Bill Shannon is a conceptual, interdisciplinary dance and media artist who creates both solo and group projects. He considers his work rooted in street culture and informed by the fine arts. He is widely recognized in the dance/performance world, the underground hip-hop and club dance scene, the urban arts movement, as well as the disabled artist community.
His performance and video work have been presented nationally and internationally over the past ten years at various venues, festivals and events including Kaaitheater, Brussels; Performance Space 122, NYC; The Kitchen, NYC; Sydney Opera House Studio Theater, Australia; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, OR; Central Park Summer Stage, NYC; Dance City, Newcastle, UK; Contact Theater, Manchester, UK; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Arizona State University, Tempe; The Exit Festival, Cretiel, France; Amman International Festival of Independent Theater, Amman, Jordan; The Holland Festival, Amsterdam; Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland; URB Festival, Helsinki, FI; Melbourne Fringe Festival and Teatro de la Ciudad in Monterrey, Mexico, among many others.
In 2002, he completed a project with Cirque du Soleil where he choreographed specific elements for their production Varekai (currently on tour).
His visual and multimedia art have been exhibited in contemporary museums, galleries and fairs in the U.S. and Europe. Shannon’s video installations have been presented at Douz & Mille in New York (2008) ArtDC in Washington, DC (2007), Kiasma, Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art in Finland (2005), at the Tate in Liverpool, UK (2003), and the Headlands Center for the Arts in San Francisco (2005).
Shannon has been honored with numerous awards including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2003), a Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art Award, a Colbert Award for Excellence: The Downtown Arts Projects Emerging Arts Award and a Pennsylvania Council of the Arts Interdisciplinary Arts Fellowship. He has received support for his work from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, James E. Robison Foundation, Bossak-Heilbron Charitable Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, and Arts International: The Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals.
Shannon also won Mantis Battle (Solo Category) in NYC in 2000, placed second in ProAms Florida (Abstract Category) and in 2002 was awarded Most Creative Street Dancer by the LA Urban Dance Festival.
Shannon holds a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
