Diane Torr is an artist working in dance, performance, installation, film and video.
After graduating from Dartington College of Arts in 1976, where she studied Release Technique with Mary Fulkerson and Contact Improvisation, Diane moved to New York, and over 25 years developed her career as an artist as an integral part of Manhattan’s lively downtown art scene. She was involved in the start-up of WOW Cafe in 1982, and pioneered the fusion of feminism and erotic dancing, twenty years prior to the advent of “new burlesque.” In 2002, she re-situated her art practice in Glasgow. She is best known for her drag king performances, which include various male characters such as “Hamish McAllister”, “Jack Sprat”, “Mister ‘EE’” and “Danny King” etc. Diane pioneered drag king culture in New York with the creation of man for a day workshops in 1989. Since then she has brought these workshops to major cities throughout the US, Europe, Eurasia, and most recently New Delhi, India, where she had a Khoj Art Workshop residency in February-March 2006. In 1995 BBC2 documented her work in its QED series. She is one of the protagonists in Gabriel Baur’s feature film Venus Boyz(2002), and her work has been the subject of profiles in publications including GQ, Washington Post, Village Voice, The Boston Globe, The Manchester Guardian, The Independent, German Vogue, der Spiegel, among others.

As an educator, she began teaching workshops and seminars as a visiting artist at New York University, and was an adjunct professor at CUNY 2000-02. She has held residencies at the European Dance Development Centre in Arnhem, at the School for New Dance in Amsterdam, and at Helsinki Theatre Academy. Recent engagements in the UK include lectures and workshops on subjects such as gender performance, the history of performance art, and so on at institutions such as Glasgow School of Art, University of Glasgow, University of Leeds, University of York, University of Aberystwyth, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, Birkbeck College, London, and Plymouth University.

Diane received her MFA from Bard College, New York. She is a Fellow of the Whitney Museum Independent Studies Program and of the Macdowell Art Colony. She has a training in the Japanese martial art of aikido and holds the rank of San Dan (3rd degree black belt). Personal grants and awards include Scottish Arts Council, New York State Council on the Arts, Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance, Jerome Foundation, Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund, and Art Matters.

still: Girl In Trouble, 1984
photo credit: Claude Crommelin