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 working in textile, movement, and performance. Based in DC since 2014, career highlights include: co-founding the performance collective Area Woman, organizing and curating The Shed Gallery, performing as a company member with darlingdance, and regularly making costumes for Heart Stück Bernie and Extreme Lengths Productions. Additionally, Claire is a Fieldwork facilitator and the Field/DC site coordinator, leading workshops in the Fieldwork method - a non-directorial feedback approach designed to give artists of all disciplines a structure, community, and space to try out new ideas. Claire was part of Hole in the Sky art collective from 2018 - 2022, and has received a DC Commision for the Arts Individual Artist Grant in 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023.