Making practice & history:

I am a performer, director, and writer working across dance, theater, comedy, film, and essay. My work draws attention to queer and trans people’s unfolding relationships with themselves and each other, and to the kinks in the fabric of artmaking labor and culture, in order to offer alternative, expansive understandings of gender and relationship. I blend spoken and body language - stories and ramblings offer a narrative counterweight to gestural or abstract movement, amidst carefully crafted soundscapes - to strike a balance between familiarity and otherworldliness, inviting audiences in and then taking them somewhere beyond. The tone of my work is low-stakes but high-investment, deeply personal without taking itself too seriously, and often comedic. Current major projects are Swine Ball, an ensemble dance-theater work that uses my family history as seed for exploring the contexts and personal stakes that motivate democratic participation and the yearning for a queer lifeline in personal and political history; The Real Dance, a reality TV series about dancers’ personal backstories (co-directed with Grace McCants); and Origin Story, a solo show that attempts to chart a pathway beyond the mainstream demand for queer and trans legibility. I’m also sharing new writing regularly through my newsletter, Nor Art, and host a semi-regular works-in-progress series for fellow artists called Sharp Tank.

My work has been presented by On the Boards, New Dance Alliance’s Performance Mix 37, OTV | Open Television, the Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, Midwest RAD Fest, the Pivot Arts Festival, Steppenwolf Theatre’s LookOut Series, the Fly Honey Show, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Synapse Arts - New Works, Chicago Dancemakers Forum - Elevate, Physical Theater Festival’s Scratch Night, and all kinds of DIY artist-led performance spaces in Chicago. I’ve been an artist in residence at Hambidge, The Croft, Links Hall Co-MISSIONS Residency, High Concept Labs (as part of Vaudeo Motion), and VOLTA Performing Arts. As a performer, dramaturg, or creative consultant, I’ve collaborated with artists including Julie Crothers (MANCC 2023), CONDUIT, Ayako Kato, Udita Upadhyaya, Lindsey Barlag Thornton & Amanda Dunne Acevedo, Dao Nguyen, M Wu, Jane Jerardi, Joshua Kent, The Space Movement Project, Bill Young, Willi Dorner, Kirsten Leenaars, and Tonya Lockyer, among others. Past projects have been supported by Individual Artist grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency and the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE). I was a 2023 Performance Fellow with the Queer|Art Mentorship program, working with director and choreographer Will Davis, and am a Chicago Dancemakers Forum 2024 Lab Artist.

Community practice: I’ve hosted works-in-progress performance and conversation nights for artists for many years; here’s the current and historic info on those. I’ve worked 1:1 with artists on creative process, organized dance classes intended to fill gaps in Chicago’s offerings, taught workshops on creative process, and initiated workshops on mental health in the context of creative making. In the summer of 2019, I served as the inaugural Director of People Support (or Vibes Manager, if you like it like that) for the Fly Honey Show, setting up systems for community-based, integrated support for participants in this deeply meaningful and intense production and helping facilitate conflict resolution. In 2019 I created THE AMTRAKLOR, a resource-sharing project and fundraiser for Links Hall that gifted a roundtrip train ticket to a local artist for creative research. I worked on the MMAPS collective response project in winter/spring 2021. I love to do studio visits, attend rehearsals, give and receive feedback on each other’s work, and generally be part of artists mutually supporting what each other are trying to do.

Other kinds of work: Apart from being an independent artist, I make my living working at a national grassroots progressive political organization, working with volunteers and staff in a combination trainings, facilitation, and programmatic role. The coolest thing I’ve done there so far was co-creating/co-leading our abortion-focused electoral deep canvassing program in 2022 (shoutout to the Deep Canvass Institute who taught us how), which won a Reed Award for innovation in phone engagement. Organizing has been an important part of my life for a long time; I came up in student environmental activism, worked on electoral campaigns in Alaska and Virginia in the late aughts, and for the past several years have been grateful to give my energy to, and be transformed by, the broad movement organizing culture of Chicago.

My social position within the arts and beyond, and how it impacts my actions: I’m a white, non-disabled, queer, gender expansive person who grew up middle class on the south side of Chicago, the place where I’ve spent most of my life - also (to my current understanding) known as Zhigaagoong and land of Peoria, Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Myaamia, Kickapoo, Kaskasia, Ho-Chunk, and Potawatomi peoples (based on native-land.ca). My ongoing process of practicing equity as a white creator currently includes paying hired collaborators at least $30/hr through a combination of grant funding, commission fees, and redirection of my own income; working to welcome and receive feedback; pursuing my own ongoing study in anti-oppression, conflict skills, and transformative justice; meeting rather than avoiding conflict when it arises; donating 7-10% of my monthly post-tax income to individuals and organizations who are or are led by marginalized people; and a variety of other practices intended to support people around me - particularly those most harmed by racial capitalism - in being financially secure, safe, and thriving.

Contact: nora.sharp@gmail.com

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