Artist Statement + Bio
“As an artist I aim to design spaces, places, and environments that
reframe the dance experience.”
I see myself as a dedicated facilitator of joy and community who happens to create dance. To me, dance/movement isn't merely a product but rather a method, a means, and an approach to my life and art. As a movement artist also embedded in the visual art world, I navigate various roles and spaces in my daily life. As a somatic practitioner, my strength lies in my ability to maintain curiosity, stay keenly aware, make subtle connections, and manifest attention into motion. Relationships and genuine connection to people, places, and spaces matter to me. That, in fact, is the art I make.
At the root is my innate curiosity around how art is made. I am intrigued by how others learn, how they choose to present ideas, and how they gauge their growth and mastery. I am often seeking ways to be informed by those outside my field of expertise in order to inform my own art and art making. I strive to use dance as a strategy to construct and invite diverse experiences. I am continuously looking for ways to reinvest and rediscover my interest in movement while simultaneously challenging myself to explore ideas that are not familiar; risk and vulnerability are driving forces in my process and daily life. I am equally passionate about providing platforms for other artists to present, meet, and collaborate.
I am deeply committed to establishing and supporting a communal ethos in my creative spaces and processes. I view my rehearsals, for example, as collective, open, and active environments that promote inclusivity and respect for others’ ideas, backgrounds, and skills. Dancers and other collaborators I am working with are included in the making process; their voices (and movements) have value and hold power. In this light, I see myself in constant conversation with my collaborators, collectively cultivating a community.
For me, dance experiences that blend disciplines and blur boundaries offer audiences a deeper way to engage with art, allowing them to do more than just observe. Such experiences provide the opportunity for individuals to create personal meaning, connect, and participate intellectually (and sometimes even physically). My aim is for these experiences to enable audience members to co-create meaning, empower them in their dance experience, and potentially inspire them to explore new insights about themselves or the world. By crafting hybrid dance presentations, I view the audience as a collaborative partner, making my dance works a shared human experience.
A Manifesto of Sorts…
Courtesy of the Arts Council of Greater Greensboro (ACGG) | Tumaini Johnson Video Production Professional
There is a subtle difference between embodying ideas and studying ideas. I believe in the former. I am a collaborative spirit. Curiosity it at the heart of my being. I work from the belief that dance is a shared human experience and that to be an artist is to be a citizen of the world. I am deeply influenced by the power of transformative environments that open new possibilities for relationship. I employ experiential methods of production to explore themes of connectivity, intimacy, presence, authorship, empathy, and agency. I am drawn to those who are both interesting and interested – those who share a mutual conviction that dance is a transformative process and educative experience that can change the way people think and act. In our present cultural context, I believe that choreographic research that promotes democratic habits and activates both dancers and audience is of paramount importance. I recognize the value of community engagement and the potential for dance to impact the lives of citizens. I seek ways to make dance accessible to the public sphere and connect with audiences both within and beyond traditional dance contexts.
I believe in…
Seeing as much art as possible
Engaging in active dialogue about the art you’re seeing
Showing up and doing the work, regardless of the end result
Photo: Hannah Long
Photo: Andrew Bowen Studios
Caitlyn Schrader is a dance artist, educator, curator, and choreographer currently based in North Carolina. As a mover and maker, she is steeped in the practice of Safety Release technique and rooted in somatic perspectives through her personal investigations of yoga, Kinetic Awareness, and Cortical Field Re-education, applying these approaches within teaching, learning, and the choreographic process.
A New York native, Caitlyn has made her way to Boston, Massachusetts, France, and Australia before arriving in North Carolina. She has taught extensively within private and public institutions in New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Southern France. Caitlyn has been a member of professional dance companies, BIODANCE (NY) and EgoArt, Inc. (MA), as well as performed in works by several independent choreographers: William (Bill) Evans, Lane Gifford/LaneCo Arts (NYC), Heidi Henderson, Annie Kloppenberg, and Reggie Wilson/Fist and Heel Performance Group (NYC) to name a few.
Her live and filmic works have been presented widely across the Northeast, the South, and abroad in Ireland: Green Street Studios, The Dance Complex, Somerville’s ArtBeat Festival and the Atlantic Wharf (all Boston,MA), AS220 (Providence, RI), Nazareth College, Hamilton College, Carrier Theater/Civic Center (all Central/Western NY), the Spa Little Theater (Saratoga Springs, NY), the Southern Vermont Dance Festival (Brattleboro, VT), the Greensboro Dance Film Festival (Greensboro, NC), Black Mountain College Museum & Art Center’s ReViewing Conference and {RE}Happening (Asheville/Black Mountain, NC), Shadowbox Studios, the Sanctuary Series (Durham, NC), Goodyear Arts, BOOM Fringe Festival (Charlotte, NC), and the Wicklow ScreenDance Laboratory (Co.Wicklow, Ireland).
Caitlyn is equally passionate about providing platforms for artists and their communities to collaborate, engage, and exchange. In 2016, she co-curated and co-produced her first professional concert geared towards emerging, female choreographers under 30 in the Boston dance community. In 2019 she established Barn Dance Project (BDP), purposed to present professional, high quality, accessible dance works to Central New York to aid in the art revitalization for the community in which she grew up. BDP launched its inaugural performance An Evening of Dance at Woodshill in May 2019, featuring six female, regional, and national choreographers.
She functions within the belief that the act of making dance is a social practice; she strives to use dance as a strategy to construct and invite diverse experiences, exploring how dance intersects with life, challenging easy classifications through social provocation and immersive platforms. A theme of her choreographic works is to probe the traditional ways dance is experienced and presented, creating environments that exist between the expected and unexpected; her works have taken the hybrid forms of installations, traditional full-length dance works, and series of events or happenings.
In addition to her solo works, Caitlyn makes collaborative work under the moniker DanSeries Collective (DSC), whom she co-founded with kt williams in 2022, currently presenting in both North Carolina and Illinois. DSC’s dance discography takes the form of series, typically placed in public locations, and always involves Doc Martens. She is also director of liminality project, her project-based collective that presents group works, which she founded in 2023. liminality project finds value in practices that are rooted in community, experimentation, horizontal integration of disciplines, and authentic human relationships.
She earned an MFA in Dance (Choreography) from the University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNCG) (2022), an MS from the University of Rochester (2011), and a BA from Hobart and William Smith Colleges (2010). At present, she holds a dual-role at UNCG – Director of the School of Art’s off-campus art space, Greensboro Project Space, and Director of Community Engagement for the College of Visual and Performing Arts. She also teaches courses in the Schools of Art and Dance, as well as serves as Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Art and Social Practice minor program.