Chartreuse Coleman

ENSEMBLE Premiere: 18.01.2023 (Hamburg, DE) and further performances at KuB Bad Oldesloe Choreographer/Director: Jenny Beyer Length: 70 minutes Performers/Choreography: Chartreuse Coleman, Chihiro Araki, Israel Akpan Sunday, Venetsiana Kalampaliki, Nina Wollny, Salah Zatar, Chris Leuenberger, Joel Small Venue: Kampnagel Hamburg

We end up – and not only in dance – in the same dilemma again and again. The longing for togetherness rubs up against the search for a distinction, differentiation, for personal freedom, for breaking out of a group. And although these two forces are seemingly incompatible, it is clear that they cannot exist without each other. We can turn it around however we want: If we focus on the same thing – on the perfect correspondence of intention and movement in different bodies – we inevitably come to the emergence of differences. And vice versa in the same way.
So what can be seen when eight bodies dance with each other on one stage – as in the case of ENSEMBLE?

ENSEMBLE is a production by Jenny Beyer, in co-production with Kampnagel Hamburg, funded by the Ministry of Culture and the Media Hamburg. It is conceptionally docked to the three-year-project TO GIVE–TO TAKE–TO NEED, funded by DIEHL+RITTER/TANZPAKT Stadt-Land-Bund with the support of the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR.Hilfsprogramm Tanz.

The guest performance of ENSEMBLE at KuB Bad Oldesloe is funded by Danceland – Guest-performance partnership programme of the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media Hamburg.

Temple of Care, foster shell for stray gods Premiere: 17-19.06.2022 (Mainz, DE)
Choreographers/Performers: Chartreuse Coleman, Camille Jemelen, Theo Ilichenko, Iocaste-Kyriaki Zografou Mantzakidou
Commissioned by: Tanzkongress 2022
Length: durational, immersive installation (3 days 10:00-18:00h)
Collaborative Team: Elie Gregory (Sound Composer), Lucia Vonrhein and Marielle Sokoll (Set Design)
Venue: Staatstheater Mainz (Mainz, DE)

What would it take to imagine relational ecologies of care from scratch, beyond political defeats, irreversible losses, and the hyper-individualized colonial capitalist care industry? Within the Tanzkongress, we offer space for intimate encounters with each other and these haunting questions and generate a living installation that we inhabit and shapeshift as we explore deeper into embodied polylogues of queer care practices. As an experiment in creation of a temporary poetic-discursive container, it invites visiting individuals to reflect on and practice how we show up for each other, move along the rough edges of the unknown, get drenched in each other’s experience, stay present in the eye of a storm, and inquire together into the possibility of tenderly daydreaming anew towards co-liberation and collective healing.

Gefördert durch die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Programm NEUSTART KULTUR, Hilfsprogramm DIS-TANZEN des Dachverband Tanz Deutschland.

Texas Tranny

Premiere: 09.09.2023 (Berlin, DE)

Choreographer/Performer: Chartreuse Coleman

Commissioned by: TANZNACHT BERLIN Festival

Length: 50 minutes, white box gallery-style performance

Venue: UFER_STUDIOS (Berlin, DE)

A ritual of working through my love/hate relationship with Texas, stripper style. This place I was born and raised, and that taught me trans people don’t exist… but yet, here I am existing. A place that instilled within me ideas of womanhood and femininity that are woven deeply to my root, yet some quite toxic… but many that I still love. The idea of birthing a child, having a husband, being courted. A place that’s not safe for me and where I no longer have a home, but yet I continue to dream and fantasize about. When I imagine the word “peace”, it’s being back on the beach there, the Gulf of Mexico. All of the music is from Texas artists, and yes, some references to guns, jesus, and cowgirls… because Texas. The piece is a celebration of my transsexual body and my trans girl dreams that I’ve had to hold dearly since childhood.

