Artist, performer and designer.
Live performance, installation, intervention, movement, graphic design and documentation.
Born in Sweden with a Japanese-Bulgarian heritage, I have always been concerned with peoples’ cultural and social conceptions. My work explores public and private human interaction and mediated communication: I am fascinated by where our boundaries lay – in interacting between individuals and in a community. My work often utilise and challenge the performer-audience relationship and has been described as courageous, meditative and ritualistic.
Studies with several Japanese Butoh teachers has contributed much to my practice, and initiated my performance path when I started showing short, experimental movement solos at alternative festival and club events in 2004. Since then I have obtained a degree in Dance and Visual Art from Brighton University and shown a range of work at art festivals and venues nationally and internationally. Inspiration is drawn from observations of being a human today, digital communications, the internet as a site of behavioural evolution and also ‘60-‘70’s performance art, photographic and graphic work.
I am based in Brighton, UK.
Education
| 2003 – present |
Ongoing attendance of workshops and seminars in the UK and abroad. |
| 2004 – 2008 |
BA (Hons) Dance and Visual Art. University of Brighton, Brighton, UK. |
| 2003 – 2006 |
Numerous Butoh workshops attended in the UK and abroad. Main teachers: Atsushi Takenouchi and Masaki Iwana. |
| 2003 – 2004 |
BTEC Foundation Studies in Art and Design. Camberwell College of Arts, London, UK. |
| 1996 – 1997 |
One year scholarship in cultural studies and Japanese language, awarded by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan. |
| 1993 – 1995 |
East Asian Studies with Japanese. Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. |
Solo work
| 2009 |
Growing Bodies from the Cloud, ongoing collaborative project with Lori O’Reagan. Images of people’s skin and hair is contributed from our social networks and used in performance to make life-size 2D figures. Shown at Park(ing) Day Brighton, Arnolfini, Bristol.
Stick Piece, durational solo performance. Shown at Supperclub, The Basement, Brighton, Showroom Aberystwyth, Aberystwyth, Wales, OPA 02 (On Performance Art), Athens, Greece, SPILL National Platform, SPILL Festival of Performance, London, All Fours, music and live art festival at Shunt Lounge, London. |
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| 2008 |
Stick Piece, durational solo performance. The naked performer sits motionless in a circle of colourful stickers, until the audience have placed all the stickers on her body. Metafex Festival at International Gallery, Liverpool.
Artists in Residence in the Phoenix Toilets, durational solo performance. The performer sings behind a shower curtain inside a public toilet which is in use. White Night, Phoenix Gallery Studios, Brighton.
Isoland-2, durational performance installation, collaboration with sound artist Michail Mavronas. Degree show contextualised to a very small gallery space. Testing Grounds Live Art festival at Permanent Galley, Brighton.
Isoland, durational performance installation. The moving performer is trapped under a large sheet of plastic, in a dress that spans the large studio floor. The audience steps onto the dress to view. Presented at the University of Brighton Undergraduate Degree Show. |
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| 2007 |
Transmutations, butoh dance solo. IDSpiral Stage, Glade Electronic Dance Festival.
LonGone, butoh dance solo and costume installation. The performer removes an outer layer of clothing to reveal a stage-spanning dress. IDSpiral Stage, Sunrise Festival. |
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| 2006 |
Definitied, butoh dance solo. IDSpiral Stage, Glade Electronic Dance Festival.
Winterview, durational performance installation. The performer is connected by her costume to an installation containing small monitors and handheld spy-cameras through which she is watching the audience. Presented at the Second Year Gallery Show, University of Brighton. |
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| 2005 |
Box, butoh dance solo/live art. The performer cuts herself out of her dress. IDSpiral Stage, Glastonbury Festival.
The protoPLAY club-experiment, performance and co-organisation of event. Brighton.
On-way, butoh dance solo. The Jumble Art Festival, AREA10, London.
A trace, a round, I’d, site-specific performance. On a public lawn, the performer marks out a geometrical space then rolls herself into a long piece of tape. University of Brighton.
Snow white, collaborative and solo performances and video installation. protoPLAY, An Exhibition Within The Exhibition, The Basement, Brighton. April 2005 |
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| 2004 |
Untitled butoh dance solos at IDSpiral Stage, Glastonbury Festival and 491 Gallery, London. |
Collaborative work / performances for other artists
| 2009 |
Performing as part of performance collective Lost Parade, at The Stephen Lawrence Gallery and University of Brighton.
Lead performer ’12 Stones for Queen Eleanor’, video work in progress by Claudia Kappenberg. |
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| 2008 |
Performer in Liverpool Oh, Wait!, 33 hour improvised play directed by Dana Anderson in association with Ken Campbell’s School of Night. Metafex festival, The Kazimier Theatre, Liverpool. |
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| 2007 |
Solo dancer in In the Flesh, 3D video installation by Billy Cowie. Shown internationally, including Sadler’s Wells London, Pro Arte St Petersburg, Shoot Stockholm and Dance Screen West, Los Angeles. |
www.sarapopowa.com
www.sarapopowa.blogspot.com
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