Sand Artist | Charlene Lanzel Storyteller from New York City, NY

Sand Artist | Charlene Lanzel is a world-renowned performance artist from New York City who uses her hands in the sand to create living sand animations. This is an amazing live performance using sand, a light box and a projector. Charlene creates these fluid story illustrations for large audiences, with an overhead camera instantaneously projecting onto a large screen for the audience to see. Charlene Lanzel's amazing sand art is created live onstage, where people can watch the artist doing her performance in a darkened room. A video camera is positioned above the illuminated glass table upon which the artist creates sand magic. Sand scattered on the light box is formed and reformed into ever changing shapes and images that tell visually powerful stories to a dramatic musical soundtrack. Charlene Lanzel's sand animation, sometimes known as sand art, sand drawing or sand painting, is beautiful to look at but lasts only in the moment. It is sand storytelling that makes life and time flow by, right in front of your eyes. Sand animation is the most compelling new art form to come around in decades. A popular new trend in performance art, sand art is a form of live sand painting which evolved from earlier sand animation films. Live sand art performances are very dynamic, and require the artist's presence to happen. It has quickly become popular all over the World. Charlene Lanzel's performance is choreographed, rehearsed and synched to a specially chosen live or recorded dramatic soundtrack, enhancing the mood. Music accompanies the entire process as the sand artist's hands follow the rhythm. Her hands move slowly or quickly, as the elegant artwork is created, which challenges and motivates in a captivating way. The audience amazes at the decisiveness in her hands, since the sand artist's hands can always be seen creating in the projection. Perhaps what makes sand art so appealing, aside from its beauty, is its fragility and ephemeral nature. It is a practice which uses the visual and aesthetic properties of sand to create a live animated image. Sand is a fluid material and its grains settle by chance, creating living images made of a single texture. Sand art storytelling makes life and time flow by, magically, in front of your eyes. Charlene released her first sand animation video on YouTube in February of 2011, and within weeks she was scouted to perform for Cirque Du Soleil at the opening night party for Zarkana at Roseland in New York City. Soon after, Charlene began traveling around the World, fascinating audiences with her magical sand animation performances. Charlene's sand art combines her passion for artistic expression with her love of music, storytelling and performance art into one unique and mesmerizing art form. Sand Artist | Charlene Lanzel has done over 50 custom sand animations for corporate and private clients. She has done animations for MTV, Travel & Leisure, Junior Achievement, Doodle 4 Google, Girard-Perregaux and many more. She has performed at amazing venues, like Caesar's Colosseum in Las Vegas, The Fillmore in Philly, and Jazz at Lincoln Center here at home in NYC. She has traveled to international locations, like Hong Kong, Berlin, Amsterdam and Mexico. Charlene has shared the stage with Jordin Sparks, John Mayer, Wynton Marsalis, The Roots and Brené Brown. Watching sand animation come to life, in real time, has an extraordinary effect on the audience. Audience members are uncontrollably drawn into Charlene's seemingly real world made up of sand characters, trees, mountains and seas. Live sand art is a magical art form that charms. Creating images conjured seemingly effortless, like an oracle or a magician, Charlene's hands skate on glass like a kind of dance. The moving sand creates continuously fluid and poetic figures with original storytelling.