Gabri Christa is a Dutch

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

ist,

choreographer Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

, professor, film-maker and writer. She is an associate professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College and also the Director for the Movement Lab there. Christa is a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health and received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

for

Choreography Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

. She is affiliated with the

New York Women in Film and Television New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT) is a non-profit membership organization for women in film, television, and digital media. The organization is an educational forum for media professionals and a network for the exchange of information a ...

, is on the board for Dance Theatre Workshop and on the advisory board for Dance/NYC. She was also on the Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission of the City of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, appointed by Mayor

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for a three-year term in 2015, until 2022.

Early life

Christa was Born in Curaçao, Dutch Caribbean. She received her BFA from the School of New Dance Development, Amsterdam in 1986 and she got her MFA in Dance, with an additional study in

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

, Ethno-musicology and Women Studies from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

in 1998. She was born to a Surinamese father and Dutch mother.

Career

Christa began her career as a performer and choreographer, with critically acclaimed work Orangemelted in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and then started working with

Danza Contemporanea de Cuba Danza is a musical genre that originated in Ponce, a city in southern Puerto Rico. It is a popular turn-of-the-twentieth-century ballroom dance genre slightly similar to the waltz. Both the danza and its cousin the contradanza are sequence danc ...

in 1987. She further went on to becoming a founding member of DanzAbierta. When she moved to New York in 1993, she started working at the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company as a part of the group's eclectic repertory. Along with this, she kept up with her choreography and started her own company Danzaisa, after leaving Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane in 1999, which went on to perform in the

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, and

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

. Some of Christa's administrative positions include being the

Artistic Director An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogu ...

and

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of Snug Harbor Cultural Center and founding and curating a Festival of the Moving Body on Screen: called Moving Body-Moving Image. From 2010 to 2014, she was the Director of Performing Arts for the Consulate General of Netherlands in New York. A few of Christa's academic appointments as a teacher of dance and a lecturer have been at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, University of Washington and Barnard College Dance Department. She has also been on the faculty of

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

(CUNY) College of Staten Island in the Performing and Creative Arts department.

Works

Stage performances

Christa has performed at the

Symphony Space Symphony Space, founded by Isaiah Sheffer and Allan Miller, is a multi-disciplinary performing arts organization at 2537 Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Performances take place in the 760-seat Peter Jay Sharp Theat ...

, Central Park Summer Stage, Lincoln Center Out of Doors and for five seasons at New York Live Arts. Her work, ''Dominata'', was a multimedia piece of dance theater that used spoken word, video, dance and theatre to capture the emotions and issues surrounding immigration. Writing about it, Jennifer Dunning at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' wrote that "She transforms the theater and transports you ..she directs without seeming to lift a finger." Some of her other evening length choreographies were for the 2009 Landscape on Hold, a collaboration with Marianela Boan and Tania Isaac at the

Painted Bride Art Center The Painted Bride Art Center, sometimes referred to informally as The Bride, is a non-profit artist-centered performance space and gallery particularly oriented to presenting the work of local Philadelphia artists, which presents dance, jazz, wo ...

, Philadelphia. and Remember this moment Duet, collaboration with Niles Ford in 2008. Some of her shorter works were for Five Fingers make a hand at Staten Island Ballet, St. George Theater and Longing for what is lost in 2011 for CUNY Center for the Arts, Staten Island, NY. Her dance conduction project, Burnt Sugar Danz, later started with Greg Tate. Magdalena is a one-woman multimedia piece which is a culmination of dance, storytelling and visuals as Christa shares personal experiences of her mother's past, her

dementia Dementia is a syndrome associated with many neurodegenerative diseases, characterized by a general decline in cognitive abilities that affects a person's ability to perform activities of daily living, everyday activities. This typically invo ...

, an

interracial marriage Interracial marriage is a marriage involving spouses who belong to different "Race (classification of human beings), races" or Ethnic group#Ethnicity and race, racialized ethnicities. In the past, such marriages were outlawed in the United Sta ...

, Holland during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and her take on motherhood. This is a series of short films which was listed as one of the "7 Dance Performances to See in N.Y.C. This Weekend" by ''The New York Times''. Elizabeth Zimmer at The Villager described this as "A tissue of fine and funny verbal detail" with "passionate, energetic dancing", while Carrie Lee O'Dell at The Review Hub called her performance "rich and moving" and said that "we're lucky that she's generous enough to invite the audience along." According to Eva Yaa Asantewaa at Infinite Body, it is "an act of loving discovery, recall and reclamation." Fire on fire is one of the musical performances that she directed and orchestrated multimedia for. This performance brought together ten African American musicians and ten gypsy musicians in Symphony Space, New York.

Screen work

Christa has produced and directed many short films that have been screened in galleries. Her short film "High School" won an

ABC television ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...

award for creative excellence and Pangea Day Festival's one of the World's 100 most promising filmmakers. She made the short film, ''Another building'', which follows the Dutch African Diaspora and highlights historic buildings in connection to the different environments where people from different cultures reside.

Writing

Christa's written publications for film and dance have been featured in The Scholar & Feminist and in "Caribbean Dance; from Abekua to Zouk". Her creative publications include "Screendance Festivals and Online Audiences" where she talked about moving the 2020 Moving Body-Moving Image Festival online, an essay called "This Little Black Doll" discussing her performance piece Magdalena and a memorial for Leo Floridas called "In Loving Memory of Leo Floridas". She published an essay in "A Life in Dance: A Practical Guide" (May 2017) called "The Wisdom Of Insecurity As a Guide To Music And Dance Collaboration".

Awards/honors

*2000 - Grant to present work internationally,

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*2000 - Guggenheim Fellowship *2004 - Composer award collaboration / Burnt Sugar Arkestra, New York State Council on the Arts *2001, 2002, 2004, 2007 - Fellowship New Work, Jerome Foundation *2008 - Finishing Funds Award, Dance Films Association *2010 - Fellow, Barishnikov /Summerstages *2016 - Georgie Award for advocating for Culture to the Youth of Staten Island *2018 - Honor List Critic Eva Yaa Asantewaa for Magdalena: "Best Performances of 2018" *2018 - Award for Magdalena film,

Netherland-America Foundation The Netherland-America Foundation also known as ”the NAF” is an American 501(c)(3), non-profit organization based in New York City with nine additional chapters in the United States and one chapter in the Netherlands. The mission of the foundati ...

*2021 - Premier Grant funded through the Greater New York Arts Development Fund (GNYADF) of New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), Staten Island Arts Council *2022 Presidential Research Award, Barnard College

Filmography

Short films

*Ring Shout (2002) *High School (2002) *Domino (2003) *Quarantine: (Another Building dancing # 1) (2007) *Savoneta: (Another Building Dancing # 2) (2008) *Salon Day (2010) *Orbit-dance ScreenDance scene (2014) *Kasita: (Another Building # 3) (2014) *Magdalena & Herman (short) as part of Magdalena performance (2018) *Ashe (Choreography) (2019) *Son (2021) *Sheila (2022)

Feature films

*Tula the Revolt (associate producer) (2013)

Music videos

*Mi Pais Director (2009) *Universal Love (2017)

Documentary

*One Day at A Time (2016)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Christa, Gabri Living people Dutch performance artists University of Washington alumni Dutch dancers Barnard College faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Dutch people of Surinamese descent Curaçao people of Surinamese descent Curaçao people of Dutch descent