Gloria Höckner, Chartreuse Coleman, Kay Taavitsainen (14.11. – 20.11.2022) @ Hellerau [Dresden, DE]

In „Mixed Feelings” erforschen Chartreuse Coleman, Kay Taavitsainen und Gloria Höckner Pleasure und Sensibilität als Quelle für kollektives Wissen und Fürsorge. Dabei treiben sie durch ihre eigenen multidisziplinären Methoden im Bereich Choreografie, Tanz und Performance. Sie entwickeln Praktiken, die auf Heilung anstelle von (Selbst-)Zerstörung, Empowerment anstelle von Unterdrückung, Solidarität und kooperativen Bindungen anstelle von Selbstwerdung und Fürsorge anstelle von Wettbewerb basieren. In ihrer Arbeit gestalten sie radikale Praktiken der Selbstfürsorge als Werkzeuge, um Raum für die Existenz von Trans-Körpern in Umgebungen zu schaffen, die sie im Laufe der Geschichte ausgeschlossen haben.

Wie können wir – auch im Bereich der Kunst – nicht nur eine symbolische Kritik an unterdrückerischen und ausbeuterischen kapitalistischen Systemen üben und auch die materiellen Bedingungen unserer Arbeit und unserer Beziehung zueinander verändern? Was müssen wir kultivieren, um einen Raum zu schaffen, in dem sich Körper mit unterschiedlichen Fähigkeiten engagieren können und traumatisierte Körper sich sicher fühlen können?

Death Altar

I engaged in an intensive three-month period of researching and crafting a community dance ritual practice honoring deceased trans individuals. This body-based practice is an offering of care for the dead, an act of remembering, and a process of building an ephemeral community altar for trans ancestors (trancestors). The practice creates pop-up spaces that are centering trans women and foster community through the vulnerable and brave space of sharing stories with our body.

“To be a trans woman is to be a death priestess.” It still rings true to me. Even in 2022, the life expectancy of a trans woman (most especially trans women of color) is shorter than most other people. An unfortunate reality of being trans is learning a relationship to death. I’ve had to say goodbye to many trans friends of mine and with each one, it opens the wounds and pain of all the people before. A lineage of death. So how do I hold this relationship to death with care, intimacy, and integrity? This question is a guiding compass throughout the process of researching and crafting this ongoing community dance ritual practice.

Within the focused residency period at Lake Studios Berlin, I created brave spaces that have a foundation of trust and care to initiate this ritual of caring for trancestors. I shared pictures and music, told stories, listened, and danced with other trans individuals. We brought the memories and stories through our body sensually through movement. The ritual space centered trans women and valued grief and healing. Grief and healing are often demanded of us to hold alone, but this practice offers the possibility to move through these communally through dance and to be witnessed in the process.

Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR.

You can download project PDF here

Femme Squad is a developing project, creating sacred spaces of care for trans women-- places that inspire us to dance, rest, and heal together.

Within the framework of our society, transitioning is something that is conceptualized as taking place in the sterile environment of a therapist’s office or in medical facilities, but there are other intimate parts of myself that must transition too-- my creativity, my dance practice, my sexuality, my spirituality. Where is the space for those? That is at the heart of this project, creating space for those parts of me and other sisters* to transform.

The care temple is a temporary and emergent space. A place that enables the accessible transmission of care. It’s a place for makeup skill-sharing, clothing swaps, sharing care practices, witnessing, dancing, making altars to trans ancestors. It’s a place for regulating our nervous system. Soundscapes that hug us. Textures that calm us. An ephemeral place of intimacy and belonging between sisters*.

Gefördert durch die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Programm NEUSTART KULTUR, Hilfsprogramm DIS-TANZEN des Dachverband Tanz Deutschland.

Talking Fears was a week-long research lab facilitated and directed by Choreographer Julian Weber at New Fears Gallery in Berlin. Together as a small group of collaborators, we explored the topic of our personal fears and how to use them as material. Each collaborating artist worked with a graphic designer and the process culminated in a series of posters based on our “fear material” that were plastered as street art on a large scale throughout the city of Berlin. The poster featured here is from Chartreuse’s material.

