ARTISTIC DIRECTOR SALLY JACQUES

Choreographer and performer Sally Jacques has been the recipient of numerous grants including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the City of Austin, under the auspices of the Arts Commission and Art Matters, New York City. In 1987 she was given the Susan B. Anthony Award for Peace. With choreographic collaborator José Luis Bustamante, she was awarded the 1994 New Forms Regional Initiative Grant (NFRIG) funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation. In 1994, the JumpStart Performance Space invited Jacques and Bustamante to perform a site work as part of their New Moves Dance Series. The Austin Chronicle Best of Austin Critics Poll named her 'Best Site Works Artist' in 1995, and 'Choreographer of the Air' in 2002. In 1999, Dawn Davis of the Austin Chronicle Critics Poll voted "Anything by Sally Jacques" in the Top Ten Dance Events, saying, "Jacques takes dance out of the confines of the theater and beautifully synthesizes physicality, poetry, and meditation." Robert Faires of the Austin Chronicle named Jacques' site-specific production The Well Inside among the Top 10 Onstage Works of Wonder in 2002, and Jacques' Scaffold Trilogy was honored with a 'Culmination of Artistry' award in 2003. Ms. Jacques has been honored as a lifetime member of the Golden Key National Honor Society at the University of Texas. In 2007 Jacques was inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame.

Jacques was named the 2003 YWCA Woman of the Year for the Arts. A retrospective piece on Jacques' Blue Pearl, is being featured, as a series in part of the 'Faces Of Austin' Exhibit playing at Austin's New City Hall. Jacques' Where Nothing Falls, Where Nothing Falls II, and Whispers of Heaven were at the top of the Austin Chronicle's 'Top 10 Shows' from 2003-2005 and was winner of the Ensemble Dance category at the 2003-2004 Austin Critics Table Awards. Her book "64 Bed and Other Site Works" was published in 1996.

Art as a tool for humanity is the cornerstone of Jacques' work. She has taught movement extensively to teenagers in trouble, senior citizens, the disabled, in community schools at the city/county jail, nursing homes and to the general public in Austin for more than 19 years. Some of her programs have involved taking teenagers into the community to perform for community centers and their peer groups. She was invited by the San Antonio Museum of Art as a plenary speaker/slide show lecture and has been an invited guest artist at the University of Texas Dance Department, Theater, and Fine Arts Departments. Jacques is also dedicated to the protection of the environment and animal and human rights. Through the Foundation for a Compassionate Society she traveled to refugee camps in the former Yugoslavia and subsequently organized the collection and transport of medical supplies to refugee groups. She attended and performed at the United Nations Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in l993, attended the United Nations Fourth World Women's Conference in Beijing, China and participated in the Second Intentional Encuentro For Humanity in Spain. Jacques has also attended the World Social Forums in Brazil and Mumbai.