Biography
Heavyware is a transdisciplinary collective formed to experience a shared way of creating and engage with the future of dance performance through collaboration. Coming from a similar background of movement and performance, we work within a creative and ethical practice that integrates queerness as a method of working, to create boundary pushing work that embraces the respect of boundaries. Heavyware was established during our final year of studying the Contemporary Dance BA at Trinity Laban in London, conceived during Alexandra’s final research project titled Je t’embras(s)e. This project questioned the possible areas of encounter between the practice of dance as taught in conservatoires and the world of BDSM. Our personal work infuses our work as duo.
Alexandra Bierlaire (she/they) is an interdisciplinary dance artist and performer. In her work, movement meets soft material to dissect the self. Alexandra’s practice is a space to reflect and question the norms that she has been raised and educated with. Her work tends to create visceral and confrontational work whilst creating emphasis towards care and tenderness as a weapon. Alexandra is fascinated by the body and its multi-sphere components, directing her work to the investigation of boundaries as micro and macro. Her current research is an investigation of the skin as a physical boundary that can be adapted, that can be shed, that is multiple; the skin as a canvas and the memory of drawings and stories. Her practice as a working tattoo artist also informs this.
Gian Sanghera-Warren (he/they) is is a London born movement artist of British and Indian heritage. Primarily working with movement, his work is informed by notions of of personal and communal memory, documentation and intimacy, often looking at digital trends as a form of cultural archivism and technology as a choreographic tool, using the notion of the algorithm as a method of curating and creating work.