Premiere: 21.08.2021 Künstlerhaus Lukas (Ahrenshoop, DE)

Choreographer/Director: Antoine Carle (tchivett)

Performers/Choreography: Chartreuse Coleman, Am Ertl, Iokasti Kyriaki Zografou Mantzakidou, Camille Jemelen, tchivett

LANDSCAPES OF DESIRE stellt Berührung und Consent in den Mittelpunkt einer künstlerischen Forschung, um intime und transformative choreografische Erfahrungen zu schaffen. Berührungen werden zu Bewegungen und Skulpturen. Die Körper der Tänzer*innen verwandeln sich, verschmelzen, werden abstrakt. Alles, was sich hier entfaltet, wurde sichtbar diskutiert und vereinbart und entstand durch den Prozess des Consent-Making. Consent beschreibt einvernehmliches Handeln auf der Grundlage von Wünschen. Die Förderung der Consent-Kultur ist eine Schlüsselstrategie zeitgenössischer feministischer Diskurse, um geschlechtsspezifischer Gewalt entgegenzuwirken. Aus der emanzipatorischen Perspektive des #metoo-Phänomens heraus, wurde die Consent-Bildung entwickelt. Neben der Liveperformance werden Videos über Projekte der Künstlergruppe gezeigt.

WWW

PDF

Piazza Paradiso: Rave New World

https://galeriewedding.de/piazza-paradiso-rave-new-world/

Premiere: 04.06.2021 (Berlin, DE)

Choreographer/Director: Lo Höckner (https://gloriahoeckner.net/)

Length: 120 minutes

Performers/Choreography: Chartreuse Coleman, Alistair Watts, Kay Taavitsainen, Onur Agbaba, Ria St Laurent, Samuli Emery, Sarah Stanley, Siham Refaie, Zadiel Sasmaz

Venue: Galerie Wedding – Rathausvorplatz

Ways of “existing otherwise” are being searched for in today’s (post-) pandemic times. In times of virtualization of interpersonal contact and loss of bodily togetherness, Piazza Paradiso: Rave New World revives dance as a form of the social and the collective. The Piazza Paradiso is a kind of utopian place, a longing, a search for new ways of relating and practices of solidarity; it is real and exists in the space that the dancers create between each other. Following the practice of rave, which transforms urban space, the dancing bodies turn the Rathausvorplatz in Wedding into a place where diverse bodies and embodiments are celebrated. Over the course of a several hours, performers from different dance communities (hip hop, voguing, folklore, etc.) and contexts create a performative setting that gives space to the urgency of dance and of collectivity.

Link to video

LeibBeiMir| |BodyByMe

Premiere: 04.07.2019 (Berlin, DE)

Choreographer/Director: Katrina Elizabeth Bastian

Length: 60 minutes

Performers: Chartreuse Coleman, Shannon Leypoldt, Angela Fegers, Berit Einemo Frøysland, Briana Dickinson, Nobutaka Shomura

Venue: bat-Studiotheater (Berlin, DE)

Fake it till you make it baby. But what if you can’t make it? All of us, audience and performer alike, are constantly busy pretending. But what happens when the perfect fake begins to crack and the living flesh shines through? LeibBeiMir| |BodyByMe brings movement, text and live electronic music together in a series of performative tasks in order to provoke moments of transgression.

Fake it till you make it baby. Aber was ist, wenn du es nicht schaffst? Wir alle, Publikum und Performer, sind beständig damit beschäftigt, etwas vorzuspielen. Doch was geschieht, wenn der perfekte Fake brüchig wird und das Leibliche durchscheint? LeibBeiMir| |BodyByMe bringt Bewegung, Text und elektronischer Live-Musik in einer Abfolge von performativen Aufgaben zusammen, um Momente der Grenzüberschreitung zu provozieren.

PYLON III

80 mins //Premiered February 8th, 2018 at the Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center (SEATTLE)

Direction + Concept >> Chartreuse Coleman

Choreography >> Chartreuse Coleman in collaboration with dancers

Rehearsal Director >> Erica Badgeley

Dancers >> Erica Badgeley, Alexander Quetell, Robert Moore (remount), Gabriella Czarniak (remount), Laura Carella (remount), Cameo Lethem, Alicia Pugh

Text + Performance >> Stefan Richmond

Sound Composer >> Monika Khot (Nordra)

Visual Media + Set Design >> Alex Boeschenstein

Tech Design >> Ben Chaykin

Lighting Design >> Amiya Brown

Wardrobe Design >> Connor Carrara

soundtrack

PYLON III was originally commissioned by Cornish Presents and premiered at the Cornish Playhouse at Seattle Center in February 2018. An excerpted remount of the work was shown at Seattle International Dance Festival on June 12th and 13th, 2018.

