LELA BESOM
Lela Besom is an interdisciplinary artist from Fayetteville, AR. Her technical practices include writing, butoh, theater arts, graphic arts, and painting. After earning her BFA from The University of Kansas in 2008, Besom studied zen meditation and contact improv dance in Cambridge, MA before moving to Seattle, WA where she began practicing butoh with DAIPANbutoh Collective and theater arts at Freehold Theater. In Seattle she created and directed solo and group performances grounded in human emotional experience and societal issues including the effects of screen technology on human life experience, work-life entrapment, longing, desire, and loss. In Fayetteville Besom teaches her Explorative Dance workshop.
photo by South Borneo Arts Festival
“My art making practice involves a variety of forms including painting and dance theater to create works of art that engage the imagination and tell stories. Generally my work is related to societal issues, personal experiences, nature, soul matter, and fleeting moments of intense emotional resonance. I combine abstract and formal elements within shared space so as to create an invitation for the audience to engage with the work through their own questioning, observation, and feeling. For the last six years I have been practicing butoh which is a dance form that requires deep focus and presence with the body, emotions, imagination, and environment.”