{{short description|American dancer and choreographer}} {{Infobox artist | name = Sara Juli | image_size = 200px | image = | caption = Juli performing in "Deep Throat" | known_for = Dance theater, choreography }}
'''Sara Juli''' is an American modern dancer and choreographer who creates and performs solo works informed by daily life, combining elements of concert dance, comedy and storytelling.<ref name="lockhart">{{cite web|url=http://www.pressherald.com/2015/10/26/dance-review-tense-vagina-an-actual-diagnosis-an-actually-hysterical-performance/ |title=Dance review: 'Tense Vagina: An Actual Diagnosis' is an actually hysterical performance |work = The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram |date = October 26, 2015 |last = Lockhart |first = Jessica}}</ref> Juli is also the founder and director of Surala Consulting, a company specializing in strategic fundraising solutions.
==Early life and education== Juli was born in Waterford, Connecticut.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://thetakemagazine.com/sara-juli-maine/|title=Performance Artist Sara Juli on Vagina Matters|last=Reynolds|first=Janet|date=2017-07-07|website=Take Magazine|language=en-US|access-date=2020-03-05}}</ref> She graduated with honors from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York in 2000 with a degree in Dance and Anthropology, and worked in New York City from 2000–2014. She resides in Portland, Maine, and performs throughout the United States and internationally.
== Career == === Early years ===
Juli first started dancing at the age of three.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://theater.skidmore.edu/2018/02/visiting-alumni-spotlight-sara-juli/|title=Visiting Alumni Spotlight: Sara Juli|website=theater.skidmore.edu|access-date=2020-03-05}}</ref> Juli's first independent all-evening performance of ''The Money Conversation'' debuted in February, 2006. The piece explores Juli's relationship with money<ref>{{Cite news |last = Groves |first = Nancy |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/money-talks-artist-sara-juli-discusses-cold-hard-cash-in-new-show-2131346.html |title=Money talks: Artist Sara Juli discusses cold, hard cash in new show |date=November 12, 2010 |work=The Independent |access-date=June 3, 2019|language=en-GB}}</ref> by taking $5,000 from her own savings, and giving it to her audience throughout the show.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/arts/a-truly-generous-performance.html |title=A Truly Generous Performance (interview) |date= February 12, 2006 |work=The New York Times |access-date=June 3, 2019 }}</ref> After the show was over, audience members could choose to take the money, return it, or return it and donate to the show.<ref>{{Citation |url=http://www.thestory.org/stories/2013-08/take-it-it-s-you |title=Take It, It's For You |work=The Story |access-date=June 3, 2019 |author = Producer: Nick van der Kolk |date = August 22, 2013 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://performancespacenewyork.org/the_money_conversation/ |title=The Money Conversation |date=February 17, 2006 |work=Performance Space 122 |access-date=June 3, 2019 |language=en-US}}</ref> ''The Money Conversation'' toured nationally and internationally from 2007–2012 to sold-out houses in The Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, London, Russia and around the United States.
