Performance Bio

Aimee began her professional acting career in her native New York while attending Wynn Handman’s advanced acting class. She worked in numerous off-broadway and regional theatres including: La Mama, Theatre for the New City, Colden Center of Performing Arts, Playwright’s Horizon and The Medicine Show Theatre. Favorite roles include: Medea, Ophelia, Beth from A Lie of the Mind, Solange from The Maids, and Rose from The Woolgatherer. Aimee relocated to Seattle in 1986, where she continued to work in professional theatres such as Seattle Repertory, Alice B. and Theatre for the New City. She began her solo and ensemble performance and directing career with the premiere of The Cosmic Accident, (Bumbershoot Arts Festival), I Like To Watch, (Center of Contemporary Art), and Carne Vale, (On the Boards). In 1990, Greenberg moved to Los Angeles and created HEIJERA productions, a solo and large-scale performance company.

See theatre artist resume for production details.

HEIJERA productions

	Dreams of Flight A non-linear, symbolic and theatrical allegory of alienation as told through the journey of Jack/Jill, a donut-maker who, one the way to work one morning, finds himself in foreign dreamscapes, unsure of gender, past or species. Trapped in the gap between past and present, Jack/Jill tries to reclaim his/her identity. (Four characters in multiple roles)
	No Codes An existential duet between Beatrice and Dante; a fallen angel and a No Code. (two characters)
	phases of the LOON A solo show (with puppeteer). A museum piece or animated installation resurrecting still (ed) lives in motion and exposing, through snapshot portraits, mythological, historical and personal accounts of gendercide. "Greenberg spins a macabre and gorgeous tale through the voice of Marie Antoinette, Artemis, a witch and a breast cancer patient." (video, animation, puppetry, masks, dance, music, voice)
	Dark Moon of Lilith Greenberg transforms the sacred and profane through the body and soul of a fallen "Lilith"—as Nazi entertainer, heartland prostitute and mother of a suburban serial killer. (Video, masks, song, music, dance)
International Performance and Directing- Switzerland, Italy, Germany, The Czech Republic, Russia, Wales and Japan

Through the Water Lily Stripped of all veneers, "Through the Water Lily" is an intimate dance of separation and union through the intersecting and divergent points of marriage and motherhood, Japanese Aikido and Butoh dance, memory and present tense. (Two performers)

Dona Sangre "Dona Sangre"...the story of a woman shipwrecked between two cultures.

Santa Ana, CA –July 27, 2005. Performance artist Aimee Greenberg will perform two performances of her latest work, Dona Sangre (Give Blood),  a story of a woman shipwrecked between two cultures,  at 7:00 p.m. on  Sept. 3^rd and Sept. 10^th at the Grand Central Theatre. Grand Central Theatre is located within the CSUF Grand Central Art Center at 125 North Broadway A in Santa Ana California, in the heart of the “Artists’ Village.” Ticket prices are $20, $15 for students w/ID and OCCCA members.  Seating is limited and reservations can be made by calling 949.246-1698. There can be no late seating. The material is not suitable for children under 14.

Dona Sangre  was recently broadcast on KOCE-TV, on July 9 at 11:00 p.m., as part of their Storefront Theatre Live Series. “Dona Sangre was selected due to its creative format, use of multimedia technology and engaging performance,” says Hall Davidson, creator of the KOCE-TV Storefront Theater Live Series.  The performance will be re-broadcast in the fall, during Spanish Heritage month.   In June, 2005, Greenberg performed Dona Sangre in the invitational European Women’s Theatre Festival in Tornio Finland.   The September shows at Grand Central are part of the Orange County  Center for Contemporary Art’s (OCCCA) 25^th Reunion Show. Dona Sangre  premiered in May, 2005 in Laguna Beach, at BC Space.

About the performance

Dona Sangre (Give Blood) is a story of seduction, betrayal, slight of hand, and cultural ambiguity. Greenberg unravels the fall of “Grace,” a Caucasian orphan raised by a Mexican maid on a Santa Barbara ranch in the 50’s. Shipwrecked off the coast of Baja, Grace survives by adopting a brown face and joining a group of nomadic female rancheras. Dona Sangre explores living with a fractured cultural identity through the voice of Grace in this merged-media epic poem, set in 20^th century Baja.

Dona Sangre, steaming with all the passion, poetry, melodrama and violence of a post-modern morality play, alternates between text, traditional Spanish songs (sung acapella) and movement within a cabaret format. Projective media including video, marionettes, ventriloquism and masks are also woven into a lush and magical narrative. 

