Still from an early work-in-progress performance of “can you enjoy yourself?” created for the Headlong 2018 final, “critically kind: a performance experiment in being nice” presented at Christ Neighborhood Church
about
Madeline Shuron (they/she) works at the intersection of scholarship and performance, attempting to break down the audience-performer relationship through movement, text, puppetry, clowning, and film. Her work has been witnessed at FringeArts (PHL), Temple University (PHL), Bryn Mawr College (PHL), the MAAS Studio (PHL), the Lawrence Art Center (KS), Random Access Gallery (NY), Dance Studies Association, and Post45:Contemporaries. They have also given lecture-demonstrations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and the American College Dance Association’s 50th Anniversary Conference. Their work has been supported by several grants, including a Fulbright fellowship to study queer dance and language in Berlin. Madeline holds an MFA in Choreography and Performance from Temple University.
artistic statement
I am a dramaturg and choreographer who makes work that straddles the line between dance and theater. I use text, film, puppetry, and gestures to create intimate, convoluted worlds; in my art, I attempt to interrogate the relationship between the audience and the performer, and the intimacy it requires to keep up that relationship. My work comes from theories of queer affect, literary theory, and performance studies in the quotidian world. What guides my work is questions and curiosity: I’m not looking for answers, but instead, more questions to bring me further into my process.
My work is the feeling of holding three hundred balloons in your fist; each string shifting and caressing across your palm, the frantic feeling of trying to hold them all tightly enough to not slip free. My work refracts and reflects the self in all the multifaceted ways we exist. If you are alive right now, you have been practicing self-defense. Spill your guts.
