Making A Way | Perspective
Artists: Kamari Carter, Natalie Christensen, Skye Gilkerson, Chloe Ilene, Stacy Isenbarger
Excerpts Included in the Video
/in-habit/ premiered December 2018 at four different venues around South Bend, including Vested Interest, JC Lauber/City Wide Liquors, Civil Rights Heritage Center, and the South Bend Museum of Art. The performance adapted to a new space each night.
The initial research for /in-habit/ was prompted by the inquiry “how do we inhabit our body?” The work required us to engage in deep, personal investigation and to explore our relationship to each other.
Sensorimotor was conceived through a series of studies in sensory response, investigating natural motor responses to external, sensory stimuli. Sensorimotor premiered April 25–28, 2019 at 503 E. Colfax Ave., South Bend, IN (former LaSalle Body Shop).
The Wardrobe
This video was produced during quarantine as an attempt to learn new skills (filming and editing) and as an attempt to boost self-reliance. I wanted to explore a project that normally included many collaborators and do it all alone. It’s currently a work-in-progress but touches on themes of isolation and touch and the pieces of ourselves that surface when we are forced to live with ourselves for an extended period.
Statement
Chloe Ilene is a dance-maker who approaches movement as investigative physical research, an act of fusion between the mind and body. As a mover and thinker, she avoids mind/body dualism and instead sees the two as intricately connected, in a constant feedback loop with each other. She perceives the body as a storehouse of knowledge and information of which the mind may not always have conscious awareness but can always access. Her work as movement creator simply prioritizes the information of the body before intellectualizing it to become a creative product. She is interested in activating the imagination and “thinking body” while in movement. As director, she leans toward the organic relationships that arise between the self and others in movement space — the physical and emotional meeting points between bodies. Her role as a witness to process guides her ideas and creative direction. Her style has become progressively her own as she learns to incorporate abundance of experience into practice.
Bio
Chloe Ilene is a dance-maker, performer, and educator. She is the Artistic Director of New Industry Dance, on faculty for Michiana Dance Ensemble, and a dance educator/curriculum builder at Nuner Fine Arts Academy. Her background in modern dance, ballet, West African dance and Yoga inform her manner of movement. Her further training in improvisation, contemporary forms, Gaga technique, composition and somatics influence her theory and approach to creation and performance presence.
In 2019, Chloe was selected as a Summer 2019 MODULE artist with Sidra Bell Dance New York. She was also the recipient of an Individual Advancement Grant from the Indiana Arts Commission. In October 2019, she was selected as a panel discussion leader for the Indiana Arts Commission Homecoming Conference. Her screendance and youth work has been featured at RADFest (Midwest Regional Alternative Dance Festival) in 2019 and 2020. She was commissioned as choreographer for Clay High School Drama Department’s production of H2O: A Play About Water, which was awarded 1st place and Best Ensemble at both the 2020 Regional and State competition for the Indiana Thespian’s Society. Chloe holds a B.A. in Anthropology and French, with a minor in Dance, from Indiana University South Bend.
newindustrydance.org
Instagram: @skeleskope (personal)
Instagram: @newindustrydance (company)
Facebook: facebook.com/newindustrydance
