Photo: Matthew Sundin
Eleanor Bauer will present her PhD research, completed in 2022. Her doctoral project "choreo | graphy" is an inquiry into the relationship between thinking through dance and thinking through written language, taking the notion of choreography literally as dancing-writing. Respecting that different media afford different thought processes, ideas, and concepts to be reached, this practice-based artistic research project has unfolded within artistic processes and experiments to explore and develop the relationship between dancing-thinking and writing-thinking. Investigating the media-specificity of thought in dancing together (khoreia) as it relates to the media-specificity of thought in writing (graphia), this project experiments with their relation in a way that serves both art forms and respects their differences, while challenging historical hierarchies between embodied sense-experience and the written word.
Eleanor Bauer is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersections of dance, writing, choreography, music, and moving image. Her work is a synthesis of embodied intelligences, a practice of making sense with the senses. From solos and talk shows to large ensemble pieces and films, her versatile works range in scale, media, and genre. Originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bauer holds a BFA in Dance from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts (2003), is a graduate of the Research Cycle at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels (2006), and completed her PhD in Performative and Media-Based Practices with a Specialization in Choreography at Stockholm University of the Arts (2022).
Bauer has worked as a performer with, among others, Matthew Barney, Trisha Brown, Tino Sehgal, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas, Xavier Le Roy, Boris Charmatz, Every Ocean Hughes, David Zambrano, Mette Ingvartsen, Ictus music ensemble, The Knife, and Fever Ray. Bauer established the Brussels-based company GoodMove vzw in 2007, through which she produced performances and collaborations until 2020. She was artist in residence at Kaaitheater in Brussels from 2013-2016. Bauer has been commissioned as a choreographer by, among others, Cullberg in Stockholm, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Corpus at the Royal Danish Theater, and the London-based collective Nora. She has also been invited to make pieces for/with students at P.A.R.T:S. (Brussels), KASK (Royal Conservatory, Ghent), DDSKS (Danish National School of Performing Arts, Copenhagen), and Stockholm University of the Arts.
As an insatiable researcher, Bauer teaches, writes, lectures, and co-creates contexts for exchange of knowledge in the arts. Together with Ellen Söderhult and Alice Chauchat, she co-founded the open-source format for exchange of practices in the performing arts called Nobody's Business in 2015, which has since been adapted by practitioners and organizers worldwide. Other past and ongoing educational, performative, and discursive projects include BAUER HOUR, PROTO TALKS, Doctor Dance, and A class for a cause, as well as two podcasts: How Dance Thinks from 2018, and Sleeping Giant Dreams in 2020. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at Stockholm University of the Arts.