Marta Renzi is an independent filmmaker and choreographer whose work bridges dance and film in deeply human, community-centered narratives. As a choreographer she has made more than 50 dances for her Project Company, and has created work for groups across the U.S. and abroad, including the Wagon Train Project in Nebraska, Balletteatro in Portugal - and Ben & Jerry's dancing ice cream flavors. As part of a continuing commitment to making dance accessible to a wide audience, Renzi helped inaugurate the "Inside/Out" program of public performances at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and her Project Company was known for its frequent appearances outdoors in public spaces.
Her site-specific pieces in locations such as the Guggenheim Museum, Union Station and the Staten Island Ferry led naturally to her work in video and film. In 1981 she was first commissioned by WGBH-TV to make
You Little Wild Heart, to music by Bruce Springsteen, followed by a second commission:
Mountainview, made in 1989 in collaboration with indie filmmaker John Sayles. Since 2005 Renzi has self-produced over 35 short videodances and documentaries, often working with non-professional performers in real world settings. Her award-winning films have screened at over 300 festivals across the US and internationally, including her feature film
Her Magnum Opus, presented by
Jonathan Demme in 2017. In 2020 she directed and edited two short films with Island Moving Company of Newport, RI;
Out of Ruin and
Through Her Eyes: A Newport Nutcracker Reimagined, which was broadcast on RI PBS in 2020/21.
In 1992, Marta received a New York Dance & Performance Award (a "Bessie") for her dance
Vital Signs, and in 1995 was the first recipient of a Dancing in the Streets award as "a fearless explorer of all manner of unconventional sites, integrating art into everyday life." She was a 2013 Bogliasco fellow at the Liguria Study Center for Arts & Humanities and received a 2015 CSA grant from Rivertown Artists Workshop to create the short documentary
Las Madres which recently screened in the Moving Body ~ Moving Image Festival at the Lincoln Center Atrium.
Marta has served on the Board of Advisors for the New York Foundation for the Arts and was a consultant for the New England Foundation for the Arts' program "Building Community Through Culture." From 2008-18 she served on the Board of Directors of Dance Films Association, a 50-year-old member-supported institution based in New York City.
Renzi has taught in Chile and Paraguay through the International Linkages program of the American Dance Festival and and is a seven-time recipient of Choreographic Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work has been funded by the Jerome Foundation, Metropolitan Life, Con Edison and the Trust for Mutual Understanding. In 2007 she received an SOS grant from the New York State Council on the Arts to participate in a workshop entitled Dance for the Camera.
In August of 2008, Renzi presented a new quartet as part of "Through a Choreographer's Eyes", curated by Martha Myers at The Yard in Massachusetts, and returned for several years subsequently since to present new work.
In pre-history, Marta performed with Douglas Dunn & Dancers, in David Gordon's PickUp Company, with Kei Takei's Moving Earth and with Twyla Tharp on the film of HAIR. In theater she has collaborated with William Finn on IN TROUSERS, Andre Gregory in THE PRIMAVERA STRING QUARTET TONIGHT! and with Cecil MacKinnon on Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET performed with the Prokofiev score played live by the Buffalo Symphony Orchestra.
Since 1981, she has lived at the same address in Nyack, New York with her husband, writer Daniel Wolff. For almost two decades she has worked at the Nanuet Family Resource Center, currently serving as Community Liaison to immigrant families.
