Puppet Master

Robert E. Cleary (Cleary) joined his partner, Lisa Thurrell, as a co-artistic director of Kanopy Dance in 1995.Cleary has toured, performed, choreographed, and taught throughout the United States and Denmark. Mr. Cleary received his Bachelor of Arts in Dance Performance and Choreography and a Bachelor of Arts in History, 19th Century Europe, from the University of Minnesota. He trained intensively at American Ballet Theatre and with Susan Klein in Klein Release Technique in New York. Influenced by ballet, modernists as well as post- modernists, Cleary is in constant exploration of relevant dance expression. An exceptional movement artist, the medium of physical theater suits him like a second skin.

Critics hail Cleary as “fiery and riveting, inspired, wicked dancing…astonishing…”. As a choreographer, his work has been widely praised as “classic, gut centered 20^th century modern dance”, and “riotously pleasurable, intense, richly satisfying”. Cleary’s choreography has been featured by numerous presenters including at several Arhus and Copenhagen Dance Festivals and in Chicago at the Ruth Page Center. His most recent commission was for the choreographic work, This is Not America, performed in March 2019, by the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble in New York City. 

He was soloist in Nini Theilade’s Ballet Schubert, created originally for Massine’s Ballet Russe (1997) Copenhagen, Denmark. He annually performs as guest soloist for Ballet Minnesota in Nutcracker (1994 to date), as well as High Brahmin in La Bayadere (2008), and most notably, the lead role created on him for Beethoven’s 9th Symphony (2008, 2018).

Cleary has served on the guest faculty in dance at Idrætshøjskole, Oure, Denmark (1997); Illinois State University, Normal, IL; Mankato Ballet, Ballet Minnesota, Southwest Texas State, Texas (1998), among others.