MTA Visiting Artist Janessa Clark is a BESSIE Award-nominated choreographer, dance filmmaker, performer, and installation artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her practice combines dance, video, and language to develop art for the stage, screen, and site-specific environments. The work created nourishes a desire to challenge traditional modes of choreography and spectatorship through co-authorship. Janessa holds an MA in Performance Practices and Research from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London and a BFA in Choreography from Arizona State University. Janessa has enjoyed prior residencies through CEC ArtsLink in St Petersburg, Russia, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Lake Studios Berlin, Loyola Marymount University, Exploring the Metropolis at Jamaica Arts Center, THE VISIONARY, and Stockholm University of the Arts (formerly DOCH). Her work has been presented widely over the past 20 years including at HERE Arts Center, Danspace Project, Barry Art Museum, the American Dance Festival, Bate Dance Festival, and internationally at numerous festivals. Her video-dance project COMMUNION, a response to the Covid-19 crisis, was nominated for the 2021 BESSIE Award for Outstanding Production.
As a performer, Janessa has been fortunate to work with Tino Sehgal, Gibney Dance, Laura Peterson Choreography, and Noemie LaFrance among others, and she has received grants from Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Swedish Arts Council, the Croft Residency, and Harlem Stage. In addition to being part of the Theater Arts faculty at MIT, she is currently touring and developing her ongoing Tiny Dances Project, premiering a new dance film A Torch in the Machinewhich will later be adapted for Augmented Reality, and redirecting her research practice into the possibilities of A.I. for Choreography.
A Torch in the Machine (2024)
In a post-apocalyptic near-future, two women, trapped underground since their lives began, are thrown together after the unexpected destruction of their community’s bunker. When the world above begins to seep in through the cracks and air shafts, they realize this moment in time is perhaps their only opportunity to escape up and out into the great unknown of the outside world. Unfamiliar with the experiences of space, physical touch, autonomy, possibility, and freedom, the women embark on a journey of courage to push beyond the boundaries of concrete and the status quo in search of a truth that lies beyond. Within the harsh environment of the parched desert outer world, can they find both a reason and the strength to press on together?
And, is there anyone else left?
Originally inspired by E.M. Forster’s 1909 short story The Machine Stops.