Alumni Awards: Paul Boylan Award

2024 Recipient

Catherine Coury (BFA ’10, dance)

Catherine Coury is the co-founder and co-artistic director of award-winning international contemporary dance company Marcat Dance and Festival Vildanza, based in the south of Spain. She is the principal dancer, creative assistant, and wife of choreographer Mario Bermúdez, as well as a teacher of Ohad Naharin’s Gaga movement language.

As a dancer for Marcat Dance, Coury has been hailed as Best Female Contemporary Dancer at the Escenarios de Sevilla (2023), the Lorca Awards (2023), and the PAD Awards (2020). She was nominated for the Spanish Academy Award for Best Female Performer at the MAX Awards (2020, 2023, and 2024) and at the Talía Awards (2023 and 2024).

Dedicated to dance education, Coury teaches at major conservatories and dance institutions around the world. In 2019, she initiated the first study-abroad program in Spain with the University of Michigan Department of Dance, a program that is ongoing.

Prior to living in Spain, Coury resided in Tel Aviv for one year and New York for five years as a performer with Shen Wei Dance Arts and Shannon Gillen & Guests. As a dance administrator, she played an integral role in the development of Andrea Miller’s Gallim Dance and the Playground NYC.

Coury is a proud native of Grosse Pointe, Michigan; U-M graduate; and mother of two.