Sam Pardes is a dance artist from New York, now living in London, whose practice includes choreography, performance, stand-up, video, writing, improvisation and collaboration.

Employing the anxieties, exposure and vulnerability that surround the performance situation, her projects confront the very notion of dancing, performance and choreographic practice. Her work is often wry, absurd and playful while wallowing in ideas of futility, insufficiency and perseverance. She embraces the contradictions of how to approach, perform, stage, extend, and preserve failure.

Sam’s acclaimed solo, ‘What Have I Got To Show For It?’, addresses the economic and social realities that surround an artist’s choice to continue to produce work. Her current touring production ‘We Move In Close Circles’ is a private performance for people’s homes that embraces the beautiful mess of inviting others into our lives. Grounded in stage performance, her projects span video installation, audio work, print and photo-collage. Inhabiting contradiction and limitation, her practice responds to the particular tensions of the present moment. She asks: What’s good dance? What’s enough?

Her work playfully interrogates the overlap of personal, professional and performance identity, across stage, screen, gallery and studio.