CIARRA D'ONOFRIO
Portfolio
The People's Palace
Zaccho Dance Theater
(2024) The People’s Palace, directed by Joanna Haigood, was a large scale aerial dance installation set in San Francisco City Hall. The project was an artistic intervention with City Hall’s Beaux-Arts architecture, systems of colonization and whiteness, and the government's relationship to the people it governs.
Ciarra D'Onofrio performed a breathtaking vertical dance duet, with dance partner Veronica Blair, on a floating plexiglass platform suspended in the 200 foot tall dome of City Hall. As the platform descended above the audience, the dancers explored themes of equity, balance, and reworking racist social systems to work for everyone.
(2024) This unique aerial dance project was set on a first-of-it's kind apparatus: a 12x12 foot square of truss filled with taut net made of climbing rope and paracord. Within this distinctive landscape, the dancers explored themes community, human connection with nature, and asked the question of what it truly means to belong. Performance Video available here.
from dust we came
Olallie Lacker
(2024) from dust we came blended choreography and improvisation to journey through the arc of evolution: from geologic landscapes to pulsing molds, to hungry creatures, and back to dust again. The piece explored the drives that come before rationalization, and what wisdom these primordial functions have to offer us in our present day conflicts and realities.
(2023) Site specific, multimedia, installation dance project focused on gender, self expression, and the surveillance of queer bodies. Choreographed, directed, and performed in collaboration with Saharla Vetsch. Through the use of old TVs and camcorders that cast projections of the live dance from different perspectives, the project manipulated the audience's visual perspective and encouraged the audience to engage with the project as active participants. The piece was choreographed in the lobby of CounterPulse, using mezzanines, under stair nooks, and street side windows to explore urban space and identity. The audience was invited to follow the dancers and move throughout the space during the performance.
2023 San Francisco Trolley Dances
Epiphany Dance Theater
(2023) Site specific dance performance with Epiphany Dance Theater at the Fisherman's and Seaman's Memorial Chapel at Fisherman's Wharf.
Come Home
Music Video with Thrown Out Bones
Film featured in the 2024 San Francisco Aerial Arts Festival
(2023) Choreographed and performed contemporary dance and trapeze focused on longing, release, and return for a music video with band, Thrown Out Bones.
entwinement
Ollalie Lackler, SafeHouse Arts Residency
(2023) Contemporary dance collaboration exploring queer relationships, connectivity, and internal and external limitations. Presented at SafeHouse Arts RAW Residency and Performance Primers.
(2022) Four day performance installation directed by Joanna Haigood, located in San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. The cathedral's stunning gothic design provided a unique and profound site for exploration of faith, community, and the show's theme Love. The incredible props designed by Wayne Campbell and Sean Riley included an anchored 100 foot ladder and 70-foot swinging pendulum. Collaborators on the project included composer Walter Kitundu, master rigger David Freitag, lighting designers Norm Schwab and Krissy Kenny of Lightswitch, and dancers Veronica Blair, Suzanne Gallo, Nina Sawant, Saharla Vetsch, Helen Wicks. Learn more about the show here.
(2022) Site specific dance performance with Epiphany Dance Theater on the Portsmouth Bridge in Chinatown, San Francisco.
In 2022, I premiered a new aerial dance work, "Vocal Mementos," in the San Francisco Aerial Arts Festival. The solo piece, which is part of a longer project I am developing, focuses on my grief, losing my Mom to cancer, and the connection I still have with her through the voicemails I have saved of her voice. Set to an original audio soundtrack of these voicemails, the dance trapeze piece moves through the grieving and healing process.
(2022) Contracted by the Bay Area Discovery, this family friendly show blended creativity, play, and performance. Set on giant, spinning tops, this site specific work fused contemporary dance and acrobatics.
Streamer
Helen Wicks Works
(2021) During the depths of the pandemic, this multi-media vertical dance video project explored an old canning factory and used original props as sites for creativity, exploration, and collaboration. The set included a vertical trampoline, red rope, a ghost light, and a trapeze suspended from an old crane. Focused on the choreographer's great-grandfather's experience working as a Jewish film score supervisor during Hollywood's blacklisting era, the piece developed themes of censorship and media production.
(2020) Inspired by the history of film scores and newsreels, this aerial dance show was set on a 4-story tightwire in Project Artaud's SPACE 124. The show examined the relationship between technology, sound, and cinema, and addressed the history and conflation of news and entertainment since the inception of the screen. The 4-story tightwire, rigged and designed by Benjy Young, provided a set for wild exploration and aerial innovation.
Through Thick and Thin
(2019) 18 aerialists, 3 live musicians, one spectacular performance at Burning Man 2019. Directed by Sierra Camille, this aerial silks piece, set on "The Man," explored expressions of femininity, set against the stark desert background.
Tarot
(2019) Single point trapeze piece focused on Tarot Cards created for a seance cabaret.
Kiss
(2019) Glitter rock piece fusing drag and single point trapeze.
Redwood
(2019) Single point trapeze piece set to live cello and performed in a redwood forest.
Wandering Star
(2018) Aerial hammock performance and collaboration with cellist Jamie Sieber.
Shaken
(2018) Dance trapeze piece focused on terminal illness.
Demarcated
(2017) Contemporary dance piece that used a set of doors and door frames to explore the constrictions of femininity and gender roles.
Espejo
(2014) Contemporary dance piece exploring gender, eating disorders, and queer relationships set on a stage full of household mirrors. Received the Distinction in Dance Choreography award from Lewis & Clark College for this choreography.