Direction & Choreographic Work
Photo of Simon Nogueira with Les Apaches by Quentin Chevrier
Sarah has created several works focused on immersive and site-specific experiences, bringing movement and dance outside of the traditional theater setting to a wider public.
Sarah’s work aims to connect disparate disciplines and communities through movement and music. From choreographing and performing in Augmented Reality as The Little Dancer for the Musée d’Orsay and in VR as the five dancers in Matisse’s La Danse, to choreographing parkour artists to the music of Steve Reich for l’Ensemble les Apaches, to directing a multi-user VR experience for Lincoln Center, she centers collaboration in her creative process as a means towards greater inclusivity.
She is currently co-directing a Bolero / Techno performance that blends dance, music, and technology to foster celebration and deeper understanding between otherwise separate cultures and communities. Rave-L Party will premiere at the Theatre de Chatelet in March, 2025 and will tour to the Ruhrtriennale.
To support her work, please consider making a tax deductable donation through Fractured Atlas, her fiscal sponsor, here.
Alongside Gordon, Sarah is co-directing the Maurice Ravel / Techno performance that has been commissioned by the Theatre du Chatelet and l’Enseble les Apaches. Conceived of by Artistic Director Julien Masmondet for a 20 person orchestra and the DJ/Producer Tatyana Jane, the performance invites everyone to let music move them.
As the concert musically builds like Ravel’s Bolero, with orchestrated techno music composed by Fabien Cali, the audience follows a dancer (Sarah) become aware of her embodied self until the music moves her and the musicians into a trance-like dance. They become electric as a VJ manipulates the 3D video taken of them in real-time with the music. A live techno set, played by Tatyana Jane, closes out the evening in celebration of intermixing generations and cultures. The audience is invited to join the musicians in a rave-like dance party.
Rave-L Party will premiere on March 23, 2025 in Paris at the Chatelet. Find out more here.
Sarah is currently serving as movement consultant and choreographer for the VR Opera, Talking Pupils, created and directed by Julie Zhu and Aoshuang Zhang and commissioned by the University of Michigan.
Talking Pupils is the first virtual reality opera to prioritize accessibility for the visually-impaired community. The narrative is drawn from Talking Pupils, a story of blindness and spiritual awakening by the 17th century writer Pu Songlin. Our playful adaptation focuses on the transformative power of self-reflection. After the protagonist loses their sight, mysterious pupil beings appear who encourage a self-awareness that can help overcome total blindness.
The work’s form, aesthetics, and acoustics will be carefully researched alongside numerous collaborators and participants. Interviews with children at the TaiYuan School of the Blind will form part of the spatial sound design. The VR opera will include a haptic device connected to the piece’s aural events. This “virtual cane” will produce vibrations and realistic sound effects.
Written and directed by Sarah Silverblatt-Buser, Collective Body encourages us to reconnect to ourselves and each other through movement. The collective VR experience for 4 to 12 participants invites us to discover our movement identity- our signature ways of moving through the world- as a way to return to our embodied selves.
Collective Body is a response to the increasing reports on the negative impact of social media and virtual worlds, particularly on young people. Where overuse of technology has been shown to lead to dissociation and depersonalization, Collective Body uses virtual reality to create a deeper awareness of who we are beyond filters and superficial standards.
The unique ways we move reveal our movement identity. Throughout the experience, our movements are analyzed using machine learning to generate a personalized avatar symbolized by an element (embers, clouds, dust, rain, etc.). Outside of the headsets, our dancing avatars animate a media wall, creating a growing archive of a collective body in constant evolution.
A decentralized dance installation is formed by and for the public.
The work, produced by award-winning production company Atlas V, will premiere at Lincoln Center in the Summer of 2025.
Street Art
Premiered in 2023. The re-creation premiered at the Musée d’Orsay as part of the 2024 Olympic Games.
Street Art was the wild collaboration between many artists: Julien Masmondet, artistic director of l’Ensemble les Apaches; Gordon, director; Simon Nogueira, parkour artist; Andrea Catozzi dancer; choreographed by Sarah to the music of Steve Reich and other contemporary french composers. The piece premiered at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris in 2023 and will be re-created inside and on top of the Musée d’Orsay as part of the artistic accompaniment to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Watch the full version of Street Art filmed for Arte here.
The Little Dancer
Made available through FranceTV applications in 2021.
Sarah choreographed and performed in motion capture in The Little Dancer, an augmented reality experience created by Gordon & Marie Sellier. The work brings Edgar Degas’ Little Dancer to life as she welcomes children along a fantastical journey through artworks displayed in the museum. This first episode was a co-production between Lucid Realities Studio and the Musée d’Orsay.
