Susan Murphy
Director

Susan Murphy, Artistic and Executive Director and Founder of Canopy, moved to Athens in 1999 with her really adorable husband, Don Carson. Together with architects Chris Evans, Jennifer Bloomer and Bob Segrest, they envisioned and built Canopy. From there it has been guided by Susan, artistically, and by Don, technically, with MUCH support and input from the Canopy Board, by the performing Canopy Repertory Co. and by the students who come there to learn the art of the "single point trapeze" as well as other aerial arts. Susan holds a Master's degree in modern dance from Mills college in Oakland, CA and is a Certified Movement Analyst through the Laban Institute for Movement Studies in New York City. She taught modern dance at the University of Georgia from 1999-2002 as well as teaching community classes there in trapeze. (Students from these classes formed the nucleus of Canopy when it opened in 2002.) Susan began studying low-to-the-floor dance trapeze with Terry Sendgraff in Berkeley, CA in 1978. Moving to NYC in 1983, she continued developing trapeze as fitness, self-expression, and performance art, performing at Lincoln Center in 1988. After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1990, Susan continued teaching kids and adults and performed at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco in 1994. She continues to perform and teach at Canopy Studio and is developing a Teacher's Manual so that the work that has been pioneered and taken root at Canopy can be documented for future generations of aspiring aerialists. Her interest is also turning towards creating non-performance classes for men and women over 50 who want to feel more fluid, flexible, balanced, strong and centered in their bodies. These classes will begin in the Spring of 2007. Besides trapeze Susan loves to spend time with her husband and cats in their home in the Winterville woods and to hike, swim, kayak, drum, dance and talk on the phone with friends from afar. Her favorite poet...a nature mystic...is Mary Oliver. Susan plans to live a long life, balanced with pleasure, service, stillness and empathy for all living creatures.