A multi-faceted force, Sarah Dahnke is a choreographer, director and arts educator deeply committed to encouraging communities to use performance to reclaim narratives stripped away by colonialism. As a practitioner, Sarah brings a collaborative, devised approach to performance making.
She recently directed Opera Columbus’ sold-out season opener: a remixed, 90-minute version of Carmen. This was followed by directing an incredibly timely version of Hydrogen Jukebox at the Boston University Opera Institute. She was the second awardee of the Crane Directing Fellowship at Opera Columbus, where she was the assistant director on productions of La Cenerentola, Maria de Buenos Aires, and Rigoletto.
Sarah has also been a MAP Fund awardee, an NEA Our Town-funded resident artist, and an awardee of fellowships from Gibney’s Moving Toward Justice, Colt Coeur, Target Margin Institute, New Victory LabWorks, and Culture Push. She has received commissions from Little Island, PEN America and A Studio in the Woods and has been in residence at Abrons Arts Center and Brooklyn Studios for Dance. Her dance film work has been screened through the Dance Films Association, Tiny Dance Film Festival, DanceBarn Collective, BRIC, and Movies By Movers.
Sarah is the artistic director of Dances for Solidarity, a project that co-creates choreography with people affected by the criminal legal system and performs for public audiences as advocacy toward prison abolition.
Sarah’s work as a choreographer intersects with dance on stage, film, and in public spaces. She is trained in a wide variety of styles, including contemporary, jazz, ballet, tap, and hip hop, and she works to pull from and blend these styles, drawing on the needs of the project and the strengths of the dancers performing the work. As a result, her work has existed everywhere from downtown New York theaters, to international contemporary art galleries, to music videos and short films. With the combined power of a bachelors in performing arts from Oklahoma City University’s renowned dance program along with a masters from ITP, Tisch School of the Arts’ multimedia arts program, Sarah also choreographs movement inside of immersive installations, experiential marketing campaigns, motion capture, and virtual reality.
As an educator, Sarah has worked at New York University, New York City Ballet, Abrons Arts Center, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and as an assistant to Marina Abramovic.
As a collaborative movement maker, Sarah’s choreographic work is bold yet subtle, quirky yet accessible, a glorious celebration of dance in its many forms.