Current solo project-in-process with anticipated premiere 2024/2025

Why are we queer? Where does transness come from? Are the answers we’re looking for inside or outside, from the past or the future, in the center of the earth or the galaxy beyond? And is this all just a stalling tactic when really a surgery consult and Lexapro would go a long way toward inner peace?

Origin Story is a dance-theater one-them-show born from the outer space of trans dis-certainty. Nora Sharp takes audiences down a choreographic and comedic rabbit hole of intertwined sci-fi futurism and personal history, shaped by repression, resistance, modestly-managed anxiety, and a handful of reverberant interactions with coworkers and distant cousins. Set initially in the dumpster out back of a local top surgery office, the work seeks the keys to queer past and future wherever they can be found - deciphering and deconstructing bar tabs, alien missives, dance breaks, family photo albums, and even, if necessary, the employee handbook. At times unsettling yet ultimately cathartic, Origin Story charts a pathway beyond the mainstream demand for queer and trans legibility, insisting on self-determined historic and future narrative-building.

Development history:

• Initial development in residency at the Hambidge Center, March 2022

• Supported in 2023 in part by the Queer|Art Mentorship program with mentor Will Davis

• Supported in 2024 in part by the Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award

Work-in-progress/excerpt showings:

• Rattlestick Theater, NYC - November 2023

• Physical Theater Festival’s Scratch Night, Chicago - July 2023

• New Dance Alliance’s Performance Mix Festival, Abrons Arts Center, NYC - June 2023

• Midwest RAD Fest, Kalamazoo - March 2023

• Chicago Dancemakers Forum - Elevate Festival, Chicago - October 2022

Recent excerpt viewable on Vimeo.

Email for booking inquiries.