Morleigh Steinberg

Morleigh Steinberg (born 18 October 1965) is an American choreographer and dancer with the production company Arcane Collective. She is married to The Edge, the guitarist with the band U2.

Raised in Los Angeles and schooled in modern dance, Steinberg became a member of the dancer-illusionist company MOMIX in 1983. They became known for their visual humour and contorted positions. In 1986, she co-founded ISO, a dance company that embodied an approach they called "serious fun" and sometimes collaborated with a singing group, and gave performances around the country and abroad. In both companies, she was both a choreographer and dancer. She staged her experimental dance solo production and did choreographic work for films and music videos. Starting in the mid-1990s, she branched out into lighting design and film directing on dance-related themes. She has often collaborated with Japanese choreographer and dancer Oguri, with whom she co-founded Arcane Collective, a production company.

Steinberg first became involved with U2 when she appeared in the 1987 music video for "With or Without You". She was hired as a choreographer, and subsequently as a belly dancer for the song "Mysterious Ways" during the band's Zoo TV Tour in 1992 and 1993. Her relationship with The Edge began at the end of the Zoo TV Tour. The couple married in 2002 and have two children together. They maintain residences in Ireland, France, and the United States.

Early life and education Steinberg was born and raised in Los Angeles to an affluent family. Her father, Robert, is a lawyer in Los Angeles. She has two sisters, older sister Roxanne and younger sister Eliza. Her family is Jewish. At age 16, she spent time at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and when 17, left with her sister for a year of dancing in Paris. From 1983 to 1986, Steinberg toured nationally with MOMIX, and the group became known for its visual humour, contorted positions, and Trompe-l'œil effects. The four split from MOMIX in 1986 The group's lead singer, Bono, was a fan of ISO and she was cast for the music video of their hit "With or Without You". She did the choreography for Paula Abdul's 1991–1992 Under My Spell Tour. A 1990 review concluded that, "It is easy to be optimistic about ISO; its shows are goofy fun. But the apparently casual silliness derives from great theatrical shrewdness." A 1991 review said that, "The evening got off to a good, punchy start, then dwindled irretrievably into sophomoric hijinks." A 1993 review stated that, "Iso is after laughs and it gets them. But its targets are threadbare just when dance could use some sharp satirists." In one 1990 performance, Steinberg used elastic bands to playfully reshape her arms and legs as noodles, then flew from wires like an angel. She also performed a solo work, the 1992 experimental show called XRAYD at the La Boca performance space in Los Angeles, which featured original music from Brian Eno and Paul Chavez.

After meeting U2 in 1987, Steinberg stayed in touch with Bono and when the group was putting the Zoo TV Tour together in 1992, the lead singer thought it would be good to have a choreographer to critique his moves on stage. Recognizing Bono was not a dancer, she focused on movements he could do, and sought to help him pace himself and not get lost visually in the show's enormous stage set. Bono asked Steinberg if she would like to take over and she agreed, although she had never belly danced before Bono at times sang to the belly dancer's image on the giant video screens around the stage. During the tour, Steinberg changed the colours of her outfit to match certain occasions, such as wearing orange and black around Halloween. Steinberg was originally reluctant to put her own activities on hold to continue on to the "Zooropa" leg of the tour, but eventually agreed. Unlike others in the tour entourage, Steinberg exhibited a professional independence from the group and did not wait on their whims. In 1993, while still on tour, Steinberg appeared in U2's Kevin Godley-directed music video for their single "Numb", first with her feet as part of the video's assault on The Edge and then with her back as she belly danced.

Morleigh Steinberg has been working together with Japanese choreographer and dancer Oguri since the early 1990s, documenting Oguri's Butoh-derived style of dance in various environments, including Joshua Tree National Park and Los Angeles. A review of the film on DVD Talk said that "Moreleigh Steinberg's dance-filled daydream about relationships in freefall will be difficult for some to appreciate (the mostly modern dance is very insular and odd), but the brilliant cinematic mood created by the director helps us over the slightly strange nature of it all." (In 2006 the film was included in a DVD release of the Francis Ford Coppola-produced claymation film of William S. Burroughs' The Junky's Christmas. In 1999, Steinberg was selected for a ten-week National Dance/Media Project fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Steinberg next came up with the idea of showing Oguri moving through two busy Los Angeles intersections. The result is the 11-minute dance film "Xing", which was screened in 2003 at the Getty Center during Dance Camera West.

Since Steinberg settled in Ireland, she has been involved in a number of projects, including doing the lighting for a Royal Hibernian Academy fringe gallery exhibition in 2001 and for Rex Levitates' dance production Bread & Circus in 2007, which showcases her collaborator Liz Roche. Steinberg provided the inspiration behind the dropped-from-on-high steering-wheel microphone that was a striking visual feature of the 2009–2011 U2 360° Tour.

She was the artistic director of the 2010s Dance Homage to Irish painter Louis le Brocquy, entitled Cold Dream Colour. Excerpts from Cold Dream Colour were performed at the Guggenheim Museum's Works & Process series for two nights in 2013 in New York, with Irish broadcaster John Kelly moderating a discussion of the work with its creators. The US Cold Dream Colour was presented by Arcane Collective, Steinberg continued to direct and appear in productions of Arcane Collective, including a 2016 performance at New York Live Arts consisting of adaptations of scenes from the Samuel Beckett trilogy.

In 2017, Steinberg was featured as the second of two women in the video accompanying performances of the song "Trip Through Your Wires" on U2's Joshua Tree Tour 2017. She is dressed as a cowgirl, often drawing stage comment from Bono, while an American flag is painted on a wooden shack by the other woman.

Personal life Steinberg (second from left) with The Edge, Ali Hewson, and U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1998 quote="All of us had fallen in love with Morleigh, she has a very easy way about her. She is a Californian in all the ways that you love California, a bright light in a very low-key way. Edge fell for her. It was that thing that often happens when people fall in love, they were friends before they were lovers." — —Bono, on Steinberg and The Edge's relationship They had three children, but separated in March 1991. Steinberg and The Edge developed a friendship during the Zoo TV Tour, Following the tour's completion, Steinberg and The Edge discovered they missed each other, so she moved to Dublin in 1994, and the relationship became firm. and their son, Levi, was born in 1999 in the same city. Steinberg had kept her home and many of her possessions in Los Angeles after moving to Dublin; only after she began raising her children in Ireland did she start feeling that country was her home. Following the September 11 attacks, she was one of the backing singers on the song "Walk On" for the America: A Tribute to Heroes telethon.

The couple married on 17 June 2002 Four days later, their French wedding was held with 200 or more guests at the hilltop village of Èze overlooking the Côte d'Azur followed by a seaside reception.

The couple bought and renovated a €4 million house in Killiney outside Dublin during 2002–2003, After discussion with the family, U2 went forward with its 2005–2006 Vertigo Tour, but changed scheduling and reduced dates to enable The Edge to go home more often. Bono later called Steinberg a heroine for having to take up the parental burden and said that without her, the tour would never have taken place. By 2010, Steinberg and The Edge had residences in Dublin, New York, the South of France and Los Angeles. The project was reactivated and the battle intensified again in 2014. Finally, in 2016, the couple received approval from the commission based on a revised design. However, the Sierra Club filed suit against the project.