Artist Statement

zoe | juniper

Our choreographic work is an intersection of embodied design, physicality, visual space, and directional sound. We approach the creation and presentation of our work with a belief that dance is a visual art form and visual art is a physical form. The reframing of these components– dance, video, photography, sound/music, lighting, set, and sculpture  is the basis of all our work and creates  a synergistic “third space” where by coming  together creates something unique and singular in their combination. Within the responsive play between the elements rearranged in the work, a new dance is created while the audience is introduced to new ways of seeing and experiencing. Often our  works exist both as a proscenium performance and installation, which allows experimentation with duration, proximity, and shifting visual worlds in unique ways, offering multiple entry points into the work.

At the beginning of our creative process, we often use photography, music / sound design, sculpture and painting to activate an idea before it becomes a choreographed movement and concept. In the development of BeginAgain (2014) we created large plaster casts of the dancers’ bodies that informed the movement and set, allowing the ephemera of choreography to linger in space as a tangible artifact. In the making of Clear & Sweet (2016), video editing was used to manipulate the material we made in rehearsal through cutting, reverse, and slow motion, and then we brought it back to the studio to adapt it into live movement material. By conducting our research through cross-disciplinary practices, it allows us to expand the medium of dance and how it functions in performance.

The genesis of our choreography is strongly rooted in formalized technique. The rigor and articulateness allows us to access and express a physicality of the most raw human experiences. In BeginAgain we worked to convey a particularly nuanced expression with soloist Ariel Freedman, creating movement that deviated wildly from classical form while still honoring and engaging the technique. This is at the heart of what distinguishes my choreography.

Limitations are often a major source of inspiration. In No One to Witness Study #4 (2012), space limitations led us to invite audiences to watch from the floor, erasing the separation between the art and the viewer that created a profoundly intimate experience. In this way, reconfiguring works for each venue and their process questions keeps the work alive and dynamic. Our process focuses on nurturing creative exploration where mistakes and disruption reveal new, exciting avenues. The malleability built into the work fosters a continual play and deeper creativity, allowing us to make work in a perpetual process of becoming rather than from a fixed place and mindset. Through constant reframing and reinvention we access this liminal state that can only happen at this moment in time and space through the convergence of each element. Our art is a glimpse into this place of fleeting magic. 

In 2006, zoe | juniper was formed as a collaboration between Zoe Scofield, choreographer, dancer, visual artist and director and Juniper Shuey video/visual artist, set designer and director with a wide range of cross-disciplinary collaborators. Their work encompasses dance, video, installation, photography and film collaborations shown in visual art galleries, museums and theaters. They have been commissioned and presented by national and international arts centers such as, On the Boards, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Trafo House of Art, Dance Theater Workshop, Bates Dance Festival, New York Live Arts, Spoleto Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Body Festival (New Zealand), Yerba Buena Center, Columbia College Chicago, DiverseWorks, The Frye Art Museum, American Realness Festival, Wesleyan University, PS122/ COIL Festival, Baryshnikov Arts Center, RedCAT, OzArts, SIFFx, Carolina Performing Arts, Pennsylvania Ballet, Fringe Arts/Philly Fringe, DiverseWorks, Dansplace, Dancespace, The Joyce Theater, The MET Museum, NY Philharmonic, CNDC Angers France and more. They offer educational workshops and lectures on dance, video, collaboration and installation throughout the US and internationally. 

zoe | juniper has been awarded residences, awards and grants from 4Culture, Alpert Award, Artist Trust, Case Van Rij Foundation, City Arts Magazine, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Glenn H. Kawasaki Foundation, a Lifetime Achievement Fellowship and President's Award from University of the Arts, The MacDowell Colony, MAD Air, MAP Fund, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, National Performance Network, New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, On the Boards, Princess Grace Foundation, Seattle Foundation, Seattle Magazine, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, The Guggenheim Foundation, The Mellon Foundation, The Bellagio and Rockefeller Foundation, The Stranger Genius Award, Trust for Mutual Understanding, Velocity Dance Center, among others. Zoe has taught at Velocity Dance Center, Mark Morris Dance Center, Gibney Dance Center, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Boston Conservatory, Columbia College, University of Utah, Barnard College, Loyola Marymount, University of the Arts, Kennesaw State, Georgia Tech, University of North Carolina / Chapel Hill, Oregon University, Colorado University at Boulder, Cornish College of the Arts, University of Washington and California Institute of the Arts

zoe scofield

My work is situated in multiple mediums including, proscenium stage, installation, site responsive, film, photography, vinyl albums, 360 film, 2D collage, opera, zine magazines, art objects and sound installation. I work using a diversity of materiality and scale to best express and fully realize a project's aim/brief. My past work has seen me create pieces at opera houses, limited hand pressed vinyl records, as well as theaters, museums, art galleries, online platforms, bookstores and more.

As a visual thinker, my dance practice is firmly rooted in visual art, drawing, painting, photography and film. I am self taught and see this as an asset. Consistently teaching myself new skills or seeking creative solutions, furthers my own research and output. Within my role as a teacher and creator, I encourage this attitude of learning what you need to create the work you want as well as the firm belief that you can and should work in whatever medium best suits your project and inquiry.

My research challenges dance practices built from historically-exclusive hierarchies. I am engaging my body in questions of repair, decolonization, dismantling misogyny/patriarchy, reconciling the irreconcilable and the inheritance of embodied racism. (keep or not?)I seek to disrupt and lengthen processes of perception, in order to slow down experiences for viewers alongside myself. This process allows for embodied practice through physical action, in conversation with conceptual discourse. I examine and deconstruct barriers between art, artist, and audience by challenging expectations of perception and unconscious bias. The structures of my dances ask the audience to shift both physical and intellectual perspectives. In doing so, I offer opportunities to perceive dance in unconventional ways, allowing for recognition of our own projections, histories and experiences. As a performer, choreographer, and designer, I explore the ways I can create empathetic encounters between audiences and performers while also holding space for everyone’s personal experiences. Collaboration is another essential aspect within my research and practice. I work with artists from diverse disciplines, film, visual art, opera, theater, music and sound, to create specific, singular combinations of bodies, light, sound, art objects and sculpture. Collaborating with artists from various disciplines gives me access to perspectives, mediums, and tools that allow me to better transmit what I am communicating.