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MOSES PENDLETON (Artistic Director) has been one of America’s most innovative and widely performed choreographers and directors for almost 50 years. A co-founder of the ground-breaking Pilobolus Dance Theater in 1971, he formed his own company, MOMIX, with Alison Chase in 1980. Pendleton has also worked extensively in film, TV and opera and as a choreographer for ballet companies and special events.

Pendleton was born and raised on a dairy farm in Northern Vermont. His earliest experiences as a showman came from exhibiting his family’s dairy cows at the Caledonian County Fair. He received his BA in English Literature from Dartmouth College in 1971. Pilobolus began touring immediately, and the group shot to fame in the 1970s, performing on Broadway under the sponsorship of Pierre Cardin, touring internationally, and appearing in PBS’s Dance in America and Great Performances series.

By the end of the decade, Pendleton had begun to work outside of Pilobolus, performing in and serving as principal choreographer for the Paris Opera’s Intégrale Erik Satie in 1979 and choreographing the Closing Ceremony of the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid in 1980. In that same year, he created MOMIX, which rapidly established an international reputation for inventive and often illusionistic choreography. The troupe has now been creating new work under his direction and touring worldwide for four decades.

Pendleton has also been active as a performer and choreographer for other companies. He staged Picabia’s Dadaist ballet Relâche for the Paris Opera Ballet and The Joffrey Ballet, and Tutuguri, based on the writings of Artaud, for the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He created the role of the Fool for Yuri Lyubimov’s production of Mussorgsky’s Khovanschina at La Scala, choreographed Rameau’s Platée for the U.S. Spoleto Festival, and contributed choreography to Lina Wertmuller’s production of Carmen at the Munich State Opera. Pendleton has created new works for the Arizona Ballet and the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, and he teamed up with Danny Ezralow and David Parsons, both former MOMIX dancers, to choreograph AEROS with the Romanian National Gymnastics Team. More recently, Pendleton choreographed The Doves of Peace, featuring Diana Vishneva and 50 ballerinas, for the Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Pendleton’s film and television work include the feature film F/X2 with Cynthia Quinn, Moses Pendleton Presents Moses Pendleton for ABC ARTS cable (winner of a CINE Golden Eagle award), and Pictures at an Exhibition with Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony, which received an International Emmy for Best Performing Arts Special in 1991. Pendleton has also made music videos with Prince, Julian Lennon, and Cathy Dennis, among others.

Pendleton is an avid photographer whose work has been presented in Rome, Milan, Florence and Aspen. Images of the sunflower plantings at his home in northwestern Connecticut have been featured in numerous books and articles on gardening. He is the subject of Salto di Gravita by Lisavetta Scarbi (1999), and his photographs accompany the 16 cantos of Phil Holland’s The Dance Must Follow (2015), which takes Mr. Pendleton’s own creative process as its subject.

Pendleton was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1977. He was a recipient of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts Governor’s Award in 1998. He received the Positano Choreographic Award in 1999 and the 2002 American Choreography Award for his contributions to choreography for film and television. In 2010, Pendleton received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts (HDFA) from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he delivered the commencement address. In 2021, Pendleton received an Honorary Doctor of Arts from his alma mater, Dartmouth College for his lifetime contribution to the arts.

CYNTHIA QUINN (Associate Director) grew up in Southern California. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California at Riverside and continued there as an Associate in Dance for five years. As a member of Pilobolus in the 1980s, she performed on Broadway and throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Israel, and Japan, and she collaborated on the choreography of Day Two, Elegy for the Moment, Mirage, What Grows in Huygens Window and Stabat Mater. Quinn began performing with MOMIX in 1983 and has toured worldwide with the company. She has appeared in numerous television programs and music videos, and has assisted Moses Pendleton in the choreography of Pulcinella for the Ballet Nancy in France, Tutuguri for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Platée for the Spoleto Festival USA, Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel in New York, AccorDION for the Zurich-Volksbuhne Theatre, Carmen for the Munich State Opera, as well as Opus Cactus for the Arizona Ballet and Noir Blanc for the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. She has also appeared as a guest artist with the Ballet Théâtre Française de Nancy, the Deutsche Oper Berlin Ballet, and the Munich State Opera, as well as in international galas in Italy, France and Japan. Quinn made her film debut as “Bluey” (a role she shared with Karl Baumann) in F/X2. She was a featured performer in the Emmy® Award-winning Pictures at an Exhibition with the Montreal Symphony and has also appeared in the 3D IMAX film IMAGINE. Quinn is a board member of the Nutmeg Conservatory in Torrington, Conn., and is on the advisory board of Torrington’s Susan B. Anthony Project. She was featured with Ru Paul and k.d. lang for M.A.C. Cosmetics’ “Fashion Cares” benefit in Toronto and Vancouver. Quinn is co-choreographer of White Widow, which is featured prominently in Robert Altman’s The Company. Quinn was also featured in the film First Born, with Elisabeth Shue. Most recently, she co-choreographed The Doves of Peace, featuring Diana Vishneva, for the Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Her most rewarding and challenging role, however, has been as a mother to her daughter, Quinn Elisabeth.