3rd Law Dance Theater

Boulder-based 3rd Law Dance/Theater is an award-winning contemporary dance company that has been creating original theatrical and site-specific work for over two decades. 3rd Law began with a collaboration between choreographers Susan Alkaitis and Katie Elliott. In 2000 3rd Law transitioned to the artistic direction of Katie Elliott and dance ethnologist, Jim LaVita. Partners in life and art, Elliott and LaVita incorporated 3rd Law on 01/01/01, the first day of the new millennium.

Our passion

The Company professes a creative vision that merges a powerful, energetic bodily idiom with a thoughtful and personal spirit where the voice of every artist is honored in the process. We desire to create a challenging magical space for artist, collaborator, community and audience. A space where a range of emotion emerges from a place of motion in the body. Live production, different at every performance, responding to an interaction between performers and audience makes dance a unique language. We believe live dance performance is a visceral and bodily experience that moves the audience in ways that cannot be accomplished by other means.

Why the name 3rd Law?
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion is the philosophical and physical backbone to the collaborative environment that 3rd Law creates. New ideas are generated through the push and pull in movement, emotion, and idea to create dynamic working relationships.