Pele Bauch
Space Grant (2012/2013)

Pele Bauch is an interdisciplinary choreographer who weaves dance, theater, and installation design into unique performances.  Bauch’s performance works have been selected for presentation at many New York venues.  She has received residencies from The Joyce Theater Foundation, Dance Theater Workshop, Chocolate Factory, and 92Y Harkness Dance Center. Funders include the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Brooklyn Arts Council and Harkness Foundation for Dance. Trained as a modern dancer, Bauch draws from additional studies in fine arts, Oli (Hawaiian Chant), and Hula, as well as from her Hapa Haole Kanaka Maoli (multi-racial Native Hawaiian) heritage.

Bauch premiered A.K.A. Ka Inoa (also known as the name) at La MaMa. This evening-length solo delves into the weight she bears being named after one of Hawai‘i’s most significant and beloved deities. It grapples with 300 feet of rope and a heiau (temple) of paper bags along with questions of identity, self-reclamation, and belonging.  Funded in part by LMCC, workshops of this piece appeared at New York Live Arts, International Human Rights Arts Festival, and Movement Research at the Judson Church.

Commissioned by Women in Motion, The Distance Process / Dear Kanaloa is a collaboration with Kealoha Ferreira. Drawing from our Native Hawaiian experiences in diaspora and the navigation of connection, Bauch and Ferreira live stream in New York City and St. Paul for in-person audiences in each city.

Commissioned by the Chocolate Factory, H to Oh utilized copious amounts of laundry and a kiddie pool to create a dreamscape of surrealist vignettes.  The iDanz Critix Corner stated: “The strength of [H to Oh] is its ability to engulf the audience in the atmosphere; you completely forget you’re sitting in a theater.” H to Oh was conceived at White Oak where Bauch led a group residency for The Field and developed in a year-long residency from the Joyce Theater Foundation.

Bauch’s use of visual design began at Joyce SoHo with -ism, featuring 10 dancers wrapped in wax paper performing prone on the floor with the audience looking down at them.  The costumes amplified the movement, the dancers’ sinuous, organic slithers crinkled with every move.  NY Theater Wire’s Henry Baumgartener wrote, “I loved the piece. …everything can come to look like something you saw a few decades ago. But not this time.”

Her first full length concert was presented in HERE’s TALR and the Best of TALR.  Shorter works have been presented by the Brooklyn Museum, Danspace Project, Dixon Place and the Brooklyn Arts Exchange.

Bauch resides in the unceded land of the Lenape people, New York City.

Website: http://pelebauch.org/