Colette Sadler
“Body Building – From Prototype to Archetype”
August 11 – 15
14.00 – 18.30 H
Studio B
Professionals
In English
Colette Sadler's choreographic work focuses on the transformative power of the human body – imagined through its relationship and interconnectedness with the non-human. Using fiction and imaginaries connected to hybridity and the future, the bodies in her works show how they can transcend boundaries: between living and dead, real and virtual, past and future, organic and artificial. She often develops her movement language, choreography and context based on a new or prototypical body.
In this workshop, Colette will work with participants to explore how prototyping a body or bodies can create containers for fleshy fictionality and transgressive embodiment through movement, writing and voice.
The starting point are bodies from her previous works, including the real/digital BODY A from “Learning From The Future”. By sharing tools, strategies and approaches to body building, she invites the participants to develop new imaginaries and dances for bodies – bodies that would not happen without them. Which bodies do we need and want to speak for us in dance and performance today?
Colette is a Scottish dancer and choreographer based between Berlin and Glasgow. Her works operate at the intersection of dance, sculpture and digital art. They have been shown in numerous international dance and visual art contexts, including Tanz im August in Berlin, South Bank Centre London, Performatik Festival at Kaai Theatre Brussels, Les Latitudes Contemporaines in Paris, OGR in Turin and Tokyo Festival in Japan. Her latest work “The Violet Hour” premiered at tanzhaus nrw in January 2025. She recently worked with composer Alexander Schubert on “Terminal Infinity”, which was shown at Radialsystem Berlin in February 2025 as part of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's “Paradise Lost” biennial. Since 2016, she has curated the biannual performance festival “Present Futures”.