Sarah Gottlieb/ BodyCompass Dance Project
Sarah Gottlieb (they/she)
is a dance performer/maker and movement researcher.
Sarah maneuvers between choreography and somatic research, particularly about the fascia system. As a solo performer, theorist and director of ensemble projects, they build choreographic worlds for the intimacies of the sensing flesh to proliferate in queer ecologies of becoming.
From the seams of their own intercultural identity (Ashkenazi and Puerto Rican) Sarah is propelled toward international movement. Their practice is informed by the body reshaping in diverse conditions of encounter. Leaning toward entanglement and alterity, they conspire strategies of making that produce orchestrations with multiple centers. Works for stage reach to and away from other modes of community engagement.
Originally from Chicago, USA, they are currently sustaining points of contact in the US, Spain, UK, and AUS. They are a Visiting Lecturer of Dance at Roehampton University in London, as well as a PhD candidate researching at the intersection (metaplasm) of fascia and trans* studies at Coventry/Deakin Universities.
Upcoming
Teaching: 1 June, Goldsmiths University, London, UK Contact Improv (2025)
Performance: 26 June, The Oval Tavern, Croydon, UK Dr. Ernest Pecker (2025)
Recent
Performance: Trembling Forest, Choreographer Emilyn Claid, ensemble, London, Uk (2025)
Performance: Moving Compositions, improvising dancer, Cambridge, UK (2024)
Academics
University Lecturer
Visiting Lecturer of dance at Roehampton University, London since 2021.
Assignments
Supervisor of final dissertations (MA) (2024-2025)
Facilitating dissertation development (MA) (2025)
Practice as Research (MA) (2024)
Dance Practice /Technique (MA) (2023-current)
Dance Practice /Technique (BA) (2023-current)
Choreographer of Performance Projects (MA) (2023-2025)
Summer Training Program/ Technique (MA) (2025)
Choreographic works made for students
for times of imminent might (2025)
Close (2024)
Comb: extract/granulation (2023)
Research Position
PhD candidate researching, through practice-as-research in dance, at the intersection of fascia and queer theory. Funded through Coventry University (UK) and Deakin University (Australia).
Creative Practice
solo
speculative quee(re)cology
Movement research in natural sites produces real and imagined biological enmeshment between anatomical systems and the more-than-human. Staging tension between the semiotics of queer legibility and states of 'being-organic' Sarah moves toward intimacy with systems of living-and-dying. Stoking transpecial liminalities, biologies of perception, animal encounters and suspicious evidence of collective survival, these somatic endurance practices blur the boundary of the body through which they seek to absorb queer intelligence from other living forms.
Often surreptitious transgressions, these research projects only sometimes spawn audience-oriented performances. On such occasions, they are mediated by the emcee drag entity ‘el bufón de la roca’.
el bufón de la roca
el bufón de la roca is a shape-shifting emcee drag entity summoned to mediate viewership of the perverse spectacle of site-based movement research.
From Spanish, ‘el bufon de la roca’ can be loosely translated to:
a) the fool on the hill (rock)
b) the geological phenomenon in which pressurized water erupts from subterranean sources (bufón/ geyser)
performer
Dr. Ernest Pecker
drag character
Dr. Ernest Pecker comes to your local drag night to inspire a lust for science
BodyCompass Dance Project
Choreographic projects directed by Sarah Gottlieb
(Selected)
Spec
Spec (2023) Investigates International Human Rights through fascia
(Full length dance for stage, in the round)
D.I.N.D
D.I.N.D (2020) Investigates how bodies navigate marginalities and visibility.
(Full length dance for stage, in the dark)
Tones of Belonging
Tones of Belonging (2015-16) Investigates how trauma from sexual violence mediates movement.
(Durational improvisational scores for nontraditional performance settings; performed with the installation Cairn and Cloud by ceramic artist Corinne Peterson)
Yolk
Yolk (2015-16) Investigates the menstrual cycle for insight about eggs: a system of living and dying.
Collaborations
Entre Ladrillos
Ivelice Brown and Sarah Gottlieb
Entre Ladrillos (2019) In the borders drawn over states and selfhood, how do bodies participate in patterning fear and power?
