THE SPACE OF IDEAS

Welcome. I’m Darla Villani, a New York-based multidisciplinary artist and educator.
I make visual, performative and writing things.

In fact, I’ve just completed WILDLIFE, a book project drafted during a MacDowell Colony interdisciplinary research fellowship.

WILDLIFE was selected as a finalist for the 2019 Zone 3 Press Creative Non-Fiction Book Award.

YOUR WORK & MINE

It’s exciting to design coursework and facilitate pathways for you to experience new ways of finding and making your work.
I offer a variety of performance based interdisciplinary workshops, custom classes and project / process support for emerging artists and curious minds.

Sharing my knowledge and skill in tangible, actionable ways with you is part of my latest life’s work. You can find me teaching and creating in university, study abroad, art intensive and studio environments. I work off-site, remotely as well.

EXPERIENCE

I began as a painter at the Art Institute of Boston and Massachusetts College of Art. After receiving a B.F.A, exhibiting and teaching, I pursued dance and choreography, awarded NEA grants, residencies, commissions and a Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography. My dance work as a soloist has been shown at The Joyce Theatre, Dance Theatre Workshop, The Kitchen and International venues.

Highlights include an invitation from Bill T. Jones to collaborate in the creation and performance of a premiere work for his company called, Ursonate. I was the first collaborator invited into the company since his partner, the late Arnie Zane.

Robert Wilson has also extended several invitations to participate in the development of new projects at the Watermill Center including Death,Destruction in Detroit III, Barcelona Point, and notably working with Dominque Sanda on Wilson’s adaption of The Lady From The Sea.

MacDowell invited me as a resident artist for an interdisciplinary research fellowship to draft WILDLIFE, a book.

WILDLIFE was listed as finalist for the 2019 Zone 3 Press Creative Non-Fiction Book Award.