By michael solender

Self-curated dance performances filled Sarah Ingel’s childhood. Joyful and life affirming, performing for others went beyond mere playtime and informed a critical component of her ethos as an artist – an overriding desire to subvert audience expectations.

Then, it was her parents and extended family members dutifully attending her basement productions, complete with artfully crafted space featuring hanging bed sheet curtains and a stage made with a gym mat to host her original choreography and dance adaptations.

More recently, it’s wider audiences enjoying her work, including performances featured at Charlotte Ballet’s Choreographic Lab, BOOM Charlotte, ladyfestCLT – where she is co-curator – and Goodyear Arts, where she’s a member of the nonprofit residency’s artist Collective.  

Ingel, a choreographer, dancer and creative maker, is a 2021 ASC Emerging Creators Fellowship recipient. She’s fueled by energy she finds in elements leading to and culminating with contemporary dance.

“Even at a young age, I was creating a space and a home for my performance to live,” Ingel said. “When I approach making a new dance piece, I first think about the space where that work will live and be performed. Being able to visualize the architecture of the room, the lighting, the dimensions, the sound, then enables me to think about the architecture of the bodies in space, what they will wear, what they will articulate through movement, their relationship to each other and the audience.

“When I create a stage, it’s like approaching a blank canvas, preparing for the medium of movement that will be painted across the space.”

Ingel found creative inspiration in her teens when the award-winning work of renown Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharian sparked a fire within.

“In 2004, my brother Ben and I saw a performance of ‘Minus 16’ choreographed by Naharian and performed by Hubbard Street Dance,” Ingel said. “We started pursuing dance training more rigorously [after that]. I left home at 15 to train at North Carolina School of the Arts. Seeing that work challenged the way I thought about choreography, humor, emotion, theatricality and physicality and what was possible on a stage.”

Ingel uses staging to leverage space, combine movement and other visual elements to surprise and delight her audiences, often creating experiences they may have not expected.

“I aim to challenge existing structures and hierarchies with my work, creating space for surprise and subverting audience expectations by setting up systems or narrative structures that suddenly shift, depicting common and comforting symbols and tropes that, when repeated to exhaustion or viewed in a different light, reveal themselves to be harsh and discomfiting,” she said. “I practice myth-making from a queer and feminist perspective, creating environments that explore the ways we collectively create our own mythologies while simultaneously re-contextualizing contemporary culture.”

Her approach and success in shaping perceptions make her a Charlotte artist to watch and an engaging maker who is using her ASC Emerging Creators fellowship to expand her choreographic work into film.

“Thanks to the support provided by the ASC, I’ve been able purchase supplies to build a stage to film choreography that I’ve been working on during the pandemic,” Ingel said, noting earlier this year she collaborated with a team to create a stage space Camp North End. “We filmed three works that I choreographed as well as several improvisation scores with a group of six talented and dedicated dancers. I made sure that the funds went toward equipment that can be used for future performances as well; things like lights, costumes, and set pieces. Most importantly, it has also afforded me the opportunity to pay my collaborators for their contributions.”

For Ingel, the power of dance is transformative.

“I love when a performance leads me to a different way of thinking, moves me to tears, makes me lean forward or dance along in my seat,” she said. “It’s amazing that we can all experience the same piece so differently based on who we are and how we bring ourselves to the performance. Movement is our first language, and dance is integral to so many cultures because of its power and what it can do, how it can make us feel and how it can communicate complex stories to diverse audiences.”