Sarah Alaways, MA Dance Performance, studied at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. She has performed with Etude Ensemble (Irvine), Ad Deum II (Houston), Revolve (Houston), LEON Contemporary (Houston), and Transitions (UK) Dance Companies. Most recently, she performed in Velocity’s Bridge Project, Full Tilt 2019 (Phi Voba) and The Three Yells’ “A Crack in the Noise.” Her work has been performed in Project Dance (New York), ISAS Arts Festival (Houston), Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre (UK), Full Tilt 2019 (Seattle), Converge at the UHeights (Seattle), and 12 Minutes Max @ BASE (Seattle). Sarah also serves as a board member for Dance Educators Association of Washington. Along with creating and performing, her roles include dance educator and dance researcher. She is currently researching creativity in the technique classroom as a vehicle for inclusive, student-centered, reflective teaching practices. She is absolutely honored to create work for TINT 2020.

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Learn more of Sarah's story in her own words:

Identity is a difficult concept for me to define, unravel, and be transparent with. I spent time running from identity and feeling the shame and fear around declaring who I am. When I’m alone, I proudly consider myself a hispanic woman, but when I step into the world, I’m used to shrinking to fit how I “pass”. I feel anxiety around naming myself as hispanic because it is often questioned or not believed, or I am asked to prove myself. I would love to raise conversation around the idea of white-washing, white-passing, and ethnic erasure, and TINT fosters a space for this conversation. I want to explore the questions: What does it mean to “identify-as?” What does it mean to make that identity public? What does it mean to be proud of who you are and how do we act on that? I would like to ask hard questions around white-passing: Which communities am I welcomed into as a white-passing person? If I am not an active part of my hispanic community, does white-washing win? How do we combat ethnic erasure while still honoring and lifting up those who cannot pass, whose social hardships are greatest? I want to ask how to keep our cultures alive in this increasingly culture-washing country. It is so valuable that TINT presents an opportunity for and can welcome my unique (but also not unique) experience regarding my identity and heritage and their erasure. This is the community, including dancers, facilitators, fellow choreographers, and audience members, that I wish to explore this story with. 

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