Paige Barnes

Paige Barnes (Seattle) is a movement artist and Chinese medicine practitioner. Born in Alabama, raised in St. Louis, MO, Paige moved to Washington to attend college in 1994. Her coursework in women’s studies, dance, geography, and Spanish led her to Ecuador. There, she met choreographer Pablo Cornejo and began to train and perform internationally. After returning, she received a B.A. in Dance from the University of Washington in 1999, formed a dance company with Pablo and co-founded Open Flight Studio in 2003. Expanding her education, in 2001 Paige became a certified practitioner of the GYROTONIC® method, training under Magali Messac. After fifteen years of dance making, teaching, and performing, Paige wanted a deeper understanding of the body’s energetic and healing capabilities. In 2016, she received an MS in East Asian Medicine from Bastyr University. Now, Paige works towards merging her practices in art and energetic medicine.

Paige is directing and performing a solo project titled War Is Over. She will use her 2011 GAP funds to develop War Is Over into an evening-length work in Spring 2012. Significant artists involved in the project are Stephanie Skura (dramaturg), Jeff Huston (sound composition), Aileen Imperial (videography) and Michael Fransen (set design). The GAP will go towards artist fees.

Paige received 2018 GAP Award funding to support artists in “a mountain’s pulse,” an interdisciplinary performance series directed by Paige Barnes in collaboration with visual artist Mya Kerner that illuminates a connection between body and earth, linking the story of a person’s pulse with that of a mountain. The next performance will be at Inscape, 2018.