Shade Théret is a choreographer, dancer, and theater maker from Los Angeles and Paris. She currently lives and works in Berlin.
She began her formal dance training in classical ballet, studying under both the Vaganova Method and the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus. She deepened her technical foundation through regular participation in summer intensives at Complexions Contemporary Ballet (New York), The Royal Ballet School of Antwerp, and P.A.R.T.S (Brussels). In San Francisco, she studied with Alonzo King LINES Ballet, where she trained in classical ballet and modern American techniques and repertoires including those of Lester Horton, Alonzo King, José Limón, and Martha Graham. From 2013 to 2015, she was a company member of Sarah Elgart’s Arrogant Elbow (Los Angeles). Théret relocated to Berlin in 2015 and earned her BA in Dance, Context, and Choreography from the University of the Arts Berlin in 2019.
Since then, she has developed a growing body of work, both independently and in collaboration with others. Her practice centers around interpersonal dynamics, physical exertion and the uncanny. The work is focused on deconstructing classical western dance forms and translating them into movement based gestures that refer to the grotesque and the all-consuming aspects of human emotional states. Improvisational and scored methods of working are used to play with notions of exertion and exhaustion. Her work takes shape through live performance, film/video and poetry.
Her work has been presented by a range of institutions, off-spaces, and festivals across Europe and the United States, including Sophiensaele, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, the Julia Stoschek Foundation, Bolzano Danza, PAGEANT, Deutsche Oper Berlin, gdl525, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, Kunstverein München, Rakete Festival, Odyssey Theatre, and Lana Live.
In collaboration with Magdalea Mitterhofer, Shade has been producing and curating Lament.tv since 2021 — a site-specific, nomadic performance and video series unfolding across Berlin.