More about the artist

Born and raised in New York, Greenberg began her professional stage career in New York City, under the tutelage of theatre icons Stella Adler and Wynn Handman. She performed both in leading and ensemble roles in various off-broadway and regional houses including: La Mama, Theatre for the New City, Colden Center of Performing Arts, Playwright’s Horizon, and The Medicine Show Theatre, where she was singled out by The Village Voice as a “spellbinding performer.”

Aimee relocated to Seattle in 1986, where she continued to work in professional theatres such as Seattle Repertory, Alice B. and Theatre for the New City.  Following a gradual and unsettling period of disenchantment with the commercial theatre, Greenberg unveiled her unique theatrical voice with the premieres of The Cosmic Accident, (Bumbershoot Arts Festival), I Like To Watch, (Center of Contemporary Art), and Carne Vale, (On the Boards).  In 1990, Greenberg moved to Los Angeles and created HEIJERA productions, a solo and large-scale performance company, which produced the critically acclaimed Dreams of Flight, No Codes, phases of the LOON and Dark Moon of Lilith .  Ann Marie Welsh of the San Diego Union Tribune has called Greenberg’s work “smoothly unified, formally controlled and deeply moving...her carefully crafted work seems utterly authentic." Welsh went on to rate Greenberg’s "phases of the LOON" number five, out of the top ten dance performances in 1996, on the heels of Pina Bausch’s “Nur Du.”

Artist’s statement

Greenberg uses multi-media to explore alienation with particular attention to issues related to the mythos and reality of living as a woman.  In the words of the artist, “ My work focuses on displaced characters dreaming and living in the real world. A spectator in my theatre is caught "between two worlds" as he/she tries to understand rationally what his/her senses tell him/her is irrational.”

The recipient of many prestigious awards and fellowships including the L.A. Endowment, Asian Cultural Council Fellowship and L.A. Women’s Theater Foundation, Greenberg has performed her work and facilitated workshops in national theatres, galleries and academies in Europe, Russia and Japan.

My work focuses on displaced characters dreaming and living in the real world. I work between the extremes of pedestrian and theatrical time and space, using the grotesque image as metaphor, heightened gesture and archetypal characterization. Resisting closure, the grotesque object or persona impales us in the present moment, emptying the past and postponing the future. A spectator in my theatre is caught "between two worlds" as he/she tries to understand rationally what his/her senses tell him/her is irrational.
-Artist’s statement

Greenberg uses multi-media (text, sound, movement, video, slides, masks, objects and puppetry) to explore alienation with particular attention to issues related to the mythos and reality of living as a woman.

Reviews (Samples)

What reviewers have said about Dona Sangre 

"It is intriguing to see a solo performer lay herself on the line."
--Gene Warech, The Laguna Beach Independent

"Greenberg is one of the most cutting-edge performance artists in the area.  The commitment she has to her vision is truly admirable, especially in today's cultural climate.  She has a unique vision for exploring the role of women in society that reaches back to ancient mythology and then swings forward to the present.”
--Tyler Stallings, Laguna Art Museum chief curator-as quoted in the LA Times: Coastline Pilot.

"Greenberg is an extraordinary talent.  A powerhouse of vocal and performance perfection."
--Esko-Pekka Mattila,  Pohjolan Sanomat, Finland

"Dona Sangre combines English with Spanish, hopefulness with angst, ethereal affirmations with visceral, often sexual pronouncements.  It has a shipwrecked aura, reminiscent of Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
--Liz Goldner, OC Metro

 What reviewers have said of her past work

The Village Voice has called Greenberg’s work "riveting and cathartic."

Of "Dark Moon of Lilith" Anne Marie Welsh wrote:

"Greenberg practices what can only be called transformational theatre. She’s good at it too. Really good at it. Unlike so many performance artists who take to gallery spaces with ideas but little technical skill, Greenberg is both gifted and well-trained in acting, singing, dancing and the visual arts. She is an intuitively sharp performer."

“It is fortunate that there are such socially lucid voices as performance
artist Aimee Greenberg, whose last piece "No Codes" is a haunting and
thought-provoking masterpiece of high art."
LA Reader

"Expect nothing less than a visual tour-de-force in "Dreams of Flight." Pure poetry in motion."
 Interlocken Theatre Arts Magazine

"Greenberg's portrayal of a fragmented mind in "I Like to Watch" is uncomfortably real."
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer