Sarah Lisette Chiesa

Interests

Teaching

Contemporary Modern Floor WorkExperimental ChoreographyFeminist Performance ArtBiomechanicsDance ImprovisationDance and Wellness

Research

Women's RightsInterdisciplinary Collaborations in Opera, Theater, Avante garde theater, Performance ArtDevising Pedagogies for Embodiment Practices of Inclusivity and Risk TakingEnergetic Presence of the Moving Body Left in Space

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Creative Productions

• Chiesa, S. (2024. Historias De Tango. Crowder Hall.
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  Collaborated with Assistant Professor Elena Chernova from the school of music on an evening of Tango in Crowder Hall.  I invited six first year dance students to be a part of the work performed with world Re-known composer Pedro Giraudo

Creative Performances

• Chiesa, S. (2025. Behind Closed Doors. Circulo Piacenza. Badajoz, Spain: Unviersity of Arizona Small Grant.
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  Created a cultural exchange in Spain with Ana Baigorri Danza an international Academy of Dance where students througout Europe Focus on Ballet and Modern dance technique and performance. With two students from the School of Dance we created a performance and daily classes for the school.

Other Teaching Materials

• Chiesa, S. (2024. Martha Graham School Summer Intensive. Martha Graham School.
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  I taught at the Martha Graham School's summer intensive in New York for three weeks. Teaching an international student body methodologies of Choreographing and Improvisation.

Creative Works

• Behind Closed Doors; Dance Performance
• Old Man and The Sea; Avante Garde Opera; Assistant Director of the Old Man and the Sea Opera premiered at ASU Gammage and continuing to be perfomed at UNC Chapel Hill, Park Avenue Armory, and other venues through 2025.
• Sac Plastique; Dance Performance; Creative process with the second year cohort at the University of Arizona School of Dance.
• Project Adjust 1-5; Dance and Video Performance; Presented at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA
• Women's March; Women's Rights; Project: I organized a silent guided improvisation for all Women in the community on March 23, 2024 at 10 am. The improvisation is called a "Womens March" with the intention that this kind of collective embodied experience will remind us of our power as women and the importance of our energetic presence.  The prompt for the improvisation is based on an embodiment process that involves Eastern philosophy of existence.   My idea is to move as a group of women across the mall with the impetus that when we are alive our bodies affect the matter around us, thus engaging with our bodies at about 100% activity.   In the same improvisation I invite our physical experience to be that in regard to death as we become part of the matter that surrounds our bodies we move through the march with as little as 10% activity.  As a massive group of 100-300 Women connecting physically and moving sensorially together across the Mall on University of Arizona's Campus, over time our collective energy will build and the power of our existence as women be witnessed and felt amongst us.  In this research project I am interested in bringing agency to women and remind each other collectively that our presence inside the institution and the world at large is extremely important.  I believe that with our inert qualities as matriarch, as mothers, as intuiters, as healers, as professionals, and as leaders we can enhance our sense of power as it coincides with our greater sense of being.