Alex Ketley
“Alex Ketley is both choreographer and explorer, artist and humanist.
His work dips a toe into the realm of anthropology, using dance as the connective tissue to examine,
without affectation or expectation, the diversity that is America and the human race.”
— Sarasota Herald Tribune
Alex Ketley is an independent choreographer, filmmaker, and the director of The Foundry. Formerly a classical dancer with the San Francisco Ballet and LINES Ballet, he left dancing professionally to create The Foundry as a platform to explore his interests in alternative methods of devising performance. The company has allowed Ketley the freedom to pursue projects that would be difficult to realize within his commissioning career. A few examples of these are: Syntax, an hour long duet systemically using the mechanics of language as an organizing mechanism; Lost Line researched how the application of environment affects the generation of movement and studied in direct response to California's diverse physical landscapes; Please Love Me jettisoned the structure of performing in a theater context and was developed with a curiosity about how people genuinely connect and experience artwork; the No Hero Trilogy which was a multi-year project that explored what dance and performance means to the lives of people living throughout rural America, and Distal Imprint was a film created in collaboration with artist and Death-Row inmate Bill Clark. The Foundry’s diverse work has been enthusiastically received by audiences, the press, and funders.
For his independent work as a choreographer he has been commissioned extensively throughout the United States, as well as projects in Germany and Italy, and has received acknowledgement from the Hubbard Street National Choreographic Competition, the International Choreographic Competition of the Festival des Arts de Saint-Saveaur, the Choo-San Goh Award, the Princess Grace Award for Choreography, four Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Residencies, the Gerbode-Hewlett Choreographer Award, the Eben Demarest Award, the National Choreographic Initiative Residency, a Kenneth Rainin Foundation New and Experimental Works Grant, three CHIME Fellowships, the Artistry Award from the Superfest International Disability Film Festival, and his work was featured on national television through an invitation from the show So You Think You Can Dance. His pieces and collaborations have also been awarded Isadora Duncan Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the categories of; Choreography, Company, and Ensemble, as well as nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design. In 2020 he became a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, one of the most prestigious honors in the United States recognizing “individuals who have demonstrated exceptional creative ability in the arts”.
As an educator he has taught extensively throughout the country and currently holds the position of Advanced Lecturer at Stanford University’s Theater and Performance Studies Department. He was the founding Resident Choreographer at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance for fourteen years until its closure in 2018.
Since 2020 he has been collaborating with his friend Bill Clark who is a prolific artist and writer that has been incarcerated on Death Row for the past 33 years. Alex invited Bill as a guest for his Stanford University class called DanceAcution: Performance Practice, Death Row, and the Evolution of Cultural Reform. The class used Bill’s vast experience as an artist and incarcerated individual as the platform for the student’s to develop new performance work. Bill is also collaborating with The Foundry on a new evening length work titled An Approximation of Resilience set to premiere in 2025. The project is currently a finalist for the prestigious National Dance Project Grant. Due to a recent change in the law, on July 26th Bill has a resentencing hearing offering him a rare opportunity for release. If he is freed he looks forward to being a performer in this new work as it tours both to theater and prison settings.
In addition to his artistic projects Alex has a daughter, Amara, who each day inspires him to see and experience the world from her unique vantage point. His wife Aline is a dancer and an integral collaborator in all of The Foundry’s projects created this decade. He is also on the Board of Directors of Death Penalty Focus, an organization whose work focuses on abolishing both the death penalty and LWOP (Life Without Parole).