LEONIE BELL
is a German-American theater artist & performer from Berlin, based in Lenapehoking / Brooklyn, NY.
She creates highly physical theatrical landscapes populated by pseudo-historical, multilingual narratives that center matriarchal lineages, imagine nature as a main character, and consistently involve fake blood, mustaches & nuns.
Leonie is drawn to marginal spaces where the mundane romances the epic, and dark humor, loneliness & solitude hang out. Her pieces, which she often writes, directs, and performs in, frequently feature live song, genre-fluid dance, and voluntary audience participation & communal rituals (where snacks are always served).
Leonie’s artistic practice is process-oriented & interdisciplinary in nature. She reveres the irrational parts of the imagination and believes in paying artists a living wage.
Leonie produces much of her work through LOCAL GRANDMA, her free-form theater company devoted to irreverent humor, rigorous play, and causing a ruckus.
In NYC, she has presented work at Target Margin Theater, Performance Space NY, BAM, The Whitney Museum, The Brick, Center for Performance Research, and other venues.
She is a recent alumna of the Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellowship, Mabou Mines Resident-Artist-Program, and BAX Upstart Program.
Leonie also designs sound, directs new & old plays, and likes to collaborate.
She teaches theater at the German School Brooklyn.
She received her BA from Bard College and her MFA in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College.
Her work has received support from Brooklyn Arts Council, Mental Insight Foundation, NYSCA, Mr. Pancks’ Fund at the Chicago Community Foundation, and 125 private donors.
+ CV +