Sara Ingel headshot
Student

Dance (MFA)

sarah ingel (she/her/they/them) is an American dance artist and performance maker from Charlotte, North Carolina, who is currently living in Philadelphia. Utilizing improvisation, choreography, theater, costume, sound and space design to make works for both site-specific installation and the stage, Ingel’s work practices ritual/mythmaking from a queer and feminist perspective, cultivating intimate spaces for audiences to engage with collective experiences of vulnerability, humanity and empathy.

ingel graduated from North Carolina School of Arts, Winston-Salem, with a concentration in Contemporary Dance/Composition, then received a BFA in Dance from Hollins University, Virginia, in partnership with the American Dance Festival. From 2015 to 2022, ingel worked at Charlotte Ballet, North Carolina, under the direction of Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, Hope Muir, Chris Stuart and Alejandro Cerrudo. Holding the positions of production/rehearsal assistant, assistant stage manager, company shoe manager and costume technician, she worked in the studio and behind the scenes in support of choreographers Rena Butler, Peter Chu, Medhi Walerski, Stephanie Martinez, Christian Spuck, Helen Pickett, Matthew Hart and others. 

Her choreographic work has been showcased as a part of Charlotte Ballet’s Innovative Works and Choreographic Lab (2017, 2019, 2021 and 2022) and has also been presented at Hi-Lites Music Fest (2020), Charlotte, North Carolina; alongside Nat Baldwin of the Dirty Projectors (2020); at BOOM CLT (2017, 2018), Charlotte; and Helen Simoneau Danse’s OnSite/InSight (2016). As a dance artist and performer, ingel has had the privilege of working with artists including Ivy Baldwin, Douglas Becker, Sidra Bell, Leah Cox, Ishmael Houston-Jones, John Jasperse, Vanessa Voskuill and Jesse Zaritt, as well as musician Dylan Gilbert and XOXO Performance Ensemble.

They are a 2021/2022 Charlotte Arts and Science Council Emerging Creators Fellow; a 2019 Knight Foundation/National Center for Choreography, Akron, Ohio; and a Dance/USA Scholarship recipient. They have also been a collective member/in residence at Goodyear Arts, Charlotte, since 2015. Additionally, ingel is co-director of repCLT, an organization advocating research and exchange in performance, and co-founder/producer of ladyfestCLT, promoting femme performance makers in the Southeast. ladyfestCLT won Charlotte Magazine’s Best of the Best Award for Best Dance Event of 2019 and QC Nerve People’s Choice Award for Best Local Show of 2020.