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You have to thank Carol Burnett for Michelle Ellsworth鈥檚 art. At least in part.

, associate professor of dance at the 精品SM在线影片, has been captivated by dance since she was 7, when she first saw the Ernest Flat Dancers on听The Carol Burnett Show.

In between the show鈥檚 segments, jazz-dance sequences functioned as segues. 鈥淚 thought, 鈥極h, my gosh. That鈥檚 what I want to do for a living.鈥欌��

Now her performances both include and transcend dance, and her success has been routinely recognized. Just this month, she won a 2015听. The award includes an $80,000 grant aimed to support Ellsworth鈥檚 work.

Ellsworth is one of 20 artists nationwide to gain this recognition from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, which aims to 鈥渋nvest in and celebrate artists鈥� by offering flexible multi-year funding designed to help overcome funding challenges 鈥渂oth unique to the performing arts and to each grantee.鈥�

The Doris Duke program supports individual artists in contemporary dance, theatre, jazz and related interdisciplinary work. Ellworth is one of only six dancers to win the Impact Award this year.

Ellsworth was informed someone had nominated her for the award some time ago, but, 鈥淚 thought听my chances were very slim, and I tried to forgot about it.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 profoundly surprised and pleased.鈥�

She describes her work as using humor and technology to explore a range of challenging themes including gender, genetics, politics and ecology.

Her 2015听听explores protocols for avoiding surveillance, interpersonal drama and death. Crafted as both a performance and an installation art piece, the work incorporates audience-run mechanical devices, like a coin-operated device that shares a short phrase of movement for 25 cents and an exercise bike that controls a video鈥檚 speed and direction.

She describes听颁濒测迟颈驳补迟颈辞苍听补苍诲听听as post-9-11 pieces. 鈥淚鈥檓 looking at war and technology and their impact on bodies,鈥� she said. In听颁濒测迟颈驳补迟颈辞苍,听which premiered in Seattle this spring, Ellsworth draws upon Aeschylus鈥櫶�Oresteiatrilogy,听in which the Greek goddess Athena introduces a legal system to put Orestes on trial for killing his mother, Clytemnestra鈥攈ence name of the work, a fusion of 鈥淐lytemnestra鈥� and 鈥渓itigation.鈥�

In the play, Clytemnestra has killed the king (and her husband), Agamemnon. 鈥淏ecause killing a king is a political act, she is identified as a terrorist in her community.鈥�

In the听Oresteia, Athena ends the period of vendetta-based justice and launches a system of litigation in its place. 鈥淚n听Clytigation, I鈥檓 looking at how certain legal protocols changed in the U.S. in the post-9-11 environment鈥攕pecifically dealing with military commissions, surveillance and the use of drones,鈥� Ellsworth says.

鈥淚 use an ancient text and modern technology to discuss how wars impact legal protocol.听Central to the work is a demonstration of my interpersonal drone and my over-the-counter counter-terrorism protocols for avoiding surveillance and death.鈥�

More generally, Ellsworth鈥檚 artistic work often focuses on solving problems and 鈥渉ow problem-solving works (and doesn鈥檛 work) in collaboration with new technology.鈥� Additionally, she tends to focus on how 鈥渉uman interactions complicate situations.鈥�

Ellsworth describes the Doris Duke Impact Award as 鈥渋ncredibly potent,鈥�

鈥淚 can make whatever needs to be made without the pressure of a big public premiere,鈥� she observes.听鈥淚t liberates me to make work that no one else would fund or that sounds like deeply terrible ideas or ideas that don鈥檛 have a place in traditional performance venues.鈥�

Since joining the CU-Boulder faculty, the Department of Theatre and Dance has fostered the development of her art, she says. 鈥淚 feel profoundly grateful for my department and CU.鈥�

Her department, she says, 鈥渉as truly one of the most expansive definitions of dance in the entire country.鈥�

Her work can include web-site development, and in some of her pieces 鈥淚鈥檓 barely dancing at all.鈥� She adds that landing in a department that supports 鈥渕y radical experimentation has been absolutely essential to my success as an artist.鈥�

Earlier this year, Ellsworth and the Boulder County Arts Alliance won a $25,000 grant from the MAP Fund to support her work titled听The Rehearsal Artist.听And in 2011, she won a $50,000 USA Fellowship Grant, which is designed to put unrestricted grants 鈥渄irectly into the hands of America鈥檚 finest artists.鈥�

Ellsworth is scheduled to perform Clytigation in the Black Box Theater in CU-Boulder鈥檚听听in October. She is also scheduled to perform it at Brown University in October听and at the Chocolate Factory Theater in New York in November.听

Clint Talbott听is director of communications and external relations 听for the College of Arts and Sciences and editor of the听College of Arts and Sciences Magazine.