=== Comedy Dance Theater === Juli, went on to embrace the intersection of movement, text, and humor<ref>{{cite web |last1=Yarbrough |first1=Emma |title=Visiting artist Sara Juli takes on motherhood's taboo topics |url=https://news.emory.edu/stories/2018/11/er_sara_juli_taboo_topics/campus.html |website=Emory News Center |date=27 November 2018 |accessdate=7 December 2019}}</ref> when she created ''Tense Vagina: an actual diagnosis'', in 2015, which addressed the issues with bladder control and motherhood that Juli dealt with after childbirth.<ref>{{Cite web |first = Elizabeth |last = Zimmer |url=http://www.villagevoice.com/event/sara-juli-tense-vagina-9249106 |title=Sara Juli: Tense Vagina |website=Village Voice |archive-date = March 12, 2017 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170312073413/http://www.villagevoice.com/event/sara-juli-tense-vagina-9249106/ }}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine|url=http://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/dance/sara-juli|title=Sara Juli|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=2017-03-11}}</ref> The ''Portland Press Herald'' called the performance "hysterical" and said that "Juli was not afraid to push some sacred boundaries as she explored the medical diagnosis and her role as a mother".<ref name="lockhart" /> The performance is partly interactive, where in one show, she ties an audience member's shoe, rocks a woman in her lap and helps a man blow his nose.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.heraldsun.com/lifestyles/review-juli-tackles-taboo-subjects-at-adf/article_85fb6338-3999-11e6-b611-4f202ca8eedf.html|title=REVIEW: Juli tackles taboo subjects at ADF|last=Herald-Sun|first=SUSAN BROILI, Special to The|work=The Herald-Sun|access-date=2017-03-11|language=en}}</ref> The show debuted in Maine but went on to tour all across the United States as well as internationally,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.albany.edu/pac/17-18%20press%20releases/Tense%20Vagina.shtml|title=Sara Juli in "Tense Vagina: an actual diagnosis"|website=www.albany.edu|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref> culminating in a run at the 2017 ''Edinburgh Fringe Festival'' lauded as "an imaginative and brave show performed with fearless vulnerability by the warm, wild and untamed Sara Juli".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Javor |first1=Isabella |title=Tense Vagina: an actual diagnosis |url=https://broadwaybaby.com/shows/tense-vagina-an-actual-diagnosis/719983 |accessdate=7 December 2019 |publisher=Broadway Baby |date=18 August 2017}}</ref>
She performed an excerpt of ''Shadow Artist'' in the Portland, Maine City Council Chamber for the "Artist in the Chamber" program in 2017,<ref>{{Citation|title=Interpretive dancing in City Council chamber - CNN Video|date=9 March 2017 |url=http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2017/03/09/portland-maine-city-council-interpretive-dancing-orig.cnn|accessdate=2017-03-11}}</ref> which went viral within 48 hours.
In 2019 Juli premiered ''Burnt-Out Wife'', investigating the deterioration of marriage. It criticized marriage from multiple angles by using a "standup-comedy routine(s) with dance interludes",<ref name=":0">{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/dance/sara-juli-3-2-20|title=Sara Juli|magazine=The New Yorker|language=en|access-date=2020-03-07}}</ref> for which Juli was called, "a master storyteller channeling over-the-top humor to help us digest a very serious topic<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lockhart |first1=Jessica |title=Theater Review: Over-the-top humor fires up burnt out wife |url=https://www.pressherald.com/2019/10/19/theater-review-over-the-top-humor-fires-up-burnt-out-wife/ |accessdate=7 December 2019 |publisher=The Portland Press Herald |date=October 19, 2019}}</ref>". Eva Yaa Asantewaa wrote in her blog ''[https://infinitebody.blogspot.com/2018/03/no-one-can-teach-you-how-to-write-about.html InfiniteBody]'', "She turns her hideous bathroom into a throne room worthy of pissed-as-hell royalty."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Asantewaa |first=Eva Yaa |date=2020-02-28 |title=InfiniteBody: Marital burnout is no laughing matter...and yet: Sara Juli |url=https://infinitebody.blogspot.com/2020/02/marital-burnout-is-no-laughing.html |access-date=2025-12-23 |website=InfiniteBody}}</ref> ''Dance Informa'' reported that "''Burnt-Out Wife'' isn’t a dance show. It’s an everything show performed by one woman who knows how to use movement to get her point across."<ref>{{Cite web |last=admin |date=2020-03-02 |title=Sara Juli’s 'Burnt-Out Wife' |url=https://www.danceinforma.com/2020/03/02/sara-julis-burnt-out-wife-doesnt-dance-around-the-issue/ |access-date=2025-12-23 |website=Dance Informa Magazine}}</ref> ''Burnt-Out Wife'' was performed at ''Dixon Place'' in New York City, ''Capitol Center for the Arts'', 3S Arts Space, and The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, among others, in 2020.
