Sarah Lass

I am an interdisciplinary dance researcher. My creative research, performed in proscenium theatres, intimate studio settings, galleries, bars, and libraries, seeks to make new connections between seemingly disparate methodologies and fields of study, including ecology, neurophysiology, and philosophy, in order to open onto a more multifaceted, holistic understanding of ourselves and our world.

Improvisation is the heart of my creative life. To improvise is to question. Improvisation is wary of answers, definitions, conditionals, and dogmas. Improvisation outdoes itself, continually excavating the discoveries made through its practice, thus resisting the calcification of ideas that can shackle us to specific ways of thinking, relating, and being. It is a practice that champions imagination as an active player and potentially catalytic agent of change. To improvise is to relentlessly ask, “what else”; it is to commit oneself to an approach that adopts listening as a priority, embraces the unknown, and continually readies itself for wonder and enchantment. Improvisation is a practice of conscious attention and purposeful navigation of the world. By centering this understanding of improvisation in all that I do, my work offers opportunities to consider new ways of being, an imperative in a world that is haunted by violent, colonialist legacies and imperiled by climate disaster.

I am interested in how we are changed by reacquaintance. Directing oneself to re-solve movement and compositional questions proposes an approach to action and attention that resists complacent modes of engagement, even within familiar situations and landscapes. It challenges performers to direct themselves towards the unknown and allows choreography and dancers to remain active, dynamic, and open to change. This is an underlying ethos in my work: creating space and structures where performers, collaborators, and students are not beholden to past definitions and understandings of themselves and their positionality. In this way, my work proposes spaces and organizing systems that embrace fluid orientations and continuously shifting priorities, values, desires, and relationships.