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March 20, 2027 @ 07:30 pm199 Chamber St
New York, NY
10007
Dr. Chloé Roberts is a choreographer and scholar whose work examines the history of power, labor, gender, and the law through contemporary performance. Her practice spans choreography, research, education, and interdisciplinary collaboration, engaging historical and theoretical frameworks to interrogate how bodies are shaped by cultural expectation and institutional systems. She was a 2021 Franco-American Fulbright Scholar, is a certified Luigi Jazz Technique teacher, and the recipient of the Dance Lab New York Production Prep Fellowship. She recently premiered a new evening length work titled PEOPLE at Arts on Site in NYC to sold out audiences. She holds a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is a faculty member at Steps on Broadway NYC. Recent performance work includes The Today Show, Dance Lab New York, chor. Phil Colgan, Sarah Parker, and Niani Feelings. Photo: Jordan Lombardi
Sorcière integrates choreography, archival research, and feminist inquiry to examine how women’s bodies have been regulated, punished, and mythologized across history. Emerging from my doctoral research on early modern witchcraft prosecutions, the project investigates how legal and religious systems constructed the figure of the “witch” to discipline nonconforming bodies. It asks how histories of accusation, shame, and resistance persist in the present, and how they are carried in the contemporary body. The work takes the form of a live dance performance The piece follows the structure of a domestic tragedy, charting the evolution of a witchcraft trial from accusation to execution. Performed by an ensemble of ten dancers, Sorcière features characters inspired by historical trial participants, including the accused witches, accusers, judge, and townspeople, alongside figures drawn from early modern confessions such as the Devil, demons, healers, and alchemists. While the figure of the witch is often feminized, the work also examines the persecution of men, using the gendered distinction between sorcier and sorcière to explore how belief and gender intersect in systems of punishment.
This residency at BMCC Tribeca PAC is part of the CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI), which receives major support from The Howard Gilman Foundation, George S. Kaufman Charitable Foundation, and The Mertz Gilmore Foundation. Additional support is provided by the SHS Foundation, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance. CDI is spearheaded by The Kupferberg Center for the Arts at Queens College. www.cuny.edu/danceinitiative