Artist, Dance Maker, Arts Activist, Mentor, Facilitator

 

In over 40 years of work in the arts, Sue Schroeder has created more than 110 original dance works for theaters, museums, green spaces, architectural works, and water environments. Her work has appeared throughout the United States, as well as Mexico, Israel, France, Germany, Poland, Georgia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Iceland, United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, Guatemala, and Hungary. Schroeder’s multidisciplinary vision has led to collaborations with major voices in Dance – Amanda K. Miller, Niv Sheinfeld & Oren Laor, Ellen Bromberg, Beppie Blankert, Dieter Baumann & Jutta Hell, Alicia Sanchez, Joanna Haigood, Isabelle Salle & Adolfo Vargas, Susan M. Prins, and Polly Motley – in Music – Christian Meyer, Antoine Plante, Sonja Zarek, Todd Hammes, Yoko Ono, Joanna Duda, Michael Keck, Rich O’Donnell, Stuart Gerber & Jan Baker, and Klimchak – in Spoken Word – Keith Antar Mason & The Hittite Empire, Sarah Turquety, LeRon McAdoo, Marcus Montogmery & the Writeous Poets - and Visual Arts and Design – Adam Larsen, Nancy Chikarishi, Maya Ciarrocchi, Gail Siptak, Charlie Sartwelle, Anne Skupin, Lisa Shoyer, Maya Geffman, Walter “Chip” Morris and Lucía Hernández López.

 

Schroeder is known for her site-specific, museum and immersive creations for The Menil Collection, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, University of Central Arkansas, Baum Gallery, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Lawndale Art Annex – University of Houston, Diverseworks ArtSpace, Lauren Rodgers Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Martin Gropius Bau Museum, Berlin, Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Varmlands Museum, Karlstad (Sweden). Schroeder’s long-standing relationship with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has led to 12 commissions to exhibitions featuring the work of Sol LeWitt, Diego Rivera, Carlos Cruz-Diez, John Alexander, Pablo Picasso, MoMA’s Heroic Century, the Diane and Bruce Halle Collection of Latin American Art, Jules Olitski, Joseph Havel, Isamu Noguchi, and Dan Flavin. Schroeder has also received 20 site-specific commissions from the Bayou City Arts Festival. 

 

Additionally, Schroeder is recognized as a leading Arts Activist and Mentor and the Founding Artistic Director of Core Dance. As a contemporary artist and Dance Maker, Schroeder focuses on the creative process, movement research & exploration, and dance-making as a catalyst for social change.

 

Recent works include:

• The Poland Project, the convening of a group of 21 artists (performance, dance, theater, visual arts, writers, music) for three weeks to ignite healing of land, history, and culture, from loss and silence, of unspoken violence and forgotten ghosts. Designed and facilitated by Schroeder, a creative dialogue and process unfolded with each participating artist contributing a creative voice as well as acting as an outlet for the creativity of others in the group.

 

• if… a memoir is a love song written for humanity, engaging questions of human freedom alongside human limitations and its direct link to the current crisis on our planet. Initiated by Schroeder with Christian Meyer (composer/Germany), Sarah Turquety (poet/France), Simon Gentry (cinematographer/Britain), and Adam Larson (video installation artist), if… a memoir is an evening-length immersive performance developed out of artistic questioning and exploration into the inseparable connection between our humanity, the earth, and our future.  

 

• Galleries Without Borders/19th Century (wo)Man: A Contemporary Intervention, is an International Contemporary Dance Cooperation in conjunction with the works from the National Gallery Prague’s permanent exhibition: 1796–1918: ART OF THE LONG CENTURY. Under the Artistic Direction of Schroeder, five Czech and six American Dance Makers participated in a five-week virtual creative residency. Inspired by the artistic intention of artists and works exhibited in the permanent exhibition, 1796–1918: ART OF THE LONG CENTURY, participants in this residency worked collectively and collaboratively to research and create a kinesthetic view and/or entry point into the art of the past. Closely aligned with artistic intention and creative process of works within the exhibition the Dance Makers supported yet challenged a certain departure from traditional notions of dance, while facilitating the physical embodiment into the telling of the ‘story of arts’.  Phase 2 of the Project will take place within the exhibition at the National Gallery Prague in October 2022.

 

Schroeder has received numerous awards, including the Cultural Multiplicators from Foreign Countries Award from the Goethe Institut-Munich, the Haldeman Award for Merit from the University of Arizona,  as well as multiple grants and fellowships from organizations including The Texas Commission on the Arts, The Houston Arts Alliance, the Georgia Council for the Arts, Alternate ROOTS, Houston Endowment Inc., Dance/USA, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She was named a Lexus Leader of the Arts, the recipient of the Center for Creativity & Arts Community Impact Arts Administrator at Emory University and the ArtsATL Luminary Halcyon Award. She has given talks for TedX, Southeastern College Art Conference (Durham, North Carolina), International Arts in Society Conference (Imperial College, London), and the College Art Association Conference (New York City).   

 

Schroeder’s multidisciplinary arts passion resulted in her role as Festival Director for EXPOSED, a six-week festival of richly-layered, boundary-blurring contemporary dance and physical theatre from Israel, which has deepened her presence and partnerships globally. Schroeder, in partnership with Del Hamilton and Shelton g. Stanfill, produced, directed and curated First Glance, a month-long city-wide festival of Atlanta dance and theatre occupying every major venue with concentrated centers of activity around venues in the Midtown, downtown, and Little Five Points areas, such as the Woodruff Arts Center, 14th Street Playhouse, Rialto Center for the Arts at Georgia State University, Actor’s Express, Fox Theater, Civic Center, Shakespeare Tavern, 7 Stages, Dad’s Garage, Horizon Theatre, Variety Playhouse, and extending into others.

 

Under the umbrella of Core Dance, Schroeder facilitated the creation of DanceATL, a dance service organization that nurtures and promotes dance as a vibrant part of Atlanta’s arts ecosystem. DanceATL connects artists to resources, grows and engages audiences in the city, and supports the full range of the industry by cultivating an awareness and appreciation of dance that is sustainable and expansive.

 

Schroeder holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Houston and earned her Master of Fine Arts in Theater Arts with a dance and anthropology concentration from the University of Arizona at Tucson. Educated under dance greats Bill Evans, Hanya Holm, Oliver Kostock, Anna Halprin, Isa Bergsohn and John M. Wilson, she holds certifications throughout the U.S. as a Teaching Artist and is a founding member of the Teacher Training Institute (TTI), a training program established to develop best practices to teach dance and kinetic learning in community-based settings.