Bradley Teal Ellis is a New York City-based dance artist and educator specializing in Contact Improvisation. He has researched & practiced Contact Improvisation for 28 years. Since 2009, he has been faculty at Movement Research, one of the world’s leading laboratories for dance and improvisation. Since 2013 he has been teaching at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts/Experimental Theatre Wing, SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Dance, and has served as guest lecturer at Columbia University’s MFA Acting Program. His teaching extends across international contexts—from leading workshops at the International Contact Festival in Freiburg, Germany, to residential intensives in France, Vermont, and Cuba, to facilitating public classes & performance inside MoMA’s galleries during the Judson Dance Theatre: The Work Is Never Done exhibition. Bradley’s pedagogical approach centers on individual embodiment, shaping the attention & relational intelligence, drawing from postmodern dance lineages while remaining grounded in the foundational principles of Contact Improvisation. As a performer, he has created site-specific durational works, collaborated with visual artists, and devised scored improvisation performances with the performance group SetGO. His work explores the intersection of improvisation, ritual, and social engagement, consistently asking how bodies in contact can create spaces of vulnerability, attentiveness, and transformation.
