For You
Erika Chong Shuch is a performance maker, choreographer and director whose topic-driven ruminations coalesce into imagistic assemblages of music, movement, text, and design.
Artist BioFor You is a dedicated practice of performance-making guided by the goal of expanding ideas around how performance is created and shared. Originally conceived as a series of three distinct performances, the work has since evolved into an ongoing collaborative working between devised theater and social practice. The collaboration, who also go by For You, includes Erika Chong Shuch, Rowena Richie, and Ryan Tacata, and brings strangers together for shared encounters, considering performance-making itself as a form of gift giving. For You is focused on creating a new model for making performances that can be taken to multiple communities, sites and environments, including working with at-risk and isolated elders and dementia caregivers. Working intimately with the selected audiences, For You emphasizes how meaningful exchanges unfold through process, and culminate in participatory, performative adventures.
Erika Chong Shuch presents her project at the 2016 Creative Capital Retreat
Erika Chong Shuch
Berkeley, CA
Erika Chong Shuch is a performance maker, choreographer and director whose topic-driven ruminations coalesce into imagistic assemblages of music, movement, text, and design. Interested in expanding ideas around how performance is created and shared, Erika’s work has been performed in city halls, theaters, industrial offices spaces and food courts. Her work has been supported and commissioned by Berkeley Rep’s Groundfloor, Yerba Bueana Center for the Arts, deYoung Museum, Dancers’ Group, Liz Lerman’s Dance Exchange/ Corcoran Gallery/DC, and in Korea: Daejeon Metropolitan Company, ChangMu Company, Mullae Art Space. Erika received the Gerbode Foundation’s Choreographer’s Award, Goldie Award, Falstaff Award, Helen Hayes Award (nominee) for Conference of the Birds at the Folger/DC. Erika choreographs regularly for theater companies such as California Shakespeare Theater, American Conservatory Theater, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Erika was Associate Director for Gift of Nothing (Kennedy Center) and recently performed Ariel in The Tempest and Titania in Midsummer at Cal Shakes. Directing credits include Eurydice and God’s Ear at Shotgun and Lily’s Revenge (by Taylor Mac) at the Magic Theatre. Erika is currently developing Upcoming Iron Shoes with Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble. Shuch’s greatest daily collaboration is with her son: Wakes Jackson, age 3.