zavé martohardjono
Space Grant (Fall 2023)

zavé martohardjono is a multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, filmmaker & poet. Their works demand close and intimate examination of political histories of resistance. Using dance and ritual as primary languages across projects, zavé engages anti-colonial storytelling in live works that spur embodied healing from political violence. Drawing on their identities as a queer, trans, genderqueer, mixed-race Indonesian artist, zavé blends ancestors’ mythologies and ritual dance practices into media-rich, cross-cultural works that contend with the geopolitics our bodies carry. Centering liberatory memory, their performances combine archival research, political education, dance improvisation, and audience-participatory actions. zavé’s works metabolize contemporary questions about liberation, decolonization, and demilitarization to add another voice to the chorus dreaming up more just futures. 

zavé was born in 1984 in Montréal, Canada, and lives in Lenapehoking aka Brooklyn, NY. A 2022 Bessie/New York Dance and Performance Award nominee for Outstanding Performer, zavé has presented at the 92Y, BAAD!, Boston Center for the Arts, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Center for Performance Research, El Museo del Barrio, Gibney Center, HERE Arts, Issue Project Room, The Kennedy Center, and Storm King Art Center. They’ve exhibited at Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Asian Arts Initiative, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Bronx River Art Center Gallery, Glasgow Center for Contemporary Arts, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, SOMArts Gallery and Winslow Garage. They have shown films and performed in Amsterdam, Berlin, Glasgow, Zurich, Skopje, and Jakarta. Their work has been written about in the New York Times, BOMB Magazine, CultureBot and Hyperallergic.