Rudy Perez

Groundbreaking choreographer Rudy Perez was a pioneer of 1960s post-modern dance. His minimalist but wildly experimental work, marked by spare, precise movements, helped ignite the budding Los Angeles dance scene after he moved west from New York in the late 1970s. LA’s open spaces and natural landscapes inspired his innovative, site-specific works, and his interpretive abstract expressionism was considered revelatory at the time. 

Perez studied with Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and Mary Anthony in the 1950s, but found his voice in New York’s avant-garde dance scene of the 1960s. He was part of the experimental collective Judson Dance Theater with Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Lucinda Childs, and Trisha Brown. 

Perez moved to LA in 1978 for a yearlong substitute teaching job at UCLA and formed a dance company shortly thereafter. Throughout his career, he created dozens of pieces, including work for the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival. He also taught in numerous places, including at the USC School of Dramatic Arts and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts.  

Perez was recognized in 2005 with the Lester Horton Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2006 with an honorary doctorate from the California Institute for the Arts. Countdown: Reflections on a Life in Dance, a documentary about his life and work, by Severo and Rachel Perez (no relation), was broadcast nationally on PBS.