About Aretha

Aretha Aoki is a choreographer, performer, and teacher originally from Vancouver, BC and currently residing in Topsham, Maine.  Her research as a choreographer is grounded in improvisation and collaboration with artists both within and outside the field of dance. Her work has incorporated highly structured choreography, next to open frames for improvisation, next to a range of art forms: video, sculpture, spoken text, sound, and dance criticism, to name a few. Themes that emerge include authorship, lineage, and the body as a medium for the residue of the past. Aretha was a collaborating performer with Emily Johnson/Catalyst Dance for seven years (Terrible Things, Thank You Bar, Niicugni, SHORE, and Then a Cunning Voice and a Night Spent Gazing at Stars). She has also worked with robbinschilds, Rebecca Serrell Cyr, devynn emory, Vanessa Anspaugh, Heather Kravas, Juliette Mapp, Daria Fain, Maura Donohue, Elizabeth Ward, Martin Lanz, Faye Driscoll, Lisa D’Amour & Katie Pearl, and others. Since 2016, Aretha has held the position of Assistant Professor of Dance at Bowdoin College. Since 2014, she has been leading the workshop, The Dancer is a Haunted House, based on her choreographic and performance research, at various locations in NYC, San Francisco, and New England. Aretha was Associate Editor at Contact Quarterly (CQ) from 2013-2016, and co-curator of the 2016 Movement Research Spring Festival in NYC.