Air Borne Dance Theater

Who We Are

Cornelia Kip Lee, Founding Artistic Director/Choreographer

Cornelia Kip Lee’s dancing has been described as “riveting,” “powerful” and “extremely moving.” A dancer, choreographer, writer and visual artist, Lee creates authentic, edgy works that touch, transform and challenge audiences.

As dance critic Byron Woods noted, “At times (Cornelia’s) choreography and performance blurs or breaks down the series of assumed cultural boundaries that so often are used to divide the able-bodied from the disabled (and, too frequently, the ‘disabled’ from the ‘artists’).” Of her performance at Opening Acts, Woods wrote, “Cornelia Kip Lee continued to knock down difference in her fully embodied work, Parting.”

Primarily because of her disability, Cornelia’s passion for dance lay submerged for many years, and so she came to her heart’s calling relatively late in life. Responding to that call, Cornelia feels her life has followed a magical path, on which she gets to share her joy in dance with people of diverse backgrounds and abilities: first as a member of a dance company, then as a solo dance artist, and now as artistic director of her own company.

Since January 2004 Cornelia has received nine artist grants, including two Emerging Artist grants from the Durham Arts Council, and three grants from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation with supplemental grants from the Kenan Foundation. In 2003, in Opening Acts, she became the first dance artist in the history of the ADF to perform with a wheelchair. She also performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, in the international VSA Arts Festival. In 2001-2002 Lee danced with The Dancing Wheels in Cleveland, Ohio, and she was a guest artist with WING IT! Performance Ensemble in Berkeley. Recently, she was invited to Edinburgh to dance with the Scottish Dance Theatre in the development of a new work by choreographer Adam Benjamin that SDT will tour throughout Britain.

Cornelia says “I formed Air Borne Dance Theater out of a love of creative collaboration, a desire to take on the challenge and rewards of creating more complex works, and a desire to further expand the boundaries and take apart the stereotypes of modern dance through developing inclusive dance theater works.” She is thrilled and energized by the creative contributions of Kelly and Caedra for their current project, and feels lucky to have them in her company.

In addition to performances, Cornelia offers choreographic and teaching residencies and workshops. She is a certified teacher of DanceAbility and of InterPlay improvisational performance art technique.