Private Dance: Artist Talk & Workshop with Alex Beriault
Event • March 9–11, 2026, 1–9:30pm
Join the Workshop
Alex Beriault’s work invites viewers—and participants—to confront hidden, and sometimes conflicting elements of their own nature through sculptural installation, film, and live performance. While “performance” is a term frequently linked to her practice, she approaches it not as acting or pretense, but as a means of revelation: a way to uncover aspects of the self that remain mysterious even to oneself.
Using methods from her own art practice, Alex’s “Private Dance” workshop is an invitation for both first-time and seasoned performers to participate in an experimental performance format that draws upon one’s natural response to music. Each participant selects their own song—without restriction of genre, era, or style—that elicits a personal resonance and authentic impulse to move. Consisting of a series of prompts and exercises designed to ease the participants through the workshop, the experience culminates into a sequence of improvised solo performances whereby everyone, one at a time, dances under a single spotlight in their own manner to their chosen music.
This workshop has nothing to do with professional dance technique. There is no expectation of technical skill or polish. This experience is not only about individual expression, but about existing in a constellation of people. Each person will have their own moment, and we will practice holding space for one another. The Private Dance workshop is not only about performing, it also has a lot to do with observing and receiving everyone’s solo performances as an audience.
This workshop asks you to step into a space of uncertainty — and to move through it. Vulnerability is part of the process. The goal is not performance; it is presence.
Come prepared to show up, take a risk, and support one another.
Artist Bio
Alex Beriault is a filmmaker and visual artist (born in Toronto, Canada) whose works encompass film, performance, installation, & dance. She received her BFA from OCAD University in 2014 as the recipient of the OCAD Sculpture/Installation Medal, and has since developed performance-oriented works in which she uses herself as the primary subject. In 2021, Beriault completed her Meisterschüler at the University of the Arts Bremen under the mentorship of media artist Rosa Barba.
Beriault’s work has been recognized throughout North America and Europe with recent participation as an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center in the United States (2024), as well as her solo exhibition “Talk and Taste your Tongue” at the Kunstverein Ruhr in Essen, Germany (2023). During the 22nd edition of the Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival (LUFF) in Switzerland, Beriault’s film “Birth Proof” won Best Experimental Short Film. Her films and installations have screened and exhibited internationally, participating in festivals, institutions and residencies including CROSSROADS 2022, San Francisco, Rencontres Internationales, Paris/Berlin (2022), the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Ann Arbor (2021), Festival du Nouveau Cinéma de Montréal (2021), the Weserburg Museum for Modern Art, Bremen (2021), GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen (2020), LUFF Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival (2023/2020), Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge (2018), Denniston Hill, Upstate New York (2017). Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Projects, Toronto (2017) and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2014).