︎ CONTACT:
erykadellenbach@gmail.com
CONTENTS-
PBS
photos by Jono Melamed
photos by Whitney Browne
E r y k a D e l l e n b a c h
is a filmmaker, performance artist, educator and Emmy-winning videojournalist based in the Sonoran Southwest. Their embodied films and performances are rites of passage for themself and their collaborators, navigated by consent rituals, mutual unearthing, haptic coding and a belief in transformation through co-creation. Their work explores relationships to power, the malleability of consciousness, and the thresholds psychophysical experience.
Their process and technique have been informed by studies in dances of resistance including Butoh, flamenco and martial arts. They are grateful to the teachers who have offered potent dances and knowledges influencing their path: Wendy Clinard & Sonia Sanchez (flamenco), Atsushi Takenouchi, Yumiko Yoshioka and Vangeline (Butoh), Chen Huixian (Chen Taiji) & Yunuen Rhi (Baguazhang), and Mestre Besouro Preto Manganga (capoeira). They have worked with artists across mediums including Yunuen Rhi, Martin Toloku, Atsushi Takenouchi, Tino Sehgal, Amanda Gutierrez, Tori Wrånes, Éva Mag, Matty Davis, Nola Sporn Smith, Amelia de Rudder/La Casa de Satanas and the band HOGG.
Eryka has presented work at venues such as Alliance Française Kumasi (Ghana), crazinisT artisT studio (Ghana), Communitism (Greece), Movement Research at the Judson Memorial Church, Coaxial Arts (LA), Casa Moloch (MX), Lausanne Underground Music & Film Festival (Switzerland), Ann Arbor Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, Roulette Intermedium, Green River Cemetery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Intuit Outsider Art Museum, Links Hall, No Nation Gallery, and at the Shiryaevo Bienalle of Contemporary Art (Russia). They have been a resident artist at perfocraZe International Artist Residency (Ghana), eX...it! international butoh dance exchange and performance festival (Germany), Earthdance (MA), Echo Luna (Ukraine) and Cucalorus (NC).
They earned a bachelor’s degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a master’s degree in Film, Video, New Media, Animation and Sound from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Eryka currently works as a film instructor at the Tohono O’odham Community College, and continue to work independently as a freelance filmmaker, performance artist, choreographer, educator and interviewer. During their time as a Senior Videographer and Editor at Arizona Public Media they were awarded an Emmy for their videography and nominated for three. They have been a celluloid filmmaking instructor at MONO NO AWARE, a collaborator of the transnational group HEKLER and an advocate with California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP).
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image by Raven JacksonHome
Autobiographical Fragments, 10/14/2020
photograph by Maria Baranova for Faces of Downtown Scene, Gowanus, 2020
As a child, I was inspired by my father's testimonies of hiding silently in trees to hunt deer in the forest preserves surrounding our home. Venturing out alone for hours at a time I slowly cultivated the ability to disappear. Reminiscent of a peeping tom, I would climb trees, hide in shrubs and grasses staying completely still until the animals would come out and go about their life without us. I would study the attention and body mechanics of the non-humans as they moved through the complex, sticky ecosystems beyond the trails and try to emulate them to the best of my human ability. These experiences in the forest, marshes and prairies of the midwest had a powerful impact on the way I read my surroundings and the people I encounter(ed). They also significantly shifted my focus towards the body and taught me over time about the hidden truths that become embedded throughout it and how words often contradict that. It also constituted my formative movement studies and spawned my inclinations that led me towards slow time, long process, Butoh and anthropology.
Polaroid by Raven Jackson, Brooklyn, 2020
Polaroid by Muyassar Kurdi, Ridgewood, 2019