Christian Swenson — Performing artist & teacher
Human
Jazz
Improvisation with the body & voice — dissolving the boundary between self and other since 1980.
Christian Swenson — Performing artist & teacher
Human
Jazz
Improvisation with the body & voice — dissolving the boundary between self and other since 1980.
MORPHS FROM
Blues → World Scat
Human → Animal
Cartoon → Prayer
Familiar → Strange
Sacred → Absurd
MORPHS FROM
Blues → World Scat
Human → Animal
Cartoon → Prayer
Familiar → Strange
Sacred → Absurd
― WHAT THE PRESS SAYS
Praised by critics
across America
Remarkable transformations — a gorilla at one point, the dancer could be a poet uttering an ode to the earth at another.
“A wildly gifted performer — an extraordinary vocal and movement solo.”
Charles Jurrist · NY Daily News
“A rare soloist who can fill a stage, a mind, for a whole evening. He makes you feel you might be eavesdropping on genius.”
Carole Beers · The Seattle Times
“Swenson has an original mind — to find the right words is difficult because this piece is so out of the ordinary.”
R.M. Campbell · Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“I’ve never seen anything that even resembles this astonishing piece — everything is speaking in a new tongue.”
Sandra Matthes Yukus · Bellevue Journal American
― THE ARTIST
The fusion of
singing, acting
and dancing
Christian Swenson
Performer, teacher, and creator of Human Jazz
National Endowment for the Arts Fellow
Washington State Arts Commission Fellow
Artist Trust of Washington Fellow
Faculty, Seattle University Theater Program
Performed at Lincoln Center, New York
Christian Swenson is a performing artist and teacher who has offered a variety of creative services and participatory events including concerts, workshops, school shows, jams, lecture/demonstrations and private parties. He officially retired in 2020 but has begun performing again as of 2025.
His work in the theater is concerned with the autonomous actor, the natural world, and the dynamic interplay between the self and the Other. In 1980 he began creating and performing solo works for body and voice, our original instruments, and later began using the term “Human Jazz”. The work is unique in its improvised fusion of dancing, singing and acting. He creates art where freedom is more important than conflict, and within which continual transformations can take place.
I can be myself simply speaking to the audience; then a character speaking or singing in tongues, and dancing; then an animal watching the audience; and then just a person at play with energy.
He is currently working on a memoir/how-to book about Human Jazz.
― THE ARTIST
The fusion of
singing, acting
and dancing
Christian Swenson
Performer, teacher, and creator of Human Jazz
His work in the theater is concerned with the autonomous actor, the natural world, and the dynamic interplay between the self and the Other. In 1980 he began creating and performing solo works for body and voice, our original instruments, and later began using the term “Human Jazz”. The work is unique in its improvised fusion of dancing, singing and acting. He creates art where freedom is more important than conflict, and within which continual transformations can take place.
I can be myself simply speaking to the audience; then a character speaking or singing in tongues, and dancing; then an animal watching the audience; and then just a person at play with energy.
He is currently working on a memoir/how-to book about Human Jazz.
National Endowment for the Arts Fellow
Washington State Arts Commission Fellow
Artist Trust of Washington Fellow
Faculty, Seattle University Theater Program
Performed at Lincoln Center, New York
― SELECTED WORK
Performances,
music & video
Four decades of original performance across solo shows, concerts, workshops, schools, theatre, and private events.
What Christian does
Workshops, residencies, schools, private events — available worldwide.
Performance
Solo shows, concerts, and theatrical events combining movement, voice, and live improvisation.
Teaching
Workshops and residencies in movement improvisation, vocal work, and the expressive body.
Music
Original compositions and vocal improvisations that blur the boundary between singing, chanting, humming, and prayer.
Schools
Participatory programmes for children and adults — bringing creative transformation to all ages.
― UPCOMING EVENTS
Be in the room
MAY
29
LIVE PERFORMANCE
3.2.1 May 2026 Cohort
Seattle Open Arts Place · 7:30pm & 9pm
Last Saturday of the Month
MONTHLY ONGOING
Monthly Vocal Improv Jam
Seattle Drum School of Music, Georgetown · $10–20
― GET IN TOUCH
Let’s make
something
happen
Available for solo performances, workshops, residencies, school programmes, and private events. Based in Seattle — travels widely.