some biographical  things

Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş is choreographer, writer, and filmmaker from Northern California currently researching the intersections of language and movement through interdisciplinary collaborations with composers, designers, animators, coders, writers, and dancers. She served as the director of Roco Dance's award-winning youth modern dance company BodyLanguage from 2023-2024, and is currently a writer for Dance Art Journal, coordinator of Marin's first Youth Poet Laureate Program, editor of Marin Poetry Center High School Anthology, and teaching artist with CalPoets, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Dance Palace Point Reyes, Gallery Route One, and DrawBridge. She was recently awarded an M.A. in Dance Philosophy & History with Distinction from University of Roehampton, London, where she has been commissioned by Sadlers Wells, The Place, and Theater Basel among others to conduct interviews and write reviews on cutting-edge dance companies and choreographers. 

Since presenting her undergraduate thesis strikethrough, at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, it has been featured by Stance on Dance, Dance Art Journal, samfiftyfour literary, Inbtwn. Magazine, Poethesis Mag, Pinky Thinker Press, Loculus Collective, SAFEhouse Arts, Mark Foehringer Dance Project, Interdisciplinary Arts Collective, Noori/TWIG Media Lab, and The Museum of Wild & Newfangled Art, and has been adapted for dance & poetry workshops at NYU Tisch, University of San Francisco, Idaho Fine Arts Academy, Open Arms Dance Project, Big Sky Workshop, The Collective SF, Ellen Webb Studios, Bodies of Empowerment, The Write Trail, Shawl Anderson Dance Center, Mill Valley Public Library, The Writers Nest, and CalPoets. 

Maxine graduated magna cum laude from NYU Tisch with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and a Minor in English and American Literature. At NYU Tisch, she danced in the works of Sidra Bell Dance NY, Lar Lubovitch, Wayne McGregor, Trisha Brown, NUUM Collective, Aaron Samuel Davis, and Cari Ann Shim Sham*, among others. Maxine has guest performed for David Diggs, The Collective SF, Isadora Duncan Dance Company, Eclipse Dance Theatre, CALI & Co Dance/Matt El Music, Logos Dance Collective, Monsoon Dance Company, and most recently Amy Lewis, pateldanceworks, eMotion Arts, and Moving Ground. She supplemented her training at SF Conservatory of Dance, LINES Ballet, and Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, performing the works of Ohad Naharin, Christian Burns Amy Seiwert, Eléonore Valère Lachky, and Vittoria De Ferrari Sapetto. Her dance films have been exhibited at Millennium Film Workshop (NY), Fox Yard Studio (UK), 92NY's Future Dance Festival (NY), World Stage Design 2022 (Canada), Event/Horizons 2021 (CA), West Wave Dance Festival (CA), Cadence Video Poetry Festival (WA), Rail Switch Poetry (Online), TriQuarterly (Online), SzólóDuó International Dance Festival (Hungary), FilmFest by Rogue Dancer (Online), Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema (CO), and kNOwBOX Dance Film Festival (TX, Mexico & South Korea). 

Maxine’s poetry has been published in Ink Sweat & Tears, Wild Roof Journal, Deep Adaptation Forum, Marin Poetry Center Anthology, Gallatin Review, October Hill Magazine, Literary Yard, Red Cedar Review, Variety Pack Zine, and NYU Under the Arch | Voices, and recently was awarded the Rubin Prize for Poetry by the Gallatin Writing Program for her poem, “A Series of Rogue Geographies.” She served as editor for NYU Under the Arch | Voices from 2018 to 2020, where she curated cross-disciplinary collaborations between graphic artists and writers, and as an editorial writer for Inbtwn. Magazine from 2017 to 2020, an online and print magazine aimed to increase engagement between writers and visual artists. She has also interned with literary organizations Poets House and The Writers Nest. In May 2020, she published her first novella, through Eileen with VerbalEyze Press, and in May 2022, she published her first micro-chapbook ♡-shaped-☐ with Ghost City Press, which she has shared at readings with Found Poets at The Lost Church and The Big Easy, and with Decentered Arts as part of Poolside Poets. She currently collaborates with award-winning poet, Rebecca Foust. 

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