasonprojects.com). Ms. Mason performed with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Repertory Dance Theatre of Utah, in Poland under the direction of Jacek Luminski, with Ralph Lemon in "Come home Charley Patton", and with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, where she worked for four seasons as Performer, Project Director, Director of Teen Exchange, and continues to perform as a guest artist. Ms. Mason’s solo project, NO BOUNDARIES: Dancing the Visions of Contemporary Black Choreographers, includes work by Robert Battle, Donald McKayle, Bebe Miller, David Rousséve, Reggie Wilson, Andrea Woods, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. The project received a National Dance Project Tour Only Grant for 2008/09 season from New England Foundation for the Arts and MetLife, two Metro DC Dance Awards in 2007 for Outstanding Individual Performance and Outstanding Overall Production – Small Venue, and was supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and National Performance Network Creation Fund.

Ms. Mason has been in residence at schools and universities across the country including Columbia College, University of Maryland, and Virginia Commonwealth University. She is sought out for her ability to work with diverse populations and traveled to Poland and Serbia where she led workshops and performances for mixed-abilities dance groups. Ms. Mason received a Maryland State Arts Council Award in 2001, 2004, 2005, and 2008, an Arts Council of Montgomery County Artist Fellowship in 1999 and 2005, was selected Emerging Choreographer by the Bates Dance Festival in 2000, and received a 2007 Millennium Stage Local Dance Commissioning Project from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Dallas Black Dance Theater, Eisenhower Dance Ensemble and Sandra Organ Dance Company have commissioned Ms. Mason’s award winning choreography, among others, and her work has been presented at Joyce SoHo, the Fort Wayne Performing Arts Center, Diverse Works in Houston, 651 Arts in Brooklyn, Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts in College Park, MD, University of Virginia, and as part of the International Contemporary Dance Conference and Performance Festival in Bytom, Poland, DanceAfrica, and the International Association of Blacks in Dance.