Author: Philip Bither
Philip Bither has been Walker Art Center’s Senior Curator of Performing Arts since April 1997. He has overseen significant expansion of the Performing Arts program, including the building of the McGuire Theater, an acclaimed new theatrical space within the Walker expansion (opened April 2005), the raising of the program’s first commissioning/programming endowment, the commissioning of more than 100 new works in dance, music and performance, and the annual presentation/residency support of dozens of contemporary performing arts creators, established and emerging. Prior to this, he served as Director of Programming for the Flynn Center and Artistic Director of the Discover Jazz Festival (Burlington, VT) from April 1988 to April 1997. From 1984-1988, he was Associate Director/Music Curator of the Next Wave Festival at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
He serves on the Artistic Advisory Committee for Japan Society’s Performing Arts Program, the McKnight Distinguished Artist Panel, and a founding member of both the Contemporary Art Center Performing Arts Network through the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Africa Contemporary Arts Consortium, through MultiArts Projects and Production (MAPP). He served as an Advisor for the National Dance Project (2004-2008) as well as a Hub Site (1997-2001); a member of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation 2006 Program Review Panel, the 2004-06 Artistic Committee of Etonne Donne, the French-American Fund for the Performing Arts; and as a 2006/07 Australia Council for the Arts “Dance Down Under” US Ambassador. He has sat on the Board of Directors of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), En Garde Arts (NYC), Atlantic Theater Company (NYC/VT), and New Music Alliance (NYC) and was a member of the Pew Charitable Trust’s International Presenters’ Forum. He co-chaired the International Presenting Conference at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. In the past ten years, he has also served on U.S. Delegations to Tunisia, Russia, Japan, Cuba, Australia, Holland, France, Scotland, England, Hong Kong and other countries. In 2000-2002 conducted individual research in South Africa, Turkey, and Brazil for the Walker’s 2003 “How Latitudes Become Forms.” A recent Mellon Foundation Award to the Performing Arts Program will enable this global artist research to continue in Brazil and South Africa, and begin in Indonesia (2008-2011). He sits on numerous federal, state, local, and national foundation arts panels and he speaks and writes about the contemporary performing arts nationally.


