Tommy Noonan

 

Tommy Noonan (he/they) is a director, choreographer, performer, teacher, writer and facilitator currently based in Saxapahaw, NC. He has worked extensively in many parts of the world including the US, Mexico, Europe, Australia and South America.

Noonan was awarded a DanceWEB scholarship to attend ImPulsTanz in 2006; he was a finalist for the 2008 Rolex Mentor and Protogé Arts Initiative in the field of dance; in 2009 he was a contributor to Forum PRISMA in Mexico City, and is one of the founding members of the international collective: Sweet and Tender Collaborations. He is also a co-founder and co-director of the award winning performing arts laboratory: Culture Mill.

Through Culture Mill, he and co-director Murielle Elizéon have created groundbreaking, iterative, multi-year projects that bridge performance, research, and social practice. Among these are the Parkinson’s Performance Project, which featured a commissionfrom the American Dance Festival for “They Are All” — a dance work in collaboration with people living with Parkinson’s Disease as well as researchers and clinicians at Duke University. A follow up
commission of “Bodystorm” by The Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company included Clint Lutes. Noonan’s work through Culture Mill has also included the multi-year Southern Futures residency at Carolina Performing Arts (University of North Carolina). That residency brought together artists, scholars and students to interrogate the legacy of White-body supremacy at the nations oldest public university in projects such as “Eclipse”, “Bloc”, and “Social Geographies”.

In 2025, Noonan was again commissioned by the American Dance Festival to create the international trans-disciplinary project: “How To Be A Visitor" with Palestinian/French artist Jassem Hindi and Ugandan Artist Mugisha Frank; in 2022 he was commissioned by Norway’s Mia Habib productions to create “Assembly”, and prior to that was commissioned by the Maxim Gorki Theater to create “The Engagement” in Berlin, Germany. His smaller performances such as “John”, “Wilderness”, “Tout Court”, “What Doesn’t Work”, and “Brother Brother” have toured more than 70 performances and 8 countries.

Tommy has collaborated and facilitated with Mia Habib at Time Based Art Festival in Portland, OR, with Jenny Beyer at Kampnagel in Hamburg, Germany, with Okwui Okpokwasili at Carolina Performing Arts, and with The Farm in Australia’s Sydney Festival. As a dancer, he has worked in Opera, Dance and Theater with Graham Smith, Tom Schneider, Joachim Schlömer, Dennis Deter and Stephanie Thiersch.

In 2025 Noonan co-authored “Bricks as Memory” for Critical University Studies and Performance (Vanderbilt University Press). He co-resented that work in 2024 at the Nordic Geographer’s Meeting. Additionally, he has written texts for publication in Revisita Obscena (Portugal) Freies Theater Journal (Austria) the Performance Journal (New York City) and IndyWeek (Durham, NC). His research and work in public space performance with Georg Hobmeier appeared in “the Guidebook of Alternative Nows”.

Tommy regularly teaches classes and workshops both internationally as well as locally in North Carolina. He is committed to developing a deeper practice as a creative somatic facilitator. To this end, he interweaves his artistic experience with his practices as a Certified Focusing Professional, a black belt in Aikido, and a student of Generative Somatics.

 
 

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