Danielle Georgiou
overview works about exhibitions
About the Artist
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Danielle Georgiou is a dancer, choreographer, and video artist based in Dallas, TX. Her stage and video work deals with puzzles found in femininity—vulnerability, deformity, and beauty. Her work has shown across Texas, New York (Horton Gallery), California (Rogue Fringe Festival), Florida (Bosch Film Festival), Oregon (Portland's Experimental Film Festival), and Germany (2nd Berlin Besucher Triennial). She exhibited both her performance and video work at the 2013 Texas Biennial, was a part of a three-person show at Eugene Binder Gallery in Marfa, TX, and recently completed a solo show at Women and their Work in Austin, TX. Her video work will be a part of the Edinburgh Arts Festival in the summer of 2015 (at the Garage Gallery).
In 2011, she founded DGDG (the Danielle Georgiou Dance Group), a performance art dance group that works within ideas of German expressionism and dans theatre. The productions work toward creating compelling images of a “new female.” Whether collaborating or defining her own work, Danielle wants dancers that constantly strive to transform themselves, either in image or skill. Technique is your foundation – not your identity. DGDG has performed across Texas, Oklahoma, and California, and staged their most recent work, NICE, at the Wyly Theatre, 6th Floor Studio Theatre, as part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project in November 2014. She was recently named one of the top North Texas choreographers to watch in 2014 by the Dallas Morning News, cited as one of the standout female performers of 2013 by the Dallas Observer, and DGDG was nominated as Best Dance Company in Dallas by D Magazine in 2014. She is the Program Coordinator of Dance at Eastfield College and the Director of the UT Arlington Dance Ensemble. Danielle is pursuing her Ph.D. in Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas and recently completed a residency at CentralTrak—the UT Dallas Artist Residency program. |
Artist Statement
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Combining video, dance, and live performance, to create a mirror in which to start looking through the self, I incorporate pop culture references and mechanically mediated techniques to explore contemporary feminine gender dynamics and the intensely personal nature of identity.
The resulting growing body of work is organized around the premise of transforming images of the self, and producing unique and individualized portraits that act as a visual marker for my own search for identity. Influenced by aspects of Diamanda Galás’ performance style—the terror she achieves with her vocal range and the experimental quality of her filmed and public performances—Cindy Sherman’s photography—particularly her notion of the transformative female—Chris Marker’s editing style, Matthew Barney’s avant-garde techniques, and Guy Bourdin’s highly sexual fashion photographs, the mise-en-scénes I create are basically the performative equivalent of Samuel Beckett on a dinner date with Sarah Silverman. Both the videos and live performances are love letters: to myself, to my lovers, to you. And they document my own self-discovery of dysfunction. The weight of catastrophic dread is blended in equal measure with female-power and pop, resulting in a darkly comedic performance. With a dash of female spectacle thrown in for good measure—less like Guy Debord, and more like the kitschy, self-reflective music videos of Katy Perry. Acted out in an ironic form of stand-up comedy and ritual—as lines are repeated over and over in attempt to convince myself of something or to help me become something—the performances beg the question, “will you die from laughing?” |
