Artistic Director, Bruce Wood Dance

Joy Bollinger is a distinguished choreographer, teacher, and répétiteur and has led Bruce Wood Dance since 2018. Bollinger is a veteran performer of the nationally acclaimed Fort Worth–based Bruce Wood Dance Company from 2002 to 2007 and a founding member of Bruce Wood Dance in 2010. She has performed in more than 50 of Wood’s ballets. Hailed as the “poet of dance” by Margaret Putnam, Bollinger has created critically acclaimed works: Carved In Stone (2016), Hillside (2017), In My Your Head (2019), Blue (2021), Slip Zone (Commissioned by the Dallas Museum of Art, 2022), and Chopin in A Minor (Commissioned by TITAS, 2022). Carved In Stone was called the “single best dance in 2016 . . . deeply emotional and striking in its stillness” by Mark Lowry of The Fort Worth Star–Telegram and “a dance for the ages” by Margaret Putnam of TheaterJones.com. “Hillside goes for broke, swirling with the same kind of physical and emotional power that marked her stunning debut as a professional dance maker,” acclaimed Manny Mendoza of The Dallas Morning News. Bollinger is listed by D Magazine as “Women Who Make Dallas Great,” citing her choreography as “highly cerebral and intuitive.” Presented on KERA’s Frame of Mind TV series, her work expanded to film, collaborating with Broadway composer Joseph Thalken to create Life Interrupted (2020) and Blue (2021) in collaboration with Redirecting Dance and the Movement 4 Movement series. In addition, Bollinger has been commissioned by the Dallas Black Dance Theater (2018), Texas Christian University (2017, 2022), Southern Methodist University (2022) and Bucknell University (2022). D Magazine has referred to her as “one of the most evocative and lyrical choreographers on our scene.” Photo by Kent Barker.