ABOUT THE COMPANY
DanceLink is a project-based company that seeks to bridge people, ideas, and understanding through the power of movement.
Conceived and directed by Sarah Carlson, DanceLink understands the body to be the seat of memory, emotion, complex thinking and deep belief that words cannot always express. Whether working with experienced dancers or novice movers, DanceLink engages a process that strives to use the wisdom of the moving body to unpack the big questions, often spiritual in nature.
A blend of movement, stillness, stories, and play, DanceLink projects can take a variety of forms including creative movement, community-based workshops, master classes, or proscenium and site-specific performance. DanceLink exists to promote community and communicate profoundly through the multi-faceted instrument of the body.
DanceLink was founded in 2008 and has appeared at Gibney NYC, The Williams Center for the Arts, Triskilion Arts, InHale, IceHouse Tonight, DanceExposure at SteelStacks, Rivers Merge Dance Festival, Philly Fringe, FreakOut Festival, Summer in the City series, Art Walk | Bethlehem, William Allen High, Cedar Crest College and the SpringUP Dance Festival among others.
DanceLink projects have received funding from the Pennsylvania Partners for the Arts, UpSide Allentown, the Allentown Cultural Commission, the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium and in-kind support from Cedar Crest College.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Sarah Carlson is the Founder & Artistic Director of DanceLink, a project-based company which seeks to bridge people, ideas & understanding through the power of movement. Sarah danced professionally for 10 years in NYC with numerous companies including Alexandra Beller/Dances, Brian Brooks Moving Company, Clare Byrne Dance, Paul Mosley Dance and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. As an independent choreographer, her own work has been presented throughout the US at venues such as the Joyce Soho in NYC, On the Boards in Seattle, and The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard as well as in Benin, Africa. Sarah is a co-director of the Lehigh Valley Dance Exchange & the founder/editor of the Lehigh Valley Dance in Review.Sarah is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at Cedar Crest College and has been on the dance faculty at Lehigh University, Muhlenberg College, DeSales University, and the University of Southern Mississippi. In 2007, she completed a Fulbright Grant studying Vodou ritual dance in Benin, Africa furthering an on-going inquiry into sacred dance forms. In 2008, Sarah founded DanceLink to promote community and to use the wisdom of the body to unpack the big questions, often spiritual in nature. DanceLink’s projects have received funding from the Pennsylvania Partners for the Arts, the Cultural Coalition of Allentown, the Lehigh Valley Dance Exchange, Cedar Crest Performing Arts and the King County Arts Commission. Sarah received a BA in French and European Studies from Connecticut College and an MFA in Dance from the University of Washington.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
Dance is a form of expression that transcends the boundaries of verbal language. Whether accompanied by text or on its own, bodily movement contains a visceral poignancy that triggers our kinesthetic, intellectual and emotional selves. In my choreography, I strive to create content and structures that at once communicate my vision and are widely meaningful. I enjoy the challenge of making visually interesting, multi-faceted, eminently accessible work. Tapping into the drama of theatrical performance, my dances juxtapose modern symbolism with overarching human truths. Whether examining racial injustice or the lived experience of trauma, my pieces speak to the humanity we all share. Key to my success is engaging the individual talents and experience of my dancers. I strive to make my choreographic process as personally rewarding and fulfilling for them as it is for me. In this way, I hope to build dancers who are passionate about their performance and audiences who are captivated by their efforts.
REPERTORY
UpLift
Quartet
Premiere: 2019
Running Time: 13 minutes
WATCH VIDEO →
UpLift explores female identity and oppression in community. As four women navigate pitfalls, they are bouyed by the resiliancy and strength of one another. Ultimately, their interdependence lifts them up.
The Cloud of Unknowing
Sextet
Premiere: 2016
Running time: 50 minutes
Watch Video →
The Cloud of Unknowing explores finding calm in the face of uncertainty. Moving slowly through shadows to start, the piece evolves into an improvisation in the ‘dark’ and finally an epiphany of ease and celebration.
You and I
Solo
Premiere: 2008
Running Time: 6 minutes
Watch Video →
You and I is a haunting look at the dark side of love. This solo features a disillusioned woman on the verge of madness as she reflects on a recent relationship. Despite being alone, it appears she is still controlled by her yearning and disgust for what has been.
projects
Make it stand out
“Changing the Race Dance” is a showcase performance that invites choreographers of diverse racial backgrounds to present a work that speaks to current challenges & aspirations for race interrelations going forward. The artists involved will participate in a series of Moving Conversations before and afterward that seek to build connections that can develop into a healthy diverse artist community.
The Body Keeps the Score
The Body Keeps the Score explores the universal spectrum of trauma in a program inspired by Bessel Van Der Kolk’s well-known text of the same name. A choreographer/composer collaboration between Sarah Carlson and Vernon Mobley, the dance examines how trauma can get lodged in the body and interrupt both individual and communal well-being.
WATCH VIDEO →
What Lies Within
DanceLink and Basement Poetry team up to perform a poetic dance theater piece exploring race, identity and oppression. "What Lies Within" is co-directed by Sarah Carlson & Chloe Cole-Wilson and includes live music by Moe Jerant and Vernon J. Mobley.
WATCH VIDEO →
TEN TINY DANCES
An experiment in confined space, Ten Tiny Dances is a performance series dedicated to fostering inventive dance/performance art and providing an accessible performance experience for a diverse audience…all on a 4 by 4 foot stage.
What is the TTD form? Ten Tiny Dances is dance/theater performance in confined space, which challenges artists to invent ways of collapsing known and recognizable vocabulary as well as to invent new vocabulary that responds to the possibilities of 16 sq. ft. It interrupts the usual expectations for dance vocabulary, performance, and viewing, and affects the way people move and are perceived in space.
As well as the delight that comes from innovation, the event also offers an experience of tension for the audience as they ponder and witness how each performer meets and deals with the challenge of the space.
Are you up for the challenge? Click HERE to fill out an application to participate in the next series.
TEN TINY DANCES is the original brainstorm of Mike Barker in Portland, OR.
More information on TEN TINY DANCES on the West Coast can be found HERE!
GALLERY
Press
“Visualizing portions of the dance as Carlson described it, I shivered in recognition of the images and their power. The Body Keeps the Score also includes a section that explores the cycle of oppression that marginalized people face. In doing so, Carlson and Mobley take things beyond van der Kolk’s book and into conversations about the impacts of systemic racism.””
“In Our Hands raises compelling questions about how we hurt those we aim to help and vice versa, as well as the ways in which we understand ourselves in
relation to each other. ””
MORE PRESS COVERAGE
click for full articles
The Body Keeps the Score on LV Arts Salon | WDIY
THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE | WFMZ
THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE | THE VALLEY Ledger
The Body Keeps the Score on Take Charge of Your Life | WDIY
DanceLink & Basement Poetry’s New Collaborative Performance on LV Arts Salon | WDIY
The Cloud of Unknowing on LV Arts Salon | WDIY
‘Ascent’ to Rise at the IceHouse
‘InterPlay’ for All at ‘IceHouse Tonight’
‘Tiny Dances’ will hold you close at Touchstone Theater
Dancers, musicians collaborate in unscripted 'Unbelievable Beauty of Being Human'
UPCOMING EVENTS
DONATE
To make a tax-deductible contribution to DanceLink, please click below.
