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Visual artist, Susan Wolf is inspired by the creative possibilities of movement. Since 2008 her dance anywhere® projects have called into question the everyday experience of objects in space. “My dances are often informed by the moving potential of an object – for 2013 hands and their gestures, in 2012 a large roll of mullberry paper and quirky mark making tools … in 2008, picnic tables and levee post Katrina. Each year it is different – as it should be!”.
Lake Pontchartrain
Susan is inspired to participate in dance anywhere® because she relishes the opportunity to work as a creative collaborator in a much bigger, worldwide project. For Susan, “the opportunity to be a smaller part of this larger moment of movement is one I find irresistible.” As an experimental printmaker who spends many hours alone in her studio, dance anywhere® offers the opportunity to connect with other artists “on a scale that stretches wider and further than [she] can as an individual.”
To Susan, everyday sites offer rich material for calling into question our everyday understanding of place and movement through space. In 2009, she danced in a freight elevator at Kala Art Institute.“To me a freight elevator is such a beautiful elevated space, opening and closing doors like a theatrical curtain”. She used this idea of space to call into question the conventions of a proscenium stage. Susan again played with the realities of moving and changing spaces when she choreographed a dance anywhere® piece inside a parking spot. “A parking lot is a place of random intervention- something I find personally compelling”.
motion made marks
Many of Susan’s dance anywhere® projects have played with the idea of private versus public performance. After Hurricane Katrina, Susan was inspired to create a piece that reflected the private experiences of loss caused by the storm. Susan performed her piece near the levees on Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana. “I took time to really be there and have a private performance with a specific set of movements. The location and space are what really fueled this dance”. When Susan performed at an army base in Marin County she intended to create a private gesture, as she danced with large industrial bags over her body, but on the day of her performance a large gathering at the base turned her private gesture into a very public performance.
Hand Dance
In 2013, Susan performed at the Berkeley Art Center with anyone and everyone who wanted to join in, no experience was required – only hands and the willingness to explore movement.
Susan looks forward to dance anywhere® every year because “there is such poetry in everyone dancing together at the same moment in time. It is easy for many people all over the world to plug in and do something creative”.
This year Susan plans to dance with her students at Rosa Parks elementary or as part of the Cesar Chavez Day of Service celebrations.
