Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Boardman.
Sarah, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
If you want a really clear picture of how drawn to create I’ve always been, ask my younger sister. When I was a child I spent my days in our family’s bonus room, choreographing musical numbers, writing songs, and rehearsing ambitious (not to mention vaguely disturbing) one-act plays. It was Lily’s job as my only sibling to, often begrudgingly, learn and perform these projects by my side. For this, I both thank and apologize to her.
I was eleven when I fell in love with movement. I had navigated a dense forrest of various performing arts (i.e. violin, piano, singing, musical theater, rhythmic gymnastics, etc.) and after dabbling in each, I found that dancing was the one thing that really had a hold on me. I began dancing comparably late to my peers. Though I had to play catch-up for a while, I think the late start ultimately saved me from burning out.
From then on, dance was the constant in my life. Through my parent’s divorce, frequent flirtations with depression and anxiety, and all the inevitable challenges of being an adolescent human, my love for dancing and making dance remained unconditional. In my junior year of high school, I made the decision to pursue dance on an academic level. I applied to Chapman University’s program where, come September, I will be entering my fourth and final year as a BFA student in Dance Performance.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I think dance, as an art form, is particularly special in that it can act as a sort of glue, bonding multiple artistic mediums together. In short, it plays well with others. It can flesh out the intricacies of music, increase both the physical and emotional dimension of film, and embody the hidden, connotative layers of spoken word. Though each practice is fully capable of existing on its own, I’m of the mindset that they are better together.
I try to keep this in mind when I’m creating. Though the medium of dance is where my expertise lies, I challenge myself to reach outside the boundaries of human movement when it comes to making a finished product. I find outsourcing to sound design, lighting, props, etc. when done intentionally, does not upstage or obscure the movement but rather, magnifies it; it becomes more accessible, more universal, more dimensional.
Beyond this, the focus of what I produce typically revolves around the concept of chaos. That’s what it always comes down to for me. It’s a broad term that can mean a number of different things, but to me, it’s really about a lack of control. Specifically, how cognizance of that lack of control can affect the human experience. More recently, I’ve been interested in how the ideas of chaos and dance can interact with the horror genre. Horror is something I’m really into as a patron of art, but I don’t find it has a big presence in the realm of dance. I want to help change that. The last stage piece I choreographed, entitled “Lug Wrench,” was an abstracted narrative about a murderer. My goal was to explore both the morbid delusion of a killer, and the complexity of what breeds that kind of delusion. I hope to create more works in that vein in the near future.
Ultimately, my goal as an artist is to insight discomfort. Now that I’m saying it, I realize it sounds a little sadistic, but it’s less about that, and more about my fascination with discomfort and fear as human experiences, what inspires them, and why. The way I see it, the richer my palette of mediums to draw from, the better.
What would you recommend to an artist new to the city, or to art, in terms of meeting and connecting with other artists and creatives?
Reach outside your medium! Collaborate! It sounds simple, but I’m often surprised at how little it actually happens. There is often a lot of talk about collaboration that never comes to fruition. If I had one piece of advice, it would be: just do it. Just make the damn thing. As artists and especially as freelancers, which most of us are, life often feels too busy to make stuff “just because.” But we all have more time and creative energy than we think. Make the effort to connect to creative, like-minded people, and just make things.
I’m talking dancers and musicians, musicians and filmmakers, filmmakers and writers, writers and photographers. It doesn’t even have to stop there! Everyone can come together to make some ridiculous, eclectic work of art that traverses mediums and blurs the lines of categorization! Let’s do it.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
To support me, check out and subscribe to my YouTube channel (where I recently posted my foray into dance film), and follow me on Instagram. Those are the places where I share my work and spread the word about shows and projects to come!
Contact Info:
- Email: Boardmandance@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ouijaboardman/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarah.boardman.33
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw2eqhfFIrD6YDb-O61VbUA
Image Credit:
Austin Buchanan
Daniel Huynh
Alissa Roseborough
Sarah Boardman
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