Aleasha Chaunte

Research image: Photographer Vicci Riley

Aleasha's most recent work is “Out of the Narrow Place: a ritual for black descendants of slaves” - a theatre performance resulting from of several years exploration of the lived experience of human rights and public rituals of healing.

Aleasha is a founding director of One September an arts production and development partnership concerned with promoting best practice in the sector and empowering socially engaged independent arts practitioners to make their work.

Other work includes, The Handless Project: a city-wide, two-year experiment in public meaning-making and ritual. Actions included: the washing of hundreds of strangers’ hands; the recording of the stories of over three hundred people onto a giant fabric map; and a 36-hour pilgrimage around Liverpool.

In addition to this, Aleasha teaches socially engaged performance practices, including delivering sessions in diverse settings such as drug and alcohol support services, parenting classes, women’s empowerment sessions, galleries, universities, and theatre schools.

She also, on occasion works as an actress.

Her training includes: a Masters in Acting from Polish theatre company Song of the Goat accredited by Manchester Metropolitan University, and a Ba in Drama and Theatre Arts from Goldsmiths College.

Praxis statement:

Aleasha Chaunte is an artist who is interested in the restorative functions of art. She is researching the uses of arts practice in social and personal repair looking at how individuals and cultures "heal" after trauma. She is an artist who works primarily on audiences, finding ways to cue, gain consent and encourage authentic, public intimacy. Vehicles for her practice are ritual, the wisdom within practices of sharing fairy/folk/mythic tales, handmade crafting, and social justice. 

Current research:

My current work involves the embodiment of what I have learned. How to personally divest of harmful practices and acculturated behaviours in my ways of working, not only in the content of my work. 
www.aleashachaunte.com