Clara Saito

Clara Saito is a performance artist based in Amsterdam. Her BA in Dance and Choreography (School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam, 2014) is congruent with her interest in performance as a tool to explore and expand the limits of the self and its possibilities to enact effective changes in the world.

In her most recent works she puts in relation three of her main characters, Kurt Dickriot, Lady Dada and a confused version of Clara Saito. These characters have been performing solo and together since 2014, in projects such as the anarchx-queer Cabaret Black Circus (2014-2017), the event The Anarchic Spiderman (Flam, 2015), the film A Piece of Dada (Flam, 2018) and the performance Towards Anal (Come Together#4, 2020) amongst others.

In each presentation their personalities and moods evolve as they are deeply connected to the current events and to the artist’s authentic experiences. Their entangled stories were finally theorized and brought closer together in the MA thesis at the Dutch Art Institute called: Dissociative Performance - Anarchic Bodies and the Politics of Improvisation.

Clara Saito has been active since 2017 in the Amsterdam-run dance space Jacuzzi. Next to her own practice she has performed for choreographers such as Michelle Moura (Venice Dance Biennale, Impulstanz, 2019), Florentina Holzinger (Impulstanz, 2014), Carles Casallachs (Aerowaves, 2013) and Ann Liv Young (Something Raw, 2011).

Watch Clara Saito’s 20 minute presentation for AEROPONIC ACTS 2019 ~ growing roots in air ~  entitled:  Towards anal - a performance by Lady Dada.

Learn more about Clara Saito’s written MA thesis (DAI, 2019): Dissociative Performance: Anarchic Bodies and the Politics of Improvisation

Follow Clara Saito’s ‘Life after DAI’ by means of Clara’s website