{{Short description|Canadian-American choreographer}} {{More citations needed|date=February 2026}} Aszure Barton is a Canadian-American dance maker. Her works have appeared on stages worldwide, including the Palais Garnier, Mariinsky Theater, The Kennedy Center, Studio 54, Lincoln Center, and Sadler’s Wells, and in exhibitions such as the Smithsonian’s Cultural Expressions. She has also choreographed for theater, film, opera, and Broadway.
In the early 2000s, Barton founded Aszure Barton & Artists (AB&A) in New York.
Barton is also presently Resident Artist at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and House Choreographer for Gauthier Dance | Theaterhaus Stuttgart.
Barton premiered Mere Mortals at San Francisco Ballet with British musician and DJ Floating Points, longtime collaborator Michelle Jank, and mixed-media artists Hamill Industries.
She maintains an ongoing collaboration with trumpeter and composer Ambrose Akinmusire. Together, they have created a range of works, including commissions for Limón Dance Company, Hamburg Ballett, The Juilliard School, and others.
Barton returned to the Baryshnikov Arts for its 20th-anniversary season alongside Benjamin Millepied as an inaugural choreographer commissioned by the organization, in recognition of her longtime collaboration with Mikhail Baryshnikov and the Center.
Her accolades include a Bessie Award, recognition as the inaugural Martha Duffy Resident Artist at Baryshnikov Arts, and the Arts & Letters Award of Canada, joining the likes of Margaret Atwood, Karen Kain, and Oscar Peterson. A laureate of the Ken McCarter Award for Distinguished NBS Alumni, she also holds the title of Official Ambassador of Contemporary Choreography in Canada.
As an educator, Barton is Creative Partner with Boston Conservatory at Berklee and was formerly Artist-in-Residence at USC Kaufman during William Forsythe’s tenure as Artistic Advisor. She also maintains longstanding educational collaborations with Canada’s National Ballet School, Arts Umbrella, and The Juilliard School in New York.
== Career == Aszure Barton was born and raised in Alberta, Canada. She received her formal training at the National Ballet School in Toronto, where, as a student, she helped originate the ongoing Stephen Godfrey Choreographic Showcase. To date, she has collaborated with and created works for Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ekaterina Shipulina/Bolshoi Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada,<ref name="Ross-2009"/> Houston Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, The Martha Graham Dance Company,<ref name="Barton-bio"/> Nederlands Dans Theater, Sydney Dance Company, Ballet British Columbia, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The Juilliard School, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal (Resident Choreographer 2005-08)<ref name="Asantewaa-2008"/> and English National Ballet.<ref>{{cite web |title=Fantastic Beings by Aszure Barton |url=https://www.ballet.org.uk/blog-detail/fantastic-beings-aszure-barton/ |website=English National Ballet |accessdate=14 May 2020}}</ref> Other work includes choreography for the Broadway revival production of The Threepenny Opera.<ref name="Barton-bio"/> Her work has been described as "offer[ing] an entire world, full of surprise and humor, emotion and pain, expressed through a dance vocabulary that takes ballet technique and dismantles it to near-invisibility" by the New York Times.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sulcas |first=Roslyn |date=2007-04-19 |title=Latin-African Textures, and Ballet Dismantled |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/arts/dance/19ball.html |access-date=2023-02-28 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
She is the founder and director of Aszure Barton & Artists, an international dance project, and her works continue to tour to Europe, Asia, and Africa as well as Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. She has been an artist in residence at The Baryshnikov Arts Center.<ref name="Milzoff-2010"/>
In its review of a 2011 performance, ''The Buffalo News'' says that Barton and her company "let flow wave after wave of idiosyncratic movement that vacillated from elegantly graceful to stylized clowning and the outright bizarre."<ref name="Sucato-2011"/>
== References == {{Reflist|refs= <ref name="Asantewaa-2008">{{cite web |last=Asantewaa |first=Eva Yaa |date=April 2008 |url=http://www.dancemagazine.com/issues/April-2008/Aszure-Barton |title=Aszure Barton |work=Dance Magazine |issn=0011-6009 |accessdate=July 17, 2011 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110623081314/http://dancemagazine.com/issues/April-2008/Aszure-Barton |archivedate=June 23, 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
<ref name="Ross-2009">{{cite web |last=Ross |first=Oakland |date=November 22, 2009 |url=https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/729100--choreographer-aszure-barton-a-woman-in-motion |title=Choreographer Aszure Barton: A woman in motion |work=Toronto Star |accessdate=October 18, 2011}}</ref>
<ref name="Barton-bio">{{cite web|url=http://www.aszurebarton.com/about_aszure.html |title=Aszure Barton Biography |publisher=Aszure and Artists |accessdate=July 17, 2011 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110904144840/http://www.aszurebarton.com/about_aszure.html |archivedate=September 4, 2011 |df=mdy }}</ref>
<ref name="Milzoff-2010">{{cite web |last=Milzoff |first=Rebecca |date=December 12, 2010 |url=http://nymag.com/arts/classicaldance/dance/features/70040/ |title=Look at Me |work=New York Magazine |issn=0028-7369 |accessdate=October 18, 2011}}</ref>
<ref name="Sucato-2011">{{cite news |last=Sucato |first=Steve |date=October 13, 2011 |url=http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/article591939.ece |title=Program displays Barton's quirkiness |work=The Buffalo News |accessdate=October 16, 2011}}</ref> }}
== External links == * [http://www.aszurebarton.com Aszure and Artists] dance company * [https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/aszure-barton/lascilo-perdere-a-journey-of-letting-go/ Archival footage of Aszure & Artists performing ''Lascilo Perdere'' in 2005 at Jacob's Pillow] * [https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/aszure-barton/untouched/ Archival footage of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performing Aszure Barton's ''Untouched'' in 2010 at Jacob's Pillow]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Barton, Aszure}} Category:Canadian choreographers Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Entertainers from Alberta Category:Canadian women choreographers
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