Welcome. This blurb, although about me, should really be about my cloud dog. She’s something.
Jenna Charko is from Warren, New Jersey, and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a Minor in French Language and Culture. She began her training at Washington Rock Dance under the direction of Cleo Mack, performing in the Outlet Dance Project as part of the school’s youth modern company. Jenna has attended multiple festivals and workshops including the American Dance Festival and Mason Gross Summer Intensive, where she had the pleasure of working with artists including T. Lang, Rodger Belman, and Randy James. During her college tenure, Jenna studied with artists such as Rashaun Mitchell, Bobbi Jene Smith, Danielle Agami, Seán Curran, Helen Simoneau, David Dorfman, and Bill T. Jones. In her final year, Jenna performed works by Arnie Zane, Christina Robson, and Jeremy Nelson, in addition to student-choreographed works. While attending NYU, Jenna was privileged to study abroad in Prague, attending classes at The Academy of Performing Arts and the Czech National Ballet. Ms. Charko’s work has been presented at The Outlet Dance Project’s 2023 festival, where she performed a self-choreographed piece entitled “I’m this many!” on the sculpture Cloud Swing, produced by Brooklyn-based Isometric Studios. Jenna hopes to incorporate her background in visual arts with dance and choreography, exploring the bounds of various mediums. Her curiosity lies in how art can intertwine with other non-artistic disciplines, combining to create a ground-breaking sensory experience.
Artist Statement
Have you ever stared at something so infinitesimally small, but got lost in its grandiose nature? It’s a rare experience, but I find guilty pleasure in discovering these instances. Small granules of sand, black, blue, white, gray, rose, lined in patterns next to your pinky toe. The concentric circles of the ocean waves, interrupting convection, carrying for sweeping miles of blue beyond the furthest looks of the human eye. A cloud of gnats. With legs crossed, the pulsing of your top leg from your heartbeat, minscule yet so profoundly obvious. As Jenna, I am interested in lots. You can make dance based on lots, but lots gets overwhelming quickly. As an artist human, to make this pool smaller, I look towards the small. Sure, a mountain vista is breath taking, but so is the cross-hatching of the page of a book, showing its age and production process. Countless examples and numerous manifestations, and yet we turn a blind eye to the small. What causes us to overlook the puny details that may very well hold the most weight? This keeps me excited. To find new small, smaller than small, all the while thinking of this as an adventure of the self and an understanding of what captivates me and triggers self-reflection. Inwardness brought on by those teeny tiny sand particles by my pinky toe.