Su
Dan Su (born in Kunming, China) is a multimedia artist producing performance based art including the work of dance, electronic music, films, and visual art. Since 2017, she has been working as a freelancer in U.S. and Berlin. She choreographed and performed “Roots” (2017), “I EYE I” (2018), “On an attempt of a chicken soup” (2019) as stage performances, and "WHITE WRITE 白写" (2020) as performance installation. She has produced a number of short dance/music films including a series of ongoing one-minute experimental videos. In 2019, she debuted her electronic single “Today I am”, successively released the single "Blue Eyes" and EP "Chicken soup" in 2020, and upcoming soundtrack "Erosion". As a sound maker, she attempts to create dynamic space that haunts by using atmospheric sound, noise, beats and her unique vocal.
Passionate about performance, she is interested in creating worlds that live on their own. She uses composition, improvisation and algorithms to generate and shape the experience of these worlds through the interaction of body, movement, sound and color. She is in search of the atoms that float between chaos and order, stochastic and deterministic, brutality and gentleness, and between colorfulness and colorlessness, which perhaps are fundamentally untraceable. This absurdity of life is often reflected in her work.
She started dance training in 2000 at Yunnan Huadeng Folk Dance Theater (China). She worked as a dancer and performer in Meicheng dance company (Chengdu, China) from 2010 to 2012. From 2012 to 2017, she danced at the Dance Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in U.S., and 2017-2018 at Tanzfabrik Berlin. Currently, she is completing the MA degree in Choreography at HZT of Berlin University of the Arts. Parallel to her artistic practice, she graduated as a PhD in Quantitative Methodology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (U.S.) in 2018. Her dissertation work was awarded by the American Educational Research Association.
Choreography
2020 WHITE WRITE 白写 | Three hours audio-visual performance installation (48Studio, Berlin)
Store the Impossible | Trio performance (HFS, Berlin)
2019 On an attempt of a chicken soup | Solo performance (Ada studio, Berlin)
2018 I EYE I | Trio dance performance (Tanzfabrik, Berlin)
Ready to Explode | Trio dance performance (Uferstudio, Berlin)
2017 Roots | Solo performance (Madison, U.S.)
Music Release
2020 Erosion | Electronic music, EP, in progress
Chicken soup | Electronic music, EP
Blue Eyes | Alternative, single
2019 Today I am | Electronic music, single
Dance Film
2020 Erosion | Dance with brutalist architecture (Madison, U.S.)
Pong plays | Dance with ping pong (Berlin)
2019 Blue Eyes | Music video (Austria)
2018 Today I am | Music video (New Mexican, U.S.)
Bird beyond Bird | A series of experimental films combining dance and drawings (Berlin)
Why Lolli | Dance with Lollipop (Chicago, U.S.)
Wood in Mood | Dance with trees (Austria)
2017 Dare to Dance in Public | Site specific dance performance (Berlin)
The Next Door | Dance with elevator (Vienna)
Verboten | Experimental short (Vienna)
Performance
2020 Catalogue of Disguise by Tanja Bombach | Performance installation (Trauma Bar und Kino, Berlin)
2019 Dance for future by Hannan Schillinger | Participatory dance installation (HFS Berlin)
2018 Mixed Signals by Victoria McConnell | Group stage performance (Tanzfabrik Berlin)
The odor of chaos by Anna Nowicka | Group stage performance (Tanzfabrik Berlin)
2017 Could be something, could be nothing by Gyeong Min Kang | Quartet stage performance
(Tanzfabrik Berlin)
Radio Show with Andrea Maurer and Frans Poelstra | Performance installation (Vienna)
When butterfly screams by Scott Ewen | Stage performance (Madison, U.S.)
Quartet by Palmer Mathews | Stage performance (Madison, U.S.)
2016 8’32 by Xin Shi | Quartet stage performance (Madison, U.S.)
Replay by Jin-Wen Yu | Stage performance (Madison, U.S.)
2015 On Display by Heidi | Performance installation (Madison, U.S.)
Breather by Julie Mayo | Stage performance (Madison, U.S.)
Unconcealing by Jin-Wen Yu | Stage performance (Madison, U.S.)
Sol(o)stice by Tine Erica Aspaas | Stage performance (Madison, U.S.)
2014 Rain Alley by Xin Wang | Stage performance (Madison, U.S.)
Grants and Awards
2017 American Educational Research Association Dissertation Grant
Awarded by The National Science Foundation, Grant #DRL-1749275
2011 Meritorious Winner of Interdisciplinary Contest in Modelling
Awarded by The Consortium for Mathematics and Its Application
2010 National Scholarship
2009 Awarded by Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China