Jenna Balfe Jenna Balfe’s work is inspired by the earth's organic environment and human being’s resonance within the environment or lack there of. She is interested in creating expression that is meditative and lends itself toward promoting healing of psychic and emotional space while engendering community. In her work she addresses the philosophical quandary of Death Fear as postulated by theorists such as Carl Jung, Freud and Existentialist writers. She addresses the Western world’s obsession with youth, beauty and biomedical obsession with life prolongation in her work through the lens of the natural world, noting the beauty of decay and death cycles. She focuses on physical connection to self and other to bring attention to the importance of earnest empathic connection between people It is her own postulate that Death Fear engenders greed causing ambiguity as to what the purpose of being alive is, which Balfe argues is other people. The disconnect from self and other then disconnects us from environment. It is this cycle between, human death fear, lack of connection to self and environment that Jenna Balfe explores at different capacities and through different means in her work. She seeks to do her part by creating connections between performers that will provide a reflexive connection with audience members/viewers to inspire connection to self, other and environment.

ARTIST BIO: Jenna Balfe is multi-disciplinary artist and activist from Miami. In 2012, Balfe began ongoing research through her community class Bodymovement. The class, which has been ongoing ever since, researches the bodies relation to existential context, other bodies and the environment. In 2011 she cofounded Nature Links for Lifelong Learning, a non profit dedicated to serving the population of young adults with developmental delays, she is currently Executive Director of the organization. She holds a Master of Science in Dance/Movement Therapy from Pratt University in Brooklyn, NY graduating Suma Cum Laude. She is a certified yoga instructor, actively teaching privately and in the community. As a board member of the environmental activist group, The Urban Environmental League, she has fought to preserve many of the historically public lands enjoyed by Miamians. In 2018 she was recognized by Oolite for her most recent project Transnaturism, and awarded a grant to cultivate this seminal work. The first iteration of this project was premiered at the Nada art fair/2018. The subsequent iteration was performed for Downtown Art Days through a grant provided by the DDA in partnership with BFI and Fringe Projects. The final iteration is TBD due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Her work has been featured at The Knockdown Center in Queens, NY, The Bas Fisher Invitational, SAIC, Chicago, Faena Art Forum, Movement Research in NY,NY, The Miami Art Museum and The Museum of Modern Art, Dominican Republic. She is the front woman and cofounder (2015) of the post punk / performance art group Donzii. Donzii was recently drawn into collaboration with Soho Beach House to create a larger scale Performance Art event. Moste recently, they had the honor of opening for the legendary band NEW ORDER in January of 2020. The group shares members with Balfe’s Transnaturism cast, and although different from their traditional catalogue, provides the score for the piece. Her most recent performance art piece “The Length of Each Other Despite Difference” was created specifically for Performia 2020 on February 15, 2020 at Edge Zones Gallery.

Check out my band : Donzii