Mark Tompkins (dancer)

Mark N Tompkins, born in 1954, is an American-born French artist, dancer and choreographer of contemporary dance.

Trained at the Theatre of Movement and Gesture, Tompkins moved to France in 1973, and discovered the dance with Hideyuki Yano and Elsa Wolliaston. In 1975, he made his first solos in some abandoned locations and worked with Steve Paxton.

In 1983 he founded the company IDA (International Associated Dreams) and won the Bagnolet contest the following year. In 2008, Mark Tompkins received the SEC SACD (Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers) prize for Choreography for all his work.

Mark Tompkins' interest in improvisation and real time composition leads him to collaborate through teaching and performing with many dancers, musicians, light designers and video makers. Over the years, his unique way of fabricating unidentified performance objects has become his signature. Tompkins' performances evolve towards musical theater, inspired by popular forms like Music Hall, cabaret and musical comedy. Some of Mark Tompkins's most notable performances are:

• 1976  : Naked Traces
• 1978  : Each One's Own
• 1981  : Sweet Dreems
• 1983  : Empty Holes
• 1985 - 1987  : Betrayal
• 1988  : Nouvelles for the Avignon Festival, based on the novel IDA by Gertrude Stein
• 1992  : Witness, Hommage à Harry Sheppard
• 1996  : Gravity
• 1996  : Under My Skin, Hommage à Josephine Baker
• 1998  : Tributes to Montrose Capital
• 2000  : RemiXamor
• 2005  : Animal Male
• 2007  : Animal Female
• 2011  : Black'N'Blues Canaccord

In 2014, Mark Tompkins and Jeremy Wade performed their collaboratively-developed play Stardust in underground theater of the Abrons Arts Center as part of the 2014 Queer New York International Arts Festival.