Jody Sperling (Artistic Director) is a dancer, choreographer, and dance scholar based in New York City. Sperling has gained an international reputation as an expert on Loie Fuller and as an contemporary interpreter of Fuller's style of dancing. Sperling has lectured and/or performed at colleges, universities, festivals, and conferences in the US, Canada, Ireland, Italy, and Russia. Sperling's interest in this historic figure began in 1997 with The Butterfly Dance, a collaboration with film choreographer and dance historian Elizabeth Aldrich commissioned by the Library of Congress. Since then, Sperling has created five Fuller-inspired solos, including The Serpentine Dance (1999, after the 1891 original), The Magic-Lantern Dance (2000, a collaboration with the American Magic-Lantern Theater), Dance of the Elements (2002), La Nuit (2003), and Debussy Soirée (2005). Recently, Sperling has expanded the Fuller vocabulary into group works: Ghosts (to premiere in 2008); the trio Roman Sketches (2007), co-commissioned by Vermont Performance Lab, LLC and Marlboro College, and now in the touring repertory of the Netherland’s renowned Introdans company; and the septet Ballet of Light (2007), a reinterpretation of Fuller’s 1908 original, commissioned by the University of Wyoming with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts/American Masterpieces program.

Sperling's interest in history also encompasses other eras: she has performed Yvonne Rainer's 1960s landmark Trio A, while 16th-century galliard steps served as inspiration for her dance Orlando. Sperling has served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Dance History Scholars and a regular presenter at the Society's conferences. She holds an MA in Performance Studies (NYU, 1996) and a BA in Dance and Italian (Wesleyan, 1992). In addition to her proficiency in Fuller-style dancing, Sperling is also a hoop dancer and hoop instructor, and also has studied and made dances for low-flying trapeze (see Hoop Act, 2005). Sperling's articles have appeared in Dance Magazine, The Village Voice, The SDHS Conference Proceedings, and other publications, including the six-volume International Encyclopedia of Dance (Oxford University Press, 1998), for which she served as Illustrations Editor.