I am an improviser, choreographer and performer. Collaboration has also been an integral element in my work beginning with Inner Ear (1990), working with a video artist and a poet. Since then, I have collaborated with many musicians, composers, painters, print-makers, videographers, poets, and new media artists. My work combines collaboration, improvisation and the integration of digital imagery and interactive technology. Within the field of improvisation and performance, I have sought to develop my own voice and methods and to train and perform with the most highly skilled and experienced masters of movement improvisation. My artistic ideas are based in the history, philosophy, and practice of contemporary improvisation and performance, making my own contribution with use of digital media, interactive technologies, and other methods of integration (e.g., voice-activated transitions, movement-triggered video, real-time video content via live feeds).

Composition and intuition are equal players in my work. I use aesthetic intuition to allow a natural arc of movement to flow from one juncture to the next while simultaneously making compositional choices based on preconceived spatial and temporal constructions. In performance and practice I focus on the skill of making moment-to-moment choices directed by the natural forces acting upon the body, the context of the preceding moments, the movement score and the work’s inspiration. In contrast to a more literal approach, I work kinesthetically, allowing my work to accept multiple meanings. Yet, narrative, broadly defined, has increasingly played a role in my work, revealed in my incorporation of video and text.

My studies in interactive technology tools, such as Max/MSP/jitter and Isadora (the latter a program developed by Mark Coniglio of Troika Ranch), have influenced much of my work. Contained (2005-2007) is a collaborative work using Max/MSP/jitter. In the two-year process of creating the work and performing it, my relationship to composition and performance evolved and changed. Though technically a solo, the focus for the viewer was multifaceted. Technology altered my role as performer, allowing more freedom to interact with image and text and shift focus from myself to the installation and back. I let go of the standard dramatic arc and choreographic phrasing, in the traditional sense, intending to let the work as a whole unfold. The use of technology challenges me as a performer and artist. It provokes questions about intention, content, viewer-to-performer relationship, embodiment, presentation, and traditional concepts of form.

Technology aside, the inspiration for much of my work continues to rely on the human form to generate ideas and movement. I often begin my process by researching fundamental movement ideas and subsequently investigate how technology, set choreography, content, and compositional forms can be adapted into the process. Yet, in my most recent work, I began by videoing performers juxtaposed to manmade and natural environments, and with those images, found secondary movement and choreographic forms to combine and place within an imaged context. This investigation of image, text, sound and movement is central to my present work.

Sandra is a teacher, choreographer and performer known for her innovative, cross disciplinary work in improvisation and collaboration, and her expertise as a performer. Her teaching spans post-modern dance, emphasizing a grounded, articulate, fluid, and often athletic contemporary dance technique, solo, duet, and group improvisation, performances in traditional and non-traditional spaces, choreography, and production. She was on the forefront of incorporating technology into her work (interactive environments, live feed video, layered media), which has yielded dozens of cross/interdisciplinary collaborations in the dance field.

Sandra has worked with many veteran improvisers, including Peter Bingham, Karen Nelson, K. J. Holmes, Chris Aiken, Rebecca Bryant, and David Beadle, as well as Butoh artist Katsura Kan. Her study of improvisation, including Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement and Ensemble Thinking, is influenced by artist/teachers Nancy Stark Smith, Julyen Hamilton, Andrew Harwood, Nina Martin, Deborah Hay, and Barbara Dilley.

Sandra has choreographed 43 original works for student performance (many of these in unique site-specific locations), and 38 professional works. She received over 30 grants for choreographic research and production. Significantly, starting in 2015 Sandy initiated and led an exploratory trip for a group of Denison arts faculty and four student travel seminars to Sri Lanka. These have resulted in a rich and broad-ranging partnership with Sri Lankan artists and scholars that continues to bring new opportunities and to impact the Fine Arts Division and Dance alumni at Denison.

Sandra’s work has been supported and presented in the US and internationally, including artistic residencies at the Camac Centre D’Art (France), Atlantic Center for the Arts (Florida), and Chulitna Lodge Research Institute (Alaska). She was Visiting Scholar at the national arts conservatory, University of Visual and Performing Arts (Colombo), and Guest Artist at Geothe-Institut Choreography Camp (Kalpitiya). Her work has been performed at the Nomad Express International Multi-Arts Festival (Burkina Faso), where she was a guest teacher and mentor, at Dartington College of Arts (England) and the Marnay Art Centre (France), as well as across the US.

Sandra is a recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award from the US State Department, an Individual Excellence Award in Choreography from the Ohio Arts Council, and has twice received Ohio Individual Artist Fellowships in Choreography. She is currently Professor Emerita of Dance, Denison University.