2010-2011 Lab Artist: Candice Salyers

Candice Salyers is a solo performer and choreographer who creates kinetic installation pieces that juxtapose slow-moving body transformations with visual environments.  Her melding of dance and conceptual art results in provocative and inviting performance works that bridge the visual and performing arts. In her performance works, Ms. Salyers has an interest in exploring the moving body as a site for outgrowing limiting perceptions of human nature. Her works challenge the assumption of the female body as objectified by a viewer’s gaze. 

Ms. Salyers's Significant Figures is a site-adaptive solo performance that delves into the dimensions of the female body in performance, and traverses a world of varying sizes and scales of perception.

VPL’s Lab Program supported the development of Significant Figures with three creative periods in June and September 2010, and again in April 2011 where she developed material in the dance studio, experimented in various outdoor and indoor environments and recorded and edited a sound collage in the recording studio of Guilford Sound.

Due to the interdisciplinary nature of Ms. Salyers work, VPL was able to connect with visual arts organizations and audiences by working with The Catherine Dianich Gallery to co-host work-in-progress showings and artist talks.

 Ms. Salyers also worked with women of different ages through movement-based workshops that explored individuals’ experiences and understandings of the female body.  In addition to workshops and artist talks, local audiences had opportunities to see aspects of Significant Figures as it evolved through work-in-progress events in June and September 2010, and at the final presentation in June 2011.