UNclothed

“To be unclothed is to be naked and open, to be exposed. What if instead of fear of disapproval based on what society deems right and wrong, the very action of stripping naked could envelop a great and powerful transfiguration for humanity?  Through performance art, this work presents glimpses of different perspectives pertaining to the issue with social norms based on patriarchal hegemonic systems that control this world.  The works was performed by six artists who have different experiences with conformity and the ways in which they find ‘freedom’ in order to survive.  In a site-specific location we explored sound, space, visual art, and movement in a pursuit for peace and a hope to leave the audience with a glimpse of how we can acknowledge our interconnectedness. “

Created by Sarah Lisette Chiesa and Abbey Rae Blackwell

ASUW Shellhouse, Seattle WA

November 23, 2019

Women Stroke for Stroke in their Race to Equality

Performance Art Installation and Collaboration about the ongoing situation of the women’s rowing team and disparate inequalities between men and women in competition. This work was a culmination of performance, reenactment of historical moment “Title IX”, Interviews, physically learning the sport, and women working as a team to rid our gender association that binds us to a life of being seen as second best.

Performed by Sarah Lisette Chiesa, Elise Beuke, and Alicia Crowley

Photo Credit Steve Korn

Boat donated by Pockock Rowing Center

ASUW Shellhouse

June 7, 2019

Yolanda DID

Yolanda DID was a work live performance installation that used this idea of abandoning our bodies external form to expose what is inside this vessel and convey our real identity. This work emphasizes the importance of humility and freedom of expression as human beings. Throughout the work, the performers wear their plaster cast bodies as an armor or a façade. As the performers physically enter and leave the body casts, they expose their inner self unbound by fear or judgment that has been embedded by society.

Music by Dom Bouffard

Poem by Terence Chiesa,

Performed by Naomi Lupescu, Leah Morrison, Francesca Sprocatti,

Katie Griffler, Susan Paulson, Ryan Pliss, and Sarah Lisette Chiesa

Camera by Aaron Chiesa and Julia Chiesa.

Widow Jane MIne Rosendale NY, USA

July 31, 2016

WATERMAP

An Evening of Sound, Sculpture and Dance, our intentions were to emphasize the importance of meditation as a way of making art and as a way of living more consciously in the present moment.

Music by Alberto Benati, Alfredo Miti, Fabio Mina, and Franco Lanfredi

Spazio Gerra, Reggio Emilia, Italy 

2014

FREEDOM OF OCCURRENCES

This piece was a site-specific interdisciplinary installation in the Usine C Theater in Montreal. I used wood, visual art, aluminum foil, and a frying pan. 

 I drew for inspiration from a book of essays, Place Art in the Public Realm (p.2) created in Stockholm Sweden written in 2012.

"The overwhelming system of walls and staircases combine into structures that hide and prevent access to the interior, an interior that constitutes the very center of power—the transcendental power of myths and religion, symbolized through the body of the ruler or the rituals of priesthood. If architecture indeed begins as a manifestation of power, it is not merely a matter of monumentalizing power as a physical form; it is by making its core a secret.” - essay by architect Catherina Gabrielsson.

                                                                                                                                                                                                    Dramaturge: Steve Cooke (special feedback Johannes Wieland)

Springboard Danse Montreal.

 Usine C Montreal 2014

WEIGHTLESS

“Human beings carry weight; family, society, stress, trauma, physical health, mortality, consciousness, money. These burdens are inescapable and universal. However, in moments of great clarity, we have the capacity to shed these encumbrances and find ourselves weightless.”

 This work was an installation as part of the Dumbo Dance Festival/White Wave Dance Festival in Brooklyn New York curated by Young-Sun Kim. 

Music: Lathan Hardy

Dancers: Cecily Campbell, Kate Jewett, Cynthia Koppe, Alex-Dean Speedy, Erin Beneze, Bradley Ellis, Jordan Isadore, and myself.

 Brooklyn Bridge, New York, USA

2012

Untitled

Solo inspired by Maria Rainer Rilke's advice for a young artist on Solitude.  “Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near are far away…and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast…”

This piece was projected in a wooden sculpted bathtub from the areal perspective, as if looking in on someones solitude. 

Film: Aaron Chiesa and Lindsay Graham

Music: Beethoven Moonlight Sonata

Duo Emergence Gallery, "Media Diet"

East Village NY, USA

2007