A continuation of my interview with Amanda Sieradzki, one of our Fieldwork participants
Q: What are some of your highlights of past dance experiences?
A: I was a founding member of the Community Arts Initiative, a collective whose mission is to engage and build connections between the academic and surrounding community by exploring the concept of “artist-as-citizen” and supporting performance opportunities beyond the proscenium stage. I co-created work as a performer, choreographer, and event coordinator with organizations such as Big Bend Hospice, the Southern Shakespeare Company, Work of South Festival, 621 Art Gallery, the St. Francis Wildlife Association, and Working Method Contemporary.
I was also the chairperson for the FSU School of Dance’s Interdisciplinary Performance Symposium. This event featured a keynote presentation from established dance artist Duane Cyrus, as well as workshops, works-in-progress showings, and talks on the topics of interdisciplinary research, bringing together a variety of scholars, artists, and community members.
I was a selected presenter for the 2016 and 2017 Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association’s annual conferences in Seattle and San Diego, where I shared research on the dualism in feminine identity and audience engagement in cross-disciplinary performance.
My culminating thesis work, fangirl & the liner notes, merged poetry, contemporary and vernacular movement, and spoken word, and utilized the venue and structure of a rock concert to build a participatory atmosphere for audiences. Plunging into the daydream of a former fangirl, this one-woman rock show (that used a duet of two bodies) explored what it meant to grow up in relation to the music we listen to, the strain between teenage rebellion and conformity, and how our individual identities are shaped as we come into adulthood. My aims moving forward from this work are to continue finding methods of making contemporary dance performance an accessible, honest, and immersive experience.
Q: What do you hope to gain from Fieldwork?
A: Narrative-based lines of thought pepper my poetry, journalistic pursuits, and choreographic projects, and my grounding questions as an artist have always been linked to how I can best tell any given story. More specifically as an interdisciplinary artist, how can I use my instruments—the body in space supported by the creative use of language and other modes of storytelling—to communicate intricate, honest, and relevant narratives?
During the ten weeks of Core Dance's Fieldwork program, I will be developing a continuation of my thesis work. I hope to discover unexplored corners of the world I was able to create out of poetry, music, and movement, and possibly adapt this unconventional two-person “one-woman show” into a more traditional one-person format.
Given the multi-disciplinary nature of Fieldwork, I’m excited to enter an environment with makers from various areas of expertise and engage in critical discourse surrounding our various works-in-progress. I hope to engage in enriching collaborations, find more access points inside the choreography, and serve my greater vision of using other discipline’s to create stronger communities around contemporary dance.