Renee D'Aoust

Trained on scholarship as a dancer at Pacific Northwest Ballet and later at the Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance, Renée E. D’Aoust performed on proscenium stages and in black box theaters. Now as a writer, she has numerous publications and awards to her credit, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts Journalism Institute for Dance Criticism at American Dance Festival, support from the Puffin Foundation, and grants from Idaho Commission on the Arts. D’Aoust holds degrees from Columbia University and the University of Notre Dame.

D'Aoust has received "Notable Essay" listings in the "Best American Essays" series and an essay was included in Robert Gottlieb's anthology "Reading Dance" (Pantheon). A critical dance essay is included in "On Stage Alone" (University Press Florida). Her literary essay publications include the following journals in print and/or online: Brevity, The Collagist, Drunken Boat, Hippocampus, Mid-American Review, Notre Dame Review, Redwood Coast Review, Rhino, and Trestle Creek Review. In addition to other awards, D'Aoust won the Midnight Sun Fiction Award from the Permafrost journal and the AWP "Intro to Journals" project (nonfiction category).

When not writing dance reviews for www.culturevulture.net, D'Aoust loves writing about her hound dog Truffle. An avid hiker, D'Aoust and her husband log many miles in North America and Europe.