Artist Statement
I create performances that, through experiments with choreographic form, situate mystery, animality, and aggression within the feminine. I delve into somatic experiences and the fleshy reality of embodiment in their larger social and cultural contexts. Enacting a tension between formal clarity and chaotic wildness, each site-responsive work orients the architecture of the visceral, moving body inside the physical architecture of the space. I use raw, intuitive, improvisational scores and a deep practice of repetition to cull and distill images. Interdisciplinary collaborations with experimental composers, live musicians, and visual designers are crucial to my work, allowing me to integrate visual and sonic landscapes with the moving body. My recent works are assertive reclamations of female embodiment. In these works, I and my dancers dive into the intense physical rigor of the laboring performer, whose will and autonomy alter her surroundings. We extend our presence through the physical deconstruction and manipulation of utilitarian theatrical materials. Mining the physical and sonic elements of the theater’s poetic and emotional vibrations, our bodies emerge as a resonant, echoing force.
Anna Sperber_Bow Echo_Dance Performance_2021_Rooftop of The Old American Can Factory