Carly J. Bales - Performance Art

MEMORY FOAM

Memory Foam is movement-based performance by myself and co-creators Noelle Tolbert, and Laure Drogoul, with a soundscape designed by David Crandall. Inspired by urban life cycles and the struggle to constantly reinvent our surroundings in the face of instability and change, the work is set against a fluid backdrop that embodies the sights and sounds of the Bromo Arts neighborhood in downtown Baltimore. The performance was commissioned by The Medicine Show, a national storytelling and performance project, for Centerstage theater.

Performances

2022. The Medicine Show, Centerstage | Baltimore, MD

2022. Bromo Arts Walk, Le Mondo | Baltimore, MD

memory foam carly j bales noellet tolbert laure drogoul.jpg

in plain sight(site)

The veils between worlds are thin and we can easily slip through.

A cycle of performance artists conjure portals to other realities in an interdimensional train station. Shape-shifting between times and dimensions, these artists tease out visions that question our sight, embody the present impossible, and transport us into the unknown. This roving, distanced performance series of five iterations was curated and produced by myself and Laure Drogoul between 2020 and 2022.

Performances

2020. Looking from the Outside In, Le Mondo | Baltimore, MD

2021. Breaking the Membrane | Baltimore, MD

2021. Seeing the Unseen | Baltimore, MD

2021. Lifting a Veil | Baltimore, MD

2022. The Manifestation | Baltimore, MD

dirty~clean

cleaners

With a mixture of carcinogenic chemicals and an abundance of plastic bags, dry cleaning is the ultimate un-clean. Like the living dead, dry-cleaning generates a dead zone in the natural world, lingering long past its time.

Laure Drogoul’s exhibition is the culmination of a 2 year project to research the after-life of human made materials related to domesticity. During the performance, otherworldly Sisyphean cleaning clerks hopelessly and endlessly fold, weigh, and bale the universe's trash.

Featuring Laure Drogoul, Joe Meduza, Matthew Williams, and Carly J Bales.

Performances

2020. dirty~clean cleaners exhibition, Laure Drogoul.
Current Space | Baltimore, MD

Sin eater

Strange intimacy and transgression transference. Closeness in the open. Participants are asked to pay a small fee. In exchange, the artist will eat their sins and absolve them of any guilt. Over time, the residue of the sins accumulate into a new form and body.

Performances

2022. 14K Cabaret: Baltimore...Paris...The Gutter retrospective exhibition. Maryland Art Place | Baltimore, MD

2016. Labbodies Retrospective exhibition, curated by Ada Pinkston and Hoesy Corona. Spacecamp | Baltimore, MD

2016. Fields Festival Performance Series, curated by Cricket Arrison. Fields Festival | Darlington, MD

2014. Of screens, remainders, and holds..., curated by Andrew Glenn Shenker and Michael Benevento. Current Gallery | Baltimore, MD

In Taking Space

Exploring the body taking physical space as an inherently political act -- both oppressive and emancipatory -- in response to the pure geometry forms in ROOM, a sculptural exhibition in conjunction with the Maryland Institute College of Art.

The piece invited itself to evolution or deterioration over the night. Audiences asked to come and go, touch and not touch, witness or ignore. The performers at times slammed their bodies together, climbed atop each other, or became ensconced within the same oppressive structures within the space.

The interactions became struggles between independence and dependence, power and weakness, failure and success, the individual and the group. The living sculptures they created rose and fell, supported and antagonized, ebbed and flowed.

Also featuring Alex D'Agostino and Noelle Tolbert.

Performances
2016. Room, MICA | Baltimore, MD

New Rituals of power

Experiments in power and gender with Emilia Pennenan

    Performances
    2016. Fable, for Parts and Pieces | Baltimore, MD
    2016. Superwomen, with Marcelline | Baltimore, MD
    2015. Midsummer Night's Dream, with Michael Wasteney Stephens | Baltimore, MD
    2015. Tidal Swell | Baltimore, MD