Women Cinemakers meets
Ainsley Tharp Lives and works in San Francisco, CA, USA
Ainsley Elizabeth Tharp (B.F.A., University of Iowa, 2012-2016) is an innovative, aspiring director/choreographer in the niche art of artistic expression involving movement. Based in San Francisco, she works as an independent film editor and co-founder of a dance company called Postcompany. Ainsley and Jonah Kagan, her creative collaborator, use Postcompany to explore abnormal performative climates through the means of improvisation. As an internationally recognized and experienced artist, she has performed in spaces such as SomoS Arthouse in Berlin, Germany, The Sardine in San Francisco, and with The Indeterminacy Festival in Iowa City. Currently, Ainsly is investigating the ecosystem of performative spaces by examining the means through which symbiosis can be reached as the moving body is embedded in an environment of multimedia artistic expressions while exploring boundaries between artist and audience. Collection is no Longer Limited by Geography mixes the ordinary and the surreal which guides the viewer into a parallel universe via a microwave microcosm. The absurdity of the unknown gleams on the corks of a moving “body” in a multidimensional environment in which technology seems to be lost in space and time. The visual experience becomes a sensory overload as the viewer surveys the peregrinations of the alien’s journey to nowhere.
An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com
Collection is no Longer Limited by Geography is a captivating short experimental dance film by San Francisco based director and choreographer Ainsley Elizabeth Tharp: through sapient combination between sci-fi fantasy and a dance, her film expresses the resonance between human body and the environment, providing the viewers with a multilayered experience, to encourage cross-pollination of the spectatorship. One of the most interesting aspects of Tharp's approach is the way it urges the spectatorship to explore the relationship between our perceptual process and the outside
world. and we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Ainsley and welcome to WomenCinemakers: we would invite our readers to visit https://www.aineliztharp.com in order to get a wide idea about your artistic production and we we would like to start this interview with a couple of questions regarding your background. You have a solid formal training and you hold a B.F.A. in Choreography and Movement practices, that you received from University of Iowa: how did this experience influence your evolution as a multidisciplinary? Moreover, does your multifaceted cultural background direct the trajectory of your artistic research?