I Want to Be

Anna Kroll and Chloë Engel

2021

I Want to Be explores the verbal descriptions of a fictional space and physicality of interactions through emotional states. Each room is created with the intention of being destroyed, as it is often necessary to destroy in order to create. The virtual and physical self intertwines as we interact and reach in an imagined location. In these moments, we ask ourselves, what do I feel? What do I need? Where do I want to go? We construct an alternate reality that we exist in together in some capacity.

A series of performances that occur via telephone conference call by Anna Kroll and Chloë Engel.

You dial the number provided on the date that you’re supposed to.
You close your eyes and listen.
You enter a room.
There are other people in the room. We are in the room with you.
We tell you how the room is built,
What the room contains
What contains the room
What happens in the room
and how it will eventually all be destroyed.
You listen.

Every call is a new room.

Listen to the recorded performances:

June 25



June 26



June 27

If you’d like to read The Room instead, view the transcripts here.

Artist Bio

Anna Kroll is a dancer, choreographer and interdisciplinary artist. Anna’s performance work has been shown at No Theme Festival (Poughkeepsie, NY) in Philadelphia Theaters, Rivers and Subway Underpasses at FringeArts’ Scratch Night, Open Call Guerilla Outdoor Performance Festival, Invisible River’s Schuylkill River Arts Day, Cathy Weis' Sundays on Broadway (NYC), and Danspace's Draftwork series (NYC).

Her pieces aqueousness (an Instagram feed), and #AllYourMarketing (a live video feed) were in the Digital Fringe portion of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Alluvium and Inlet were commissioned by the Painted Bride Art Center for their expanded archive of Philadelphia, “Re-place-ing Philadelphia”. Her looping video piece your toes, your skin, your heart, your bones was included in the online film festival “Trans(m)it”.

She is currently an MFA student at UMBC in Intermedia & Digital Art. She received her BA from Bennington College and is an alum of the Headlong Performance Institute.

Website