Regina Nejman is a New York City-based choreographer who creates works of contemporary modern dance that blend theater, installation, video projection, inventive sets and spoken word. Since 1993, Regina has been choreographing dances for presentation at numerous New York City venues and international locations. In 1997, she founded Regina Nejman & Company, which seeks to create and share thought-provoking, joyful works of dance that integrate the Brazilian culture Regina grew up in with the diverse, fast-paced world of New York City today. Women’s identity is at the heart of Regina’s choreography, and her works often contemplate themes of relationships, intimacy, self-image, vulnerability and stereotypes. Building on a movement vocabulary drawn and deconstructed from ballet, various modern dance traditions, Capoeira (Brazilian martial art form), and gymnastics, Regina creates energetic and visceral pieces in which emotions run close to the surface.
Her choreography has been presented at venues and festivals including LaMama Moves!, chashama/Anita’s Way, Dream Up Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out Festival, Teatro Cacilda Becker in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 4° Fórum de Dança de São José do Rio Preto in São Paulo, Brazil, the 2002 and 2005 New York International Fringe Festivals, New York Film Academy, Queens Museum of Art, Dixon Place, DanceNow, The 92nd Street Y/Fridays at Noon, Dance New Amsterdam, American Dance Guild, Performance Mix, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Soundance Repertoire Company, Dance Theater Workshop/Fresh Tracks, Movement Research, Gowanus Arts Exchange, Danspace/Food for Thought, and Dia Center for the Arts.
Regina received the 2020 Creative Engagement Grant from LMCC for her new dance BUBBLE. She has received the 2005 Outstanding Choreography Award from Fringe NYC and her work has received the support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Puffin Foundation, Greenwall Foundation, Manhattan Community Arts Fund and Meet the Composer; she has received residencies from the Joyce Theater (2007-2008), DTW’s Outer/Space, Abrons Arts Center, QMA, and chashama. In 2009, Regina’s piece Delete/ Her was co-presented by Dixon Place and in 2010, Regina received a Mondo Cane Commission from Dixon Place to premier Annette. She has also received two commissions from Princeton University Program in Theater and Dance, The Yard and New Jersey City University. Regina has self-produced concerts at Context Studios, Merce Cunningham Studio and in association with Joyce SoHo.
Regina has danced with many companies and individual choreographers, including Donald Byrd/The Group, Ze’Eva Cohen, Bat-Dor Dance Company of Israel, Des Moines Ballet and New York City downtown choreographers. Regina received her Bachelor’s Degree from SUNY/Empire State College in 1998, and her MFA in Dance at Hunter College in 2022. She served on the faculty of New Jersey City University, was a Visiting Artist at Wesleyan University, and a guest artist at Princeton University twice where she created Fragmentado and Kinetic Puzzle. She has taught at NYU Common Hour Class, Steps, Peridance, LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts and Harvard Summer Dance. Regina has also taught at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, Joffrey Ballet School, HAI, CAE, and is a per-diem dance teacher at NYC DOE.
Regina’s work has been reviewed by well known dance critics: In a review of Regina’s The Velocity of Things, Jennifer Dunning of The New York Times described Regina as “a modern dance choreographer with a piquant imagination and visual sense to match.” Earlier, Dunning recognized Regina’s Maria Vai Com As Outras as “teeming with life.” Deborah Jowitt of the Village Voice described “the intriguing dance sequences”… and reviewing Leave Yourself at the Door, Please! for The Village Voice, Adele Nickel wrote that Regina “is well on her way to defining what female empowerment means in the 21st century.” About Delete/ Her, David St.-Lascaux, of The Brooklyn Rail wrote, “The entire experience was entirely surreal…. When the performance was over, there remained the lingering physical electricity, the retinal afterimages, the echoing acoustics, the short-term memories, the cleansing themes of recovery and rebirth awaiting the mind’s dreaming night.”
Regina Nejman 