WELCOME
Artist Statement
I am a dance and textile artist committed to building creative, communal, cathartic spaces. Using immersive installation and live performance, my work invites play, invokes wonder, and initiates collaboration with the goal of elevating the mundane and making the magical tangible. Fluent in multiple artistic languages, I am interested in mutability: art as sculpture, performance, installation, concert, or social tool. My process is rooted in collaboration with materials, space, other artists, and audiences; and takes place equally in the art studio and dance studio — a constant conversation between 2-D fabric, 3-D bodies, and 4-D space and time. The resulting live art experiences eschew traditional boundaries of form and thrive equally in traditional and non-traditional venues: theaters, parks, galleries, bars, and empty lots.
BIO
Claire Alrich is a multidisciplinary artist living in Washington DC. A trained dancer, Claire’s art practice centers the body and the somatic experience even as it moves across mediums. Based in DC since 2014, Claire’s work has been seen at Dance Place, ‘but, also’ gallery, RhizomeDC, The Capital Fringe Festival, The Source Festival, and the Performatica Festival in Puebla, Mexico. Beyond her individual practice, Claire is a consummate collaborator and an active part of the DC art community. Career highlights include co-founding the performance collective Area Woman, organizing and curating The Shed Gallery, performing as a company member with darlingdance, and creating costumes for Heart Stück Bernie and Extreme Lengths Productions. Claire is also the Field/DC site coordinator, regularly leading workshops in the Fieldwork feedback method. Her work is supported through the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Individual Artist Fellowship. She has a degree in Dance and English Rhetoric from Beloit College.