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Shorter Than a Tunnel, Longer Than a Bridge
May 29 – May 31
Shorter Than a Tunnel, Longer Than a Bridge
Amelia Charter and Sam Wentz
Sunday May 31st, 4pm
Amelia Charter and Sam Wentz collaborate for the first time in an evening-length performance at the intersection of movement, object practice, and sound. Gathering a growing body of materials, organic and inorganic, they construct an elemental, sonic system. Structures are continuously emerging, disrupted, and reconfigured. How are things built around us, under us, between us, and through us? When it falls away, what are we left with?
Bios
Amelia Charter is a performance artist, producer, teacher, and writer. She earned her BA in Performance and Directing from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, was co-founder of Denver Performance Research (2009 – 2012), and received an MFA and fellowship in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2014).
Her works have been featured in Los Angeles at The Electric Lodge, Paloma Street Studio, and Pieter Performance Space, in Chicago at Sector 2337, Defibrillator Gallery, Mana Contemporary, Co-Prosperity Sphere, and Links Hall, in Indianapolis at The Sugar Space and The Oilwick, in Philadelphia at the Museum of Art and Mascher Space Cooperative, and at Kriti Gallery in Varanasi, India.
Charter’s work is often engaged with everyday objects that are at once familiar and yet not themselves. As an artist and designer, the tactile and sensorial qualities are important both functionally and experientially. Her multidisciplinary processes include making clothing, music, building furniture, and quilting. Charter’s work considers the spatial capabilities of ‘a stage’ as it lives in a theatre, gallery, and private and public spaces. She moves between the intimacy of one-on-one performances and the larger visibility of public space works.
Sam Wentz is an LA-based dancer, performer and maker. Wentz has collaborated with a wide range of artists and companies, including Ajani Brannum, the Trisha Brown Dance Company (2009–2014), Wally Cardona + Jennifer Lacey, Jay Carlon, Gerald Casel, Dimitri Chamblas, the Merce Cunningham Trust, Katherine Helen Fisher, Levi Gonzalez, Jmy James Kidd, Mark Morris Dance Group, Abigail Levine, Annie B .Parson, Judith Sánchez Ruíz, Kensaku Shinohara, Susan Sgorbati, Jacob Wolff, and Stephanie Zaletel.
As a maker, his performance work, often situated within studio and gallery contexts, draws from improvisational practices and an ongoing inquiry into the relationships between bodies, objects, and attention. His work has been presented at the Bennington Museum (VT), the Firehouse Joshua Tree, the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, G-Son Studios, Human Resources LA, Pieter Performance Space, REDCAT, and The Tank (NYC). In 2024, he was published by the University of Michigan for “A Society to Me: On Conflict and Intimacy Training” in Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies, Volume 43.
Beyond his artistic practice, Wentz extends choreographic thinking into organizational and collective contexts. A full time faculty member at CalArts, he was elected Chair of Faculty for the 2024–2025 academic year, where he played a key role in guiding faculty and staff through their successful unionization with the UAW.
