Princess Grace Statue Award, 2004

Princess Grace Award
Dance Scholarship, 1987
California Institute of the Arts

Additional Grants:
• 2014 Professional Development Grant
• 2009 Special Project Award

Dawn Stoppiello is a conceptual artist whose primary material is the human body in action.

Stoppiello is most recognized for her 25+ years of choreography for bodies interfaced to computers through sensory systems and dancing in synchrony with projected images. With composer Mark Coniglio she co-founded Troika Ranch, a critically acclaimed performance ensemble that has been innovating and experimenting with computer technology in live performance since the late 1980s. Troika Ranch created hybrid artworks through an ongoing examination of the moving body and its relationship to technology. This aesthetic framework informed Troika Ranch’s artistic output on every level since its inception and has earned the company a critically acclaimed international reputation. Troika Ranch co-founders are in an active process of archiving their work via Spark Machine: a series of online portals used to share the past to spark new futures.

Troika Ranch has been honored with a “Bessie” Award, a prize from Prix Ars Electronica and has received major support from The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, the MAP Fund, the Arts Council England, and the Jerome foundation among others.

Stoppiello is an Associate Professor of Practice at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance with a concentration on dance-media composition. Her writings have been published by many journals and books focused on media and art practices. She began her career at the Jefferson High School for the Performing Arts, received a BFA in dance from California Institute of the Arts and an MFA in dance from George Washington University. She performed with Jazz Tap Ensemble as a teenager and was a member of the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company in the early 1990s.