Artist Statement
Carrie Ahern Dance creates worlds that are complete in their lush layering of visual, kinesthetic, and aural textures. Existing on a plane of liminality, Ahern’s work tries to address the over-sensitization and de-sensualization of modern life. She places her trust in the medium of the body.
Biography
Carrie Ahern is an acclaimed independent dance and performance artist who has been based in New York City since 1995. Most recently her dance work involves extensive research and has taken the form of installations specific to their environment.
Sensate, which began as collaboration with Nietzsche scholars, premiered in November 2009 at the 100 year old former bathhouse, the Brooklyn Lyceum. It then was performed in February 2010 at Princeton University (via the music department) and at Columbia University in April 2010 in conjunction with Rosalind Morris’ class “Cultures of Accusation” via the anthropology dept. It will be on tour in the spring of 2011 in Baltimore and San Diego.
Covers, (2009) Ahern’s performance installation and collaboration with sculptor Olek, was performed for 3 weeks of evening rush hour performances for The LAB, a storefront gallery on 47th and Lexington. Commissions for her work include Danspace Project for The Unity of Skin (2008) and Red (2006)—also commissioned by the Guggenheim for Works-and-Process. In 2003 Bessie award winning dancer Carolyn Hall commissioned a solo with music by Grammy award winning musicians Matt Darriau and Ivan Goff. Actor/director Jeffrey Frace has commissioned a solo (2010) to be performed in Seattle and NY.
Her shorter works have been presented at P.S.122, Dixon Place, Movement Research at Judson Church, Dance New Amsterdam, Chashama, and The Flea among others. Nationally and internationally, her work has been presented at Baltimore Theatre Project, Danceworks and Walker’s Point Arts Center in Milwaukee, Le Regard du Cygne in Paris and at the Festival OFF in Avignon, France. She was a BAX space grant artist in 2007/08, recipient of a Fractured Atlas’ Creative Development Grant; and is a current recipient of an LMCC Swing Space grant. Ahern will be an artist in residence at Project Space Available in Seattle for the month of Feb, 2010 developing new work and collaborating with a butcher.
Ahern has taught movement to actors at the University of Washington and master classes in improvisation at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In addition she has taught movement workshops for academics (originally developed in Stolzenhagen, Germany) and been a guest speaker at NYU for philosophy classes in Spectacle. She will be co-presenting at the ASTR/CORD conference (about where dance and theater meet) in Seattle in November 2010.