Tongues Bells Baths Queens
Ilona Bito and Sarah Gottlieb
TBBQ (2018) researches faces of queer pain and redemption
Ala y Mesura
Alba Soto and Sarah Gottlieb
Ala y Mesura (2017) (Measure and a Wing) examines cycles of force, sex and rupture with transforming props and images
Examples of Arts Workshops as Activist Strategy
“Escucha Activa” (Active Listening) CCIC la tortuga Madrid. 2021
Members of the pandemic-era emergency food-bank collective, La Nevera del Pueblo host ritual-testimony-lectures in cultural spaces. Personal testimonies of Subsaharan migration to Spain open channels of communication in a neighborhood brought suddenly closer together by quarantine and over-policing. Links between different forms of state violence elucidate concrete ways to be in solidarity with undocumented migrants in times of global crisis.
(Madrid)
“Conversaciones Abiertos” (Open Dialogue: Dances in the Dark Program) CCIC la tortuga Madrid. 2019
The cast of DIND facilitated community discussions about racism, queerness, and artists’ roles in resisting becoming a ramp to neighborhood gentrification.
(Madrid)
"What's Carried Moves" 3ArtsChicago, 2016-2020
Movement workshops for survivors of sexual violence. Multiple arts and community venues | 2016-2020
(Chicago, Madrid, San Sebastian)
Consent Culture Language Bank “future of CI conference” Earthdance. 2020
International communities sorting out what consent and sexual ethics mean in Contact Improv face particular barriers. In response, a pandemic-era collective devised a game. Recognizing resistances that stir from the sentiment: ‘ick native English speakers are demanding cultural changes without a sense of intercultural difference’ in zoom break-out rooms organized by language, international participants synchronically brain-jam, attempting to come up with definitions in their own languages and discuss what terms related to sexual consent and ethics mean in the nuances of cultural contexts.
(Online)
Somatics
Sessions
Custom One-to-One
Experienced with queer folx, pregnant and pre/post natal people. Online and in person. hello@sarahgottieb.com
Queer Anatomy Workshops
Sample
"F*ing Parts"
This workshop is for anyone interested in understanding the anatomical pelvis through gender neutral/ trans terminologies. The focus is on general pelvic anatomy and considers the ever-changing terrain of the pelvic floor due to HRT, gender affirming surgeries, birth, and other pelvic transformations.
Fun participatory elements include playing with Play-doh, coloring, drawing, creative re-naming and poetic de-medicalisation.
*Optional versions can include self-touch and movement
Franklin Method Workshops
Sample
“The Pelvis Rocks”
This workshop explores the motion of the differentiated pelvic bones. Learn methods of pelvic floor, hip and lower back release for liberated sensation and improved posture through self-touch and movement. (Workshop)
Credentials
Laban Movement Analyst with Touch for Repatterning Certification (ISMETA Recognized) 2014
Birth Doula, Women’s Way, 2012
Pelvic Floor Specialist, Franklin Method, 2020
Franklin Method Educator, Level 2, 2023
Gyrotonic Instructor, 2018
Radical Sex Educator, EDSE, 2021
Dance Teaching
Contact Improv
Sarah has studied extensively with many first and second generation CI teachers in the USA, as well as with practitioners across the world.
Sarah teaches CI in multiple contexts including at international festivals, community classes, Universities, and as part of social projects around queerness, consent and touch-literacy. Sarah has presented at CI conferences, contributed referential writings about consent culture, and traveled with the project Queering CI: an international, intersectional project in motion, co-founded with Aurora Valverde Lugand.
(pictured with Catalina Mahecha Colombia/España)
Writing: myths to break down
Spiral Body Techniques ™️
Certified 2024 Essential Level Molly Shanahan/MadShak Spiral Body Techniques™️
Flying low/
Passing through
Sarah has trained in Chicago, Madrid and with David Zambrano in the 5-Week Intensive at TicTac Arts, Brussels 2023
Photo Credits
Home Page: Serafín Mesa @serafin_mesa , Kala Madriz @kalamalangala @danzandanzas
Academics: Kala Madriz @kalamalangala @danzandanzas
Creative Practice: Sarah Gottlieb, @excusemylens @theirmajestiescroydon
BodyCompass Dance Project: Kala Madriz @kalamalangala @danzandanzas, Henri T @henritartist @documentedbyhenrit, Kala Madriz @kalamalangala, @danzandanzas, Abbie Brasch, Rossi Mel
Collaborations: Kala Madriz @kalamalangala @danzandanzas, unknown, Kala Madriz @kalamalangala @danzandanzas
Arts Workshops as Community Activism: Kala Madriz @kalamalangala
Somatics: Kala Madriz @kalamalangala
Dance Teaching: Leticia Coyate, Erika Ruch/Lady Red Photos, Arnaud Beelen @arnaudbeelenphoto@tictacartcentre
End: Serafín Mesa @serafin_mesa