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Years of working in Fuller’s idiom, which involves kinesphere-expanding costumes, has influenced Sperling’s awareness of the body’s relationship with the larger environment. In 2014, she participated in a polar science mission—as the first choreographer-in-residence aboard a US Coast Guard icebreaker—and danced on Arctic sea ice. Her short film Ice Floe, shot during the expedition, won a Creative Climate Award.
Following her Arctic experience, her artistic focus has been on engaging with climate creatively. Currently, Sperling is developing a dance practice called ecokinetics that cultivates the relationship between the moving body and environmental systems while providing strategies for climate-engaged artmaking.
Sperling earned a World Choreography Award nomination for her work on the French feature film “The Dancer” (Dir. Stephanie Di Giusto, 2016 Cannes Film Festival). She was also commissioned to create a major new work featured in the forthcoming Fuller documentary “Obsessed with Light,” directed by Sabine Krayenbuehl and Zeva Oelbaum.
Sperling and company have performed or taught throughout the US and in Bahrain, Canada, France, India, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Nigeria, Russia, and Scotland. Sperling and has been in residence at dozens of colleges and universities including The Ailey School/Fordham, Barnard College, Brenau University, Bloomfield College, DeSales College, Hobart & William Smith, Hofstra University, Hunter College, Montclair State University, Rutgers University, Skidmore College, Vassar College, Wesleyan University, UC Irvine, UCLA Art-Sci Center, UMass Amherst, University of Nebraska, and University of Wyoming, among others. She holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University in Dance and Italian Studies, an M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and an MFA in Dance from Montclair State University.
Sperling and Time Lapse Dance have received commissions from the Vermont Performance Lab with Marlboro College, The University of Wyoming through the NEA American Masterpieces Program, and the Streb Lab for Action Mechanics. Works have been featured in the repertory of The Netherlands’ Introdans ensemble and performed by Ice Theatre of New York.
Sperling, also a dance writer and scholar, has served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Dance History Scholars (SDHS). Her dance writings have appeared online and in print in Dance Magazine, The Village Voice, The SDHS Conference Proceedings, The International Encyclopedia of Dance, and she has contributed chapters to the books Birds of Paradise: Costume as Cinematic Spectacle (British Film Institute, 2014) and Milestones in Dance in the USA (Routledge, 2022).
Prior to founding Time Lapse Dance, Sperling performed as a dancer in the works of other choreographers including Sarah Michelson and Yvonne Rainer.
Matthew Burtner (Composer) is an Alaskan-born composer, sound artist and eco-acoustician whose work explores embodiment, ecology, polytemporality and noise. His music has been performed in concerts around the world and featured by organizations such as NASA, PBS NewsHour, the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the BBC, the U.S. State Department under President Obama, and National Geographic. He has published three intermedia climate change works including the IDEA Award-winning telematic opera, Auksalaq. In 2020 he received an Emmy Award for “Composing Music with Snow and Glaciers” a feature on his Glacier Music by Alaska Public Media. His music has also received international honors and awards from the Musica Nova (Czech Republic), Bourges (France), Gaudeamus (Netherlands), Darmstadt (Germany), and The Russolo (Italy) international music competitions. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Award for The Ceiling Floats Away, a large-scale collaborative work with US Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Rita Dove. Burtner holds the position of Eleanor Shea Professor of Music at the University of Virginia where he Co-Directs the Coastal Future Conservatory. He also is founder and director of the Alaska-based environmental music non-profit organization EcoSono. His new album Icefield is out now on Ravello Records.