CELESTE HASTINGS – BIO Artistic Statement   .

Is a New York City based choreographer, dancer, improvisational  performer, costume and soundscape designer,  also experimenting with the video medium.  Her work both theatrical and site specific, fuses elements of butoh dance, dance and theater with an emphasis on creating evolving surreal visual and sound environments, and keeping an eye to the microcosmic/ macrocosmic.  She was a lead dancer for over 10 years with the post modern butoh group Poppo and Gogo Boys under the direction  of Poppo Shiraishi  in the mid 80's through 90's (Poppo had a background with Akira Kasai) in NYC and on tour to Russia, and worked as well as a modern dancer and in physical theater. The experience of helping create group choreography for Poppo as well her improvisational experience, left Celeste with an interest in the power of group unity in movement and feeling which she tends to come back to.    Often performed with the body painted totally white,  her dance has a sculptural  time altering quality exploring the felt life-force energy of the ever present now within  each of us and its connection to all time, all peoples, all matter and beings, all universes.   Celeste sees the individual as an archetype of all humanity and life, fusing elemental beauty of line and form in nature, humor, spirituality and love for the greater World/Universe into the work  she does herself and with others.   Is American, born and grew up in Venezuela.

Celeste is founder and director since 2000 of the satirical group called The Butoh Rockettes with an underground following in the downtown  club and theater scenes.  Her solo dance and the Butoh Rockettes was featured along with a photo in a NY Times article  about the butoh aspect of the 2005 East Village Howl Festival where she presented “Sisters Samurai” and her solo dance with film “Nuit” as opening act for the ‘Dance of Darkness’ night of butoh and Artaud influenced films at Le Petit Versailles Garden.  In September, 2006 the Butoh Rockettes were seen as collaborators in Noemie Lafrance’s site-specific AGORA II at the McCarren Park Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Her solo “Nuit” has been shown also at Pact Zollverein in Essen, Germany in 2005, CAVE gallery in NYC and in the 2006 Dumbo Dance Festival at White Wave.  She presented a 40min. solo version of "Amazonas"-Japanese ghost story meets Apocalypto at CRS's Tribute to Butoh series in Dec. 2006 and a short version in the 2007 Cool New York Festival at White Wave. Her 2 part solo "Vers Reves" first premiered in Normandy @ Maison de Butoh Blanc and Fondaction Boris Vian in Paris, May & June, 2007 and short versions were seen at Dixon Place, Le Petite Versaille Garden's Howl Festival 2007, the 2007 New York Butoh Festival at CAVE and in the 2008 Americal Dance Guild Festival @ DNA.  She had the good fortune to be chosen to work with Akira Kasai in his "Butoh America" show at Japan Society Oct. 2007's 101 Kazuo Ohno Birthday Celebration. She joined Noemi LaFrance's site-specific "MELT" tour to Montreal's Festival TransAmeriques in April, 2008 and to Sao Paulo Brazil in Oct. 2008.  Celeste was a featured soloist "Hesperornis Regalis" at the South St. Seaport in Aug. 2008 as part of Richard Move's "Hostile Takeover - MoveOpolis" LMCC shows - well reviewed in the NY Times.