"an overwhelmingly beautiful and harrowing experience"

- Dave Segal, The Stranger

PYLON III is the final work in a trilogy of dance performances choreographed by Chartreuse Coleman, presenting an abstract narrative of human resilience and a journey towards embodied utopia. The PYLON series examines complex systems of control using highly physical choreography and architectural set pieces.

PYLON III was made possible through partial funding support by Case van Rij, Timothy Tomlinson, and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, residency support through KT Niehoff's 10 degrees and Seattle International Dance Festival’s James Ray Residency Program, sound mastering support by Pierced Ears Recording, and generous contributions by Photon Factory design studio.

PYLON II

60 mins //Premiered October 21st, 2016 at King Street Station (SEATTLE)

Direction + Choreography >> Chartreuse Coleman

Performed by >> David Rue, Jenna Eady, Cheryl Delostrinos, Lorraine Lau, and Randy Ford

Company Apprentice >> Rachael Mauney

Production Management >> Marlys Yvonne

Sound Design >> Monika Khot

Live Video Installation >> Alex Boeschenstein

Technical Design >> Ari Chivukula

Lighting Design >> Kenrick Fischer

Set Technician >> Timothy Firth

Wardrobe Styling >> Jessa Carter

soundtrack video

//Commissioned by 9e2 and partial funding support from Case Van Rij. Creation of the sound design for PYLON II was supported through an Artist Support Program Residency at Jack Straw Cultural Center

...explores themes of systematic fear and control placed on human bodies operating within technological systems essential to modern society (i.e. surveillance, the internet, architectural design).

PYLON II incorporates live surveillance feeds to explore questions of observation and consent. Audiences for PYLON II enter into an immersive environment featuring, a cast of five dancers engaged in highly physical choreographed movement, a live sound score, and a complex surveillance system which is simultaneously recording and projecting visual information coming from cameras throughout the space.

PYLON I

2 hour performance installation //Premiered February 20th, 2016 at Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park PACCAR Pavilion (SEATTLE)

Concept + Direction >> Chartreuse Coleman and Ethan Folk

Performers >> Lucie Baker, Jody Kuehner, Chartreuse Coleman, and Marlys Yvonne

Stewards >> Stephen Anunson, Brace Evans, Ethan Folk, Jessica Jones, Juju Kusanagi, Erin McCarthy, Sabina Smith-Moreland, and Calie Swedberg

Live Sound Score >> Maiah Manser and James Squires

Installation Design >> Cameron Irwin

A/V Design >> Matthew Witschonke

//Commissioned by Seattle Art Museum as part of the Winter Weekends series. Creation of this work was made possible in part by funding from Artist Trust and Seattle Office of Arts & Culture.

PYLON is concerned with the complex and muddled relationship between oppressive structures and bodies; between communal pressure and self-fulfillment, between surveillance and privacy, between unyielding architecture and fragile flesh. This is an investigation of watching and individuation - about how we variously craft and perform our identities in different contexts depending on the various types of surveillance/observation we perceive. PYLON features highly physical choreography, architectural installation, and a complex layering of digital image gathering/projection.

Audience members were invited to become part of shifting and expanding surveillance dynamics and architectural compositions. Led by a group of stewards, groups participated in various watching and movement tasks that injected chaotic stimuli into the performative environment.

Fragment Sapien

30 mins //Premiered August 26th, 2016 at Velocity Dance Center (SEATTLE)

Concept/ Choreography/ Direction >> Chartreuse Coleman

Dancer >> Lucie Baker

Cameo >> Rachael Mauney and Campbell Thibo

Sound Composition >> Jack Carroll

Lighting Design >> Sara Torres

Commissioned by //TECTONIC MARROW SOCIETY and premiered at _IOTA (a evening of four new works, curated and produced by Chartreuse Coleman).

The ideas for the structure of this work were initially engaged during a bst Residency at the University of Washington and then the work was fleshed out through a Creative Residency at Velocity Dance Center.

...an absurd microscope applied to the reality that our identities are fluid and shaped by context.

