Eliza Sanders

Creator. Performer. Teacher

“What a force she is! Compelling. Original. An emerging artist with a mature and distinct creative voice…

Virtuosic, herculean, mercurial, clever and generous.”
- Chris Jannides, Theatreview

WOMB MAN

Womb Man is a durational dance installation piece. Over three hours a the ‘Womb Man’ grapples with her desire to nurture and to be nurtured in an increasingly unstable environment. Womb Man places the youthful female form in a strange and grotesque setting with elements that hint to sexuality, motherhood, nurturing and dependency. 

TRIPTYCH

Triptych is a series of three immersive dance theatre works exploring the nature of parent child relationships, overpopulation, memory and nurturing. They feature large casts of independent dance and theatre artists from Te Whanganui a Tara.

The design and the choreography combine to create a variety of gentle immersive possabilities, giving audiences the agency to choose how they encounter the work - ranging from a traditional audience experience to up-close encounters with the work through opting to view from the floor and within the space.

There is sophistication in the thinking that underlies the creation of Fear of Eggs...

To be adult, in relation to past-child-selves, creates an opening that is intriguing and satisfying to watch.’

- DANZ Magazine 2018

poetry

MOTION POETRY

A series of interactive poetry podcast: Motion Poetry (2020) is a sharing of poetry that has been written in response to live dance. Each session is delivered with information to enable listeners to move creatively in response. Listen HERE

SELECTED POEMS

Basket case casket

I have taken all your love and spit and sinew

inserted it into my ribcage through a large but gentle needle 

rib cage, basket case, body cabinet, casket for my lungs 

you are like casket 

I lie inside you lying about my independence

dancing with your dentistry and dermatology

wishing I could read your thoughts

forgetting myself

my fingertips shaking 

left and right have been confused with up and down

because of the horizontalness of it all 

that is to say nothing for north, south east and west

all the direction of the world condense into this sensation 

.

this is imaginary

its future past imaginary memory

and quite unrealistic to say the least 

reality is for a different kind of happiness

Eye balls. Eye balls. Flesh 

Fresh attempts to temp temptation 

To elevate sensation 

A dormant destination ecstatic in its erotic audacity

(exotic)

Irreversible elasticity; a consequence of irresistible stretching of tendons, veins and limits

(Elasticity maintained in order to attain a liminal state that sustains. lasts) 

Electric evocation

A vocation coloured by correlation covered in skin and eccentric colouration

This is the nation of your skin  

This is my dent

This is a doorway 

A flesh attempt to tempt temptation

Freshly made with your skin  

Flesh wound

Fresh bodily purse

Concealed lips

Lips peeled to see the sensation of another’s mouth

Ecstatic elevation

(as a result of the contact)

Instant gratification and a lifetime of longing

Insistent on switching the room so the walls become the ceiling

the ceiling becomes the floor

the past become an echoed present

Repeating itself in time

again and again

Immemorial impossibilities echoing the present into the past 

PEDAL.PEDDLE & CASTLES

Pedal.Peddle & Castles are a double bill of two multi-award winning contemporary performance solos featuring transformative costumes and props made from recycled fabric. Pedal.Peddle features a patchwork cacoon wrapped tightly around Eliza’s body which eventually it expands into a flowing dress rippling out 5 meters behind Eliza as she dances. In Castles Eliza dances with her co-star Pablo, a puppet man who morphs from a crumpled ball, to an intimate dance partner, to a tangled web of confused thoughts and finally returns to the tight cocoon which Eliza began the journey of Pedal.Peddle wrapped in.

“Pedal is hard to explain, impossible to define and unlike anything you have seen before.

It is a physically lyrical performance that is innovative, bold and truly spectacular.

It should not be missed and Sanders performances should be sought out at every opportunity.”

- Australian Stage

‘weird and wonderful; an exorcism of randomness, a one-woman schizophrenic romp

It is also hilarious (underlined for emphasis)

with points of poignancy that give you little moments of “the feels”

- Jillian Davey, Theatreview

If you would like to read more about Eliza’s movement workshops and classes please visit

www.houseofsand.org/classes-workshops

Thank you so much for your time and consideration,

Eliza