Choreographing since 1992 for dance, theater, stage and film . . .

Choreography for Film

Choreography for Stage


Concert Stage

Musical Theater

Theater

Artistic Director of Dance Company, Bitch Co.
Artistic Director, Choreographer and Costume Design
1995-2001

Bitch Co.: A progressive dance-theater company intent on exploring femininity through an abstract multi-influenced body language whom collaboratively construct performances based on the female perspective for the world's public.

Performed in Los Angeles & Las Vegas at venues such as Bergamot Station, Highways, The Brewery, The Henry Huang Theater, Cirque Du Soliel events (Santa Monica & Las Vegas), Cannibal Flower, The White Rabbit, UCLA, Track 16, The Democratic Convention Los Angeles, & The Hatch.

Click to Watch Bitch Co. Reel

*Complete list of works and performances by Bitch Co. available upon request.

Classes in DANCE

Cari Ann is currently teaching the following dance classes weekly in Topanga Canyon...
Right-Click HERE to Download Cari Ann's Curriculum Vitae

Traditional West African & Caribbean Dance Technique
Monday 1-2:30pm

This class focuses on core strengthening, breathing and body spirals to improve basic technique for West African and Afro Caribbean dance. All levels all ages welcome.

$15 cash or check

Yoga Desa
120 North Topanga Canyon Blvd
Pine tree Circle Center
www.yogadesa.com

Traditional West African & Caribbean Dance Practice
Thursday 8-9:30pm

Dancers and drummers learn traditional dances and rhythms from Guinea, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Haiti and St. Croix. All levels, all ages, dancers, drummers and musicians welcome.
Featuring Master Drummer Henrik Jakobsson.

$15 cash or check

Yoga Desa
120 North Topanga Canyon Blvd
Pine tree Circle Center
www.yogadesa.com

Past Classes

Beginning Tap Dance, WAC 9
UCLA, Summer Session 2009
World Arts & Cultures Department

Classes in MEDIA, DANCE FOR CAMERA

Prestidigitation (Coming Soon. . .)
Tuesday 7-10pm

A rotating media series, grouped in 3 week sessions with guest teachers.

pres·ti·dig·i·ta·tion (prĕs'tĭ-dĭj'ĭ-tā'shən) n.
Performance of or skill in performing magic or conjuring tricks with the hands; sleight of hand.
A show of skill or deceitful cleverness.
[French (influenced by prestigiateur, juggler, conjurer, from prestige, illusion), from prestidigitateur, conjurer : preste, nimble (from Italian presto; see presto) + Latin digitus, finger; see digit.]

Cari Ann Shim Sham*, a magical manipulator of celluloid, video and dancing things, has an eye that notices color, movement and composition within the dance of life. She commits herself to move bodies and cameras in order to move minds. Her purpose is to create film, video and media installation experiences that create a feeling of internal movement for the viewer. She takes her audience on a roller coaster ride through a visual flurry of striking imagery, emotions and moving bodies.

Her films address the female experience within chosen moments of humanity. She is interested in creating authentic, never before seen stunning images and rhythmic movement of body, camera, sound and film. Cari Ann enjoys placing a moving body in between the living world and the surreal cyber world through use of technology. She dances in and between these spaces to create a new frontier of spaciality with ideas that hold the body in life, the body in technology and the body in a spaceless-ness of the in-between cyber world.

She loves animals, cooking and doorknobs. She meditates daily and hunts for succulents. She teaches West African & Afro Caribbean Dance and Rhythm Tap. She is most alive in the presence of drums.

Artist's Bio

Cari Ann Shim Sham* is an award winning filmmaker noted for her surreal visual style and precise manipulation of the edit. She has presented work at the Joyce Soho, and Danspace in NYC, Highways Space, Redcat, The Brewery, The Henry Huang Theater and Bergamot Station in Los Angeles. She has recently collaborated with Lionel Popkin, Rachael Lincoln, Kyle Ruddick, Jia Wu, John Bishop and Lynn Dally. She works in the mediums of Dance for Camera, Multi Media, Installation and Documentary film. Her films screen internationally and have won numerous awards. EMPAC Dance Movies Commission short-listed her in 2009, 2008 and 2007 grant cycles and she was the recipient of the Surdna Arts Teachers Fellowship in 2007. She writes for the Screendance journal and is a member of the screening committee for Dance Camera West. Having taught workshops in Dance for Camera in Malaysia and in Los Angeles and guest lecturing on Dance for Camera at UCLA and UC Riverside in 2008, she is starting a media class for street artists, Prestidigitation, in Los Angeles with co-conspirator Anna B. Scott.

She has won a Siver Create Award for Production/Post Production on Are you for real?, the Jumping Frames 2008 Dance Video Award for Delicious Tree and was a finalist for Are you for real?. She also received 2 Telly Awards on My Big Break-directed by Kyle Ruddick, and a Jury Shorts Award from Cinedans on Are you for real?. She was one of two Americans chosen to show work in the Dance Camera West International Film Screening at the Red Cat in 2007.

From 1995-2001 Cari Ann was Artistic Director of Bitch Co., an all female dance theater company, performing feminist based protest art extensively throughout the underground Los Angeles Art Gallery and Rave scene. As a Choreographer and Director her work has been seen at Highways, Bergamot Station, The Brewery, The Hatch, The Henry Huang Theater, The Ivy Substation, The Chance Theater, UCLA, and El Camino College. She has a BA and MFA in Choreography from the UCLA World Arts and Cultures Department, and has trained with, and performed for, Victoria Marks and David Rousseve and studied film and video with John Bishop, Roberta Shaw and Thierry DeMey.