Susan Nalaboff Brilliant RSMDE
snbrilliant5@yahoo.com
www.susannalaboffbrilliant.com
San Francisco, CA
Profile:
Multi-disciplinary artist, dancer, choreographer, actor, teacher. Certified Tamalpa Practitioner, ISMETA, Registered Expressive Somatic Movement Educator
Susan Nalaboff Brilliant is an artist whose work leans into the abstract expressionist tradition with an interest in movement, stillness and the unconscious made visible. Her training in dance, deep interest in visual art, and a scholarship in her youth at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center led to an invitation to create posters for a company season in the Diaghilev-Ballet Russe tradition.
Susan graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy Magna Cum Laude from Ithaca College where she studied art with Allen Atwell and dance with Vergio Cornei. Upon moving to New York City, she continued taking classes with Isaac Sawyer and Robert Cenedella at the Art Students League while pursuing her career in dance and choreography.
Susan's work was exhibited at the New York Painters Studio Gallery where she studied with Charles Pasqualina and was included in group exhibitions at The Art Students League in Manhattan. Her paintings are in several private collections, and began in the Gambino family exhibitions on Long Island and continue internationally through the present. Since moving to San Francisco her work has been featured annually in "Open Studios", and she is continues to create work in her studio.
In 2017 a visit to her Open Studio by Jessie Jacob MD led to "Art & Healing", an exhibition of her paintings at the Northern California Women's Imaging Center in Palo Alto. Several of her paintings are now included in the centre's permanent collection. In 2018 she curated an exhibition there.
Art and healing are continuing themes for Susan’s work. She graduated from Tamalpa Institute in 2018, a 3-year program inspired by the dance and expressive arts of Ana & Daria Halprin.
This program deepened her art practice with somatic and embodied awareness. She is now a Tamalpa Life/Art Practitioner® and believes that the arts - movement, dance, painting, poetry & writing – open new pathways of expression through each individual’s own life experiences.
Currently Susan has been Exhibiting with Monat Gallery in Madrid, Spain
Performance Projects:
Stirrings - Residency at Chateau D’Orquevaux - 2024
Poiesis – 1599 Gallery (April 2019)
Wise Woman Waterfall in the Gnarled Olive Tree – Mountain Home Studio (2018)
SAFEhouse Arts, San Francisco, CA (2018)
Afternoon Talk - Celebration of Women Art & Healing, Palo Alto, CA (2017)
Education:
Tamalpa Institute Certification - Expressive Dance & Art Therapy Kentfield, CA
23rd Street Studio San Francisco
Art Students League New York, NY
Figure Classes – Naomi Andree Campbell, Robert Cenedella
Abstract Painting – Frank McCain
Roslyn School of Painting – mentor Charles Pasqualina
Stella Adler Academy of Acting
Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance
Alvin Ailey American Dance Center
New York University graduate studies in Dance & Choreography
Ithaca College – BA Philosophy magna cum laude
Professional Development:
Participated in performance & art workshops with the following teachers, artists….
Anna Halprin, Daria Halprin, Joy Coscuella, Augusta Moore, Sandra Chin, Christopher Lam, Charles Pasqualina, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Romana Kryzanowska, Bob Liekens.
Grants and awards:
Residency at Chateau D’Orquevaux
Diderot grand 2024
Emerging artist grant 2024
Musa women’s essence award 2024
Choreography:
Stirrings
Nesting
Inside Tracks
A Day in the Life
Becket
Professional Performance Experience:
Elinor Coleman Dance Company
Beth Cachet Dance Company
Nuestro Children’s Theatre Company
Carmina Burana Acting Ensemble
Teaching – ballet, modern, jazz, somatics
Taste of Tamalpa
Pilates in Port - Co-founder and teacher
Brooklyn Friends School
New School of the Arts
Barnard College
Garden State Ballet Company
Richmond School of Ballet
Kennedy High School
Swing Around Dance Studio - Brooklyn Heights NY
Professional Memberships & Certifications:
The International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA)
ArtSpan, Artsper
Art Explosion
Catalyst Art Group
Classical Pilates
Gyrotonics L1
Publications:
What is Art? ITSLIQUID April 2021
Quick talk: Monat gallery 2023