”CHOREO | GRAPHY”

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The 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.  Cycling through three areas of inquiry, the project asks 1. how dance thinks, 2. how dance writes, and 3. how a (re)considered relationship between dancing and writing might inform choreographic practice.  Following these three areas of inquiry, the project’s contributions to artistic research are summarized as follows: articulating what is particular to dance-thought (how dance thinks), practicing and devising procedures for dancing-writing (how dance writes), and pursuing forms of exposition which invite observers to think with and through dance by applying the aforementioned insights to artistic creation (choreo | graphic outcomes). The separation of the word choreography into choreo | graphy signals the project’s intention to open space for consideration and reinvention of the poetics of choreographic practice and discourse.

Final Presentation: Spring 2022

PhD candidate Eleanor Bauer

Eleanor Bauer is a choreographer and performer working at the intersections of dance, writing, and music. Her work is rooted in a synthesis of embodied intelligences in her practice of making sense with the senses in performance. From solos to talk shows to large ensemble pieces, her versatile works range in scale, media, and genre, traversing categories of performance with wit, humor, and aplomb, and have toured internationally to critical acclaim.

Originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bauer holds a BFA in Dance from New York University, is a graduate of the Research Cycle at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels, and is currently based in Stockholm where she is a PhD candidate in Choreography at Stockholm University of the Arts. 

Bauer has worked as a performer with, among others, Matthew Barney, Trisha Brown, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker/Rosas, Xavier Le Roy, Boris Charmatz, David Zambrano, Every Ocean Hughes, The Knife, and Ictus contemporary music ensemble. Bauer has been commissioned as a choreographer by Cullberg (Stockholm), Schauspielhaus Bochum, Corpus (Copenhagen), and Nora (London), among others. 

Bauer created her own performances via GoodMove vzw, a production structure she initiated in Brussels from 2007-2020, and was artist in residence at Kaaitheater in Brussels from 2013-2016. Musician, composer, programmer and improviser Chris Peck has been a cornerstone in Bauer’s artistic practice since 2004. Together they have collaborated on numerous projects and commissions.  

Together with Ellen Söderhult and Alice Chauchat, Bauer 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 myriad practitioners and local organizers worldwide. Bauer continues to teach, write, lecture, and co-create contexts for exchange of knowledge in the arts, including PROTO TALKS and A class for a cause, as well as two podcasts: How Dance Thinks from 2018, and Sleeping Giant Dreams in 2020.

Bauer has joined the research community at Stockholm University of the Arts for the opportunity to deepen and extend the research-orientation of her work, to participate in an interdisciplinary culture of experimentation and knowledge production, and to engage in a context with colleagues who will support and challenge her interests.