Faculty Bio - Aviva Geismar

Aviva Geismar, Dance Program Coordinator (she/her)

Telephone: 718-281-5276
Email: [email protected]
Office: RFK 216L

Aviva Geismar (Associate Professor) teaches Choreography, Improvisation, Dance Workshop, Repertory, Foundations of Dance Movement and all levels of Ballet and Modern Dance. She is the artistic director of the contemporary dance company Drastic Action. Geismar’s dances have been performed at many national and international venues such as “Inside/Out” at Jacob’s Pillow, “Fresh Tracks” at Dance Theater Workshop, Dance New Amsterdam, The Millennium Stage at  the Kennedy Center, Symphony Space, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Danceworks (Milwaukee), Studio 303 (Montreal) and Dance Place (DC). In 2005 she was included in Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch Series which recognizes notable dance artists throughout the nation. Tom Strini of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote "Geismar's dead-on understanding of social realities is like a poke in the ribs.... In life and in Geismar's dances tragedy and comedy can be hard to sort out."

Between 2006 and 2010 Drastic Action performed and implemented Geismar’s successful creative dance curriculum in public schools throughout Germany through “Dancing to Connect,” a project developed in partnership with Battery Dance Company. Geismar has been commissioned by Rutgers University, University of Maryland, James Madison University, Dance New Amsterdam, Trammel and Thompson, Dancing in the Streets and Gotham Group. She has been a resident artist at HERE Arts Center and at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Geismar was a guest faculty member at Ursinus College and an adjunct at Marymount Manhattan College.

In 2016, Drastic Action premiered “Dis/Location (Fort Tryon),” a site-specific dance in Fort Tryon Park in Washington Heights, NYC. The project was supported by the Bay and Paul Foundation, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, Jody and John Arnhold, the New York City Parks Department and the Fort Tryon Park Trust. Geismar’s interdisciplinary, multi-phase project, “Dis Place” explores the American legacy of displacement and has had performances and screenings at Arts on Site, the Boston Dance Film Festival and Film Works, Philadelphia. Geismar is developing a new work titled “Just Stand By” for performances in NY and Germany in Fall 2025.

Geismar is also a licensed massage therapist and a certified GYROKINESIS and GYROTONIC instructor and has done extensive teaching for bodywork professionals. She holds a BFA from NYU and an MFA from the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin.