Marla Phelan is an internationally recognized dance artist based in New York City. Phelan works within film, fashion, and stage to portray characters at the intersection of physical rigor and intuitive humanness.
Phelan's upcoming collaborations include a new work with Emursive Productions, movement direction for multi-disciplinary artist Kinlaw at Pioneer Works, and a new play, Theater Will Not Prepare You for Death, premiering at LaMama in the fall of 2024.
Phelan recently premiered Obscure Passage, a triptych video installation at Chemistry Creative. Phelan works as a Creative Director at The Mckittrick Hotel, creating expansive immersive events at the iconic home of Sleep No More.
Phelan is a 2023 Alvin Ailey New Directions Choreographer, a 2023 LMCC grant recipient, the 2022-2023 Simons Foundation & Gibney Open Interval Resident Artist, the 2022 Sacred Heart University Emerging Choreographic Fellow, Alpha Omega Dance Theater’s 2021 Studio to Stage Resident Artist, and a 2020 AKC Fund grantee. Phelan founded the creative initiative, Movement Museum, through Gibney’s 2020-2022 Moving Toward Justice Fellowship, providing mentorship and career expansion to dance artists.
Her work has premiered at Lincoln Center, The Joyce Theater, SXSW, Dance on Camera Festival, Future Dance Festival, FringeARTS, WestFest, Dixon Place, Gibney Center, Edgerton Center, Jack Crystal Theater, PepsiCo Theater, KnJ Theater and publications Nowness, V Magazine, Refinery29, The NYTimes, and NYMagazine. Phelan directed and choreographed the award-winning short film The Fell of Dark and has directed movement for Fischerspooner, Michael C Hall, RCHRDSN Studio, Comedy Central, NBC, CBS, and campaigns for brands like Mugler, Maison Margiela, Mazda, GAP, Reebok, LOLA, and Stuart Weitzman. Phelan recently created original choreography for City Springs Theater Company's Fiddler on the Roof directed by Shuler Hensley.
Phelan has danced for Gibney Company, Hofesh Shechter Company, Akram Khan, Azure Barton, Company XIV, Broadway’s Fiddler on the Roof (original cast and the national tour's associate choreographer/director), and Punchdrunk's Sleep No More and The Drowned Man. Phelan is on faculty at Mark Morris Dance Center, and has led workshops at NYU Tisch, Bard College, and Washington University. Phelan received her BFA from The Juilliard School in 2009.