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Judy Lieff

Lecturer of Dance

Judy Lieff is a filmmaker, educator, and co-owner of New Day Films - a filmmaker-run distribution company providing social issue documentaries to educators since 1971. Her first feature documentary, Deaf Jam, premiered on the PBS series Independent Lens and has been featured at festivals and broadcast worldwide. Judy is on faculty in the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase teaching the intersections of film and choreography, and also at Montclair State University teaching documentary film. Judy earned her M.F.A. in interdisciplinary studies from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), following a career as a professional dancer. Her credits include: envoy for the American Film Showcase; Dance On Camera residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts; National Dance/Media fellowship from the Pew Charitable Trusts; multiple grants for media projects with youth; years of experience working in production and post-production on commercials, industrials, shorts, and EPKs for feature films. Judy has documented dance and other performance events in New York City for over a decade. She also worked as a motion capture performer/choreographer, and as a stop-motion performer/choreographer on projects including Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Pat O’Neil’s The Decay of Fiction.  Most recently, Judy’s new documentary film series in development, Up For Debate, was featured in the IFP Film Week’s Project Forum Spotlight on Docs.

Research Interests

“The Body in the Browser” and the choreography of code.

Representative Courses

Collaborative Video for Choreography