photo: Troika Ranch 2009 by Alex Matzke

Co-founded by choreographer/media artist Dawn Stoppiello and composer/media artist Mark Coniglio, Troika Ranch is an arts organization that creates contemporary, hybrid artworks through an ongoing examination of the moving body and its relationship to technology. This aesthetic framework informed Troika Ranch’s artistic output on every level since its inception in 1994 and has earned the organization a critically acclaimed international reputation. Based collectively in New York City from 1994-2009, then distributed in Europe and the US with a primary base in Portland, Oregon from 2009-2015, Troika Ranch maintained a national and international presence by building upon a ‘body of work’ that fostered many points of contact with the public – through the creation, presentation and touring of collaborative, multi-media performances, installations and films; annual intensive workshops on live-media collaboration; and through publications and lectures on the history and future of live-media performance. Stoppiello and Coniglio are currently focused on building the company’s archive Spark Machine.

In the 1990s, Troika Ranch and its co-founders were among the pioneers in the field now known as Dance and Technology. The company performed in international festivals and venues and its founders were greatly sought after as guest artists, teachers, and lecturers. Coniglio and Stoppiello contributed much to the technology, equipment, and techniques currently in use in the field and their expertise is unprecedented. The name Troika Ranch refers to its founders’ creative methodology, which involves a hybrid of three artistic disciplines, dance/theater/media (the Troika), in cooperative artistic interaction (the Ranch). Troika Ranch produces art that values live interaction – between viewer and viewed, performer and image, movement and sound, people and technology. The works may be presented as performances, installations, or in portable formats, drawing on all that contemporary invention has to offer.

Troika Ranch co-founders Coniglio and Stoppiello have been honored with the 2012 World Technology Award in The Arts; a 2011 nomination for the Alpert Award in dance; a 2005 ‘Eddy’ Award from Live Design Magazine; a 2004 Statue Award from the Princess Grace Foundation-USA; a 2004 Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica Cyberarts Competition; and a 2003 New York Dance & Performance ‘Bessie’ Award. The company has received major support from The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), the National Endowment for the Arts, the MAP Fund, the Arts Council England, and the Jerome foundation among others.