Juli’s most recent work, ''Naughty Bits'', was commissioned by The Strand Theater in Rockland, Maine and had its World Premiere on October 13-14, 2023.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-10-09 |title=In ‘Naughty Bits,’ Sara Juli goes where she hasn’t before |url=https://www.pressherald.com/2023/10/09/in-naughty-bits-sara-juli-goes-where-she-hasnt-before/ |access-date=2025-12-22 |website=The Portland Press Herald |language=en-US}}</ref> ''Naughty Bits'' is a dance-play set inside Juli’s memories that examines trauma while finding levity within the tragic. Using movement, text, digital projections, comedy and a capella renditions of 1980’s iconic male-led songs, ''Naughty Bits'' finds the forgotten bits, funny bits (and wobbly bits) of reclaiming one’s body and mind. ''The Arts Fuse'' wrote "Sara Juli has proven herself to be a master of using humor to examine subjects that are uncomfortable and not at all comic", "...her approach is both light and dark — the audience finds itself laughing out loud and then gasping, sometimes crying tears of sorrow."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-05-14 |title=Dance Review: "Naughty Bits" - Pushing Back on a Culture of Sexual Abuse - The Arts Fuse |url=https://artsfuse.org/292308/dance-review-naughty-bits-pushing-back-on-a-culture-of-sexual-abuse/ |access-date=2025-12-23 |language=en-US}}</ref> ''Naughty Bits'' was also performed at 3S Arts Space in Portsmouth, NH, ''Dixon Place'' in New York City, Next Stage Arts in Putney, VT, and The Hill Arts in Portland, ME.
Juli's work has been performed in New York ''PS 122'', ''The Chocolate Factory Theater'', ''92nd Street Y'', ''The Bushwick Starr'', ''New York Live Arts'', ''Joe's Pub'' as part of the DANCENOW NYC Festival, ''The Ontological-Hysteric Theater'', ''The Flea'', ''Judson Church'', and around the country including with the Napa Valley Opera House, Artown Reno, UC Riverside, the ''American Dance Festival'', Carmel Indiana Center for the Performing Arts, ''Bates Dance Festival'', ''The Yard'' on Martha's Vineyard, as well as numerous other venues and at universities and colleges.
=== Other works === Sara Juli performed a ''TEDxDirigo'' of ''Shadow Artist'' on the theme "RISE" in 2017.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/23877|title=TedxDirigo: Rise|last=|first=|date=2017|website=TEDx|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=March 7, 2020}}</ref> Juli continues to work on choreographing and creating new solo work as well as running her consulting firm, Surala Consulting. Surala Consulting specializes in strategic fundraising solutions catering to the New York City and national performing arts community.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://suralaconsulting.com/|title=Surala Consulting|website=Surala Consulting|language=en|access-date=2017-03-11}}</ref>
==Awards== *2013, Juli is the recipient of the Arts Management Award from Brooklyn Arts Exchange.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://events.bax.org/special/the-2013-bax-arts-and-artists-in-progress-awards/|title=The 2013 BAX Arts and Artists in Progress Awards - Events @ BAX|work=Events @ BAX|access-date=2017-03-11|language=en-US}}</ref> *2015, ''Tense Vagina'' received a New England Foundation for the Arts NEST Touring Grant and a New England Foundation for the Arts New England Dance Fund Grant.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.creativeground.org/profile/sara-juli|title=CreativeGround|website=CreativeGround|language=en|access-date=2017-03-11}}</ref> * 2017, Juli was the singular recipient of a Maine Arts Fellowship for Dance, in recognition of "artistic excellence and [to] advance the careers of Maine artists."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Burnham |first1=Emily |title=Maine Arts Commission announces 2017 fellowships |url=https://bangordailynews.com/2017/02/07/living/maine-arts-commission-announces-2017-fellowships/ |accessdate=7 December 2019 |publisher=BDN Living}}</ref> * 2019, National Dance Project Award, "widely recognized as one of the country’s major sources of funding and field building for dance, supporting both the creation and touring of new works."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Wicks |first1=Ann |title=NEFA's National Dance Project Announces Annual Awards |url=https://www.nefa.org/news/nefas-national-dance-project-announces-annual-awards-0 |accessdate=7 December 2019 |publisher=New England Foundation for the Arts}}</ref>
==See also== * Postmodern dance * Women in dance * Dance Theater
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.sarajuli.com Sara Juli Website]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Juli, Sara}} Category:American female dancers Category:American modern dancers Category:Living people Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Skidmore College alumni Category:Place of birth missing (living people) Category:21st-century American women