Project summary

A work in progress movement based piece utilizing imaginative movement vocabulary, live video projection, material partnership to research live sculpture art. This work is a collaborative body utilizing autoethnographic research and movement material research, as well as training in dance on film, through a program in Berlin, to explore deconstruction and reimagination of spirituality for queer and femme bodies.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

The goals of this project are to create an innovative practice, movement vocabulary, and work that argues for inclusivity for queer, femme, and black bodies in narratives they have been excluded from particularly in colonial Christian faith systems. The piece and the process of building the piece explores how being rooted truly in love, rather than judgement or control, can actually be deeply spiritual, real, and be a collective step to a more beautiful future. The goal is to create a stage version to premier at Triskelion Arts in NYC on April 6, on three dancers with unbound Dance Collective. Then Sara and Storm will travel to Berlin to partake in b12's movement research and dance on film festival from May to August. Upon return, the collaborators plan to utilize the skills and movement vocabulary they research from Berlin to continue their body of work as an installation and film work.

How will this funding be used?

This funding will be used to support artist fees, festival, research workshop, and performance participation in Berlin's b12 Mavericks from May to August 2025 to build movement vocabulary thorugh research, dance on film study with Johannes Weiland at b12, as well as rehearsal studio space rental, and technological/fabric materials required for the piece.

$5,000 for artist fees (to pay dancers I am collaborating with and choreographing on), as well as program research, performance, and participation

$300 for technology materials (video camera, projector, fabric, costume pieces)

$250 for studio space rental and time

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

Storm Stokes, Julia Stahlman, Unbound Dance Collective, B12 Mavericks,

Similar projects have premiered at Princeton and Alvin Ailey, and been recieved well. Storm has presented her work in galleries in NYC, and received recognition for similar travel research and thesis works created utilizing similar technology practice. As an emerging artist, this funding is essential to get off the ground and really connected to an international network and project base for research and expansion of the project.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

If this project fails, it is most likely because resources are not flowing, and time and space for the research process is not available. To pay the rent a lot of time goes to working, and it costs time and money to spend creating this work. I am not getting paid to create this work, but it is my career and life, and I will commit to it without funding or recognition.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?