Fragment Sapien is a 30-minute solo that pieces together many abstract threads, from complex choreography to menial tasks. Severely different ideas are arranged into digestible “chunks” or “sketches”, together challenging themes of self and identity. These 13 sketches are glued back-to-back, ranging from twenty seconds to seven minutes. A ball bounces sixty times >> an interview about a “movie role” >> virtuosic movement driving into and out of the floor >> a Gertrude Stein poem >> rigorous body positions…all one after another in a tiring marathon. How many different ways can we look at what makes up a human? Shape, form, movement, text, science, and character are used as ways into building a web of a narrative.

Fragment Sapien utilizes a simple set design, including a 12ft x 12ft red astroturf floor piece installed in the upstage corner, two black folding chairs, and a small orange ball. A completely original sound score was commissioned from local Seattle sound composer Jack Carroll.

Solitude, with eyes watching

10 mins //Premiered September 26th, 2015 at Velocity Dance Center (SEATTLE)

Concept + Direction >> Chartreuse Coleman

Soloist >> Chartreuse Coleman

Cameo Roles >> Patrick Kilbane + Ashleigh Miller

Audiovisual Design >> Matt Witschonke

Sound Design >> Nico Tower

...One human. One stool. Two cameras. 10 minutes. This is a physical interrogation.

Solitude, with eyes watching was first shown as part of On the Boards’ Open Studio programming in April 2015. A second iteration was premiered during Velocity Dance Center’s Fall Kick Off in September 2015.

Research for this work was supported through a Cornish Arts Incubator Residency and a Velocity Dance Center Creative Residency (2015). The Glenn H. Kawasaki Foundation awarded partial funding for this work.

The Architecture of Being

20 mins //Premiered January 2015 at Velocity Dance Center's Bridge Project (SEATTLE)

>> Also featured at the 2015 Seattle International Dance Festival and CHOP SHOP: Bodies of Work

Choreography + Direction >> Chartreuse Coleman

Sound Composition >> Bret Gardín

Rehearsal Assistant >> Kaitlyn Dye

Soloists >> Patrick Kilbane, Marlys Yvonne

Mass >> Becca Blackwell, Nathan Blackwell, Diego Briceno, Rosemary Carroll, Kince de Vera, Alyza DelPan-Monley, Kaitlyn Dye, Andrew Hallenbeck, Britt Karhoff, Erin McCarthy, Drew Santoro, Jerome Santos, Seth Sexton, Alexandra Spencer, Nico Tower

//The Architecture of Being was made possible through Velocity Dance Center’s Bridge Project Creative Residency Program.

The Architecture of Being deals with relationships. This work utilizes a cast of 17 performers. There are 15 people forming a “mass” and 2 soloists (Patrick Kilbane and Marlys Yvonne). The choreography of the mass uses large formations to open, close, and shift the space. These formations build a human architecture that is layered with the soloists’ material navigating through it. The piece serves as a reflection on the idea of being and evokes a dynamic flow of emotional states from the dancers. The choreography takes the audience into a dark world of Patrick’s psyche. After an accumulation of harsh images, what is found beneath it all is a striking moment of forgiveness. The piece is set to an original sound composition by composer Bret Gardín.

Three perspectives

20 mins //Premiered June 14th, 2014 at On the Boards (SEATTLE)

Choreography + Direction >> Chartreuse Coleman

Dancers >> Victoria Jacobs, Chartreuse Coleman, Shannon Stewart

Sound Scoring and Accompaniment >> Nico Tower

Set Design >> Cameron Irwin

Lighting Design >> Evan Anderson

Fabrication >> Glen Stellmacher

Three perspectives projects the audience into a world of examining the body as architecture, beginning with the solitary presence of an angular gigantic structure, designed by Seattle-based architect Cameron Irwin. The abstract exoskeleton towers above the three performers, who serve as moving counterpoints to the stationary structure. Composer Nico Tower fully immerses the audience into the performance through her live ambient soundscape. Director Chartreuse Coleman’s development of this work with dancers Shannon Stewart and Victoria Jacobs experiments with the shedding of human characteristics and shifting the body into sculptural states. The dehumanized state is then shattered with the reemergence of the performers’ humanity. This arc poses a psychological conflict to the audience, by presenting a clash of the body as architectural or human. The piece resolves, compelling the audience to wonder how physical structures influence their personal psychology.

This work was commissioned by On the Boards and premiered at their NW New Works festival.

**Three perspectives in one space was later made into a short film that premiered at Northwest Film Forum’s Next Dance Cinema Festival (2015)