CHOREOGRAPHY
CRIPA, India
Performance Mix, Joyce Soho, NYC
‘raw’
‘iconic’
‘cinematic’
Cynthia Berkshire’s movement-based multimedia projects deftly weave narrative worlds into a dreamlike vision of our emotional and psychic lives. The body offers the foundation of a project’s development, while visuals and layered audio expand and enrich ideas. Within this, projects to shape-shift through a range of media and contexts. Inspired by her work with choreographer Kei Takei, she prioritizes delving into the internal imagination.
‘Cynthia has a gift of an unusally deep connection to movement.’
—Zvi Gotheiner, NYC choreographer, ballet teacher
Two Sisters:
commissioned by composer by Hartmut von Lier and the SAIIER foundation, Impressions of Dance and Music was presented at Center for Research In the Performing Arts, Auroville India. A project for five performers based on music by von Lier, the project celebrated the visionary & experimental community of Auroville’s 50th Anniversary. The opportunity also contributed research to Cynthia’s project VEIL: Two Sisters. During her stay in India, she also developed a creative movement workshop focusing on forgiveness, based on one led at the Institute of Contemporary Art, PA. The forgiveness workshop was recently led at Tibet House in New York, summer 2023.
IRIS gets ready for her date:
a poetic, surreal look into a woman’s inner reality, IRIS is a dance theatre work with projections and original music. The character scrambles about her shadowy room with her large pile of bras, preparing for her date. Both humorous and disturbing, IRIS exposes unsettling emotions we experience bringing ourselves to the world, inclined toward women, where appearance and body can be a disturbing priority.
Cynthia’s beautiful performance allowed viewers to ... put our eye to the keyhole and share vulnerable and intimate moments with a woman we don’t know. Indeed, a stimulating voyeuristic journey into a woman’s mind and soul. — ISAIAH ZAGAR, mosaic artist, Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, creator
The project received support from a development residency at White Oak Project, FL and showings including PS122; Performance Mix; Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens; showings with Three Femmes, Dixon Place; Gibney Dance Scholarship. Workshops were led at the Contemporary Institute of Art, George Washington University, SOHO20 Gallery.
DELPHIE takes a breath:
began as a short film, shot in the Chelsea art gallery Apartment 5B. The platinum blonde and her pink couture, which includes a pink vacuum cleaner, was invited to performances and events. This includes Noemie LaFrance’s Agora II site-specific performances, featured in Time Magazine; a commissioned wall installation by DDB Worldwide, international ad agency; visits to the Holiday Home exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art, PA; projection at Philadelphia Fringe Festival; performance with projection at Joyce Soho; Chashama storefront window performance with her doppleganger; a visit to the Bryant Park Carousel.
Delphie received support from various institutions and individuals, including DDB Worldwide; Performance Mix; Institute of Contemporary Art; Philadelphia Fringe Festival; Chashama.