top of page

MIKO: a space between

 January 23, 24 and 25 2019 at 4:30 pm at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. 
 
Miko: a space between was awarded and is grateful for the support of a Creating Conversations Interdisciplinary Grant from Arts and Humanities at the University of California at San Diego. This grant includes oceanographers Noél Gutiérrez-Brizuela and Lauren Kim, musician Kathryn Schulmeister and choreographer, Aurora Lagattuta. As part of this project, this performance aims to create repeatable scores and performance materials for groups to engage with along shorelines in order to sharpen one’s awareness and sensations with the sounds, sights, mechanics, and issues of the local environment in which they live. The team’s greatest hope is to create experiential and humanistic approaches to oceanic data that reveal a changed perception of shorelines as an embodied and ecological necessity. ​
 
 
 
 
Creative Team:
Dancers:
Alice Astarita 
Abby Button 
Ella Jong 
Aurora Lagattuta 
Dulce Rodríguez-Ponciano 
Alisha Solan 
Jade Solan
 Dianna Valdes- Contreras
 
Musicians:
Mari Kawamura (vocalist) 
Kathryn Schulmeister (double bassist) 
Jasper Sussman (composer and vocalist)
 
Choreography: Aurora Lagattuta
Stage Manager: Willie Mae Michiels
Costume Design: Dorottya Vincze
Set Design: Yi-Chien Lee
Lighting Design: Minjoo Kim
Sound Assistance: Zhongran (Carren) Wang
 
Creator's  Statement
 
Choreographically, I am inspired by my research with the oceanographers. I am looking at various energy patterns from waves, clouds and light frequencies. The patterns of deep ocean waves, surface waves, cloud formations, light wave frequencies and pendulums all reveal information about the exchanges between diverse elements. I am also researching the patterns of body fluids particularly in the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. Throughout these patterns, the contrasting components work to instill a greater systemic harmony. I am curious about the underlying nature of fluid and energy to find itself through “other-ness.” This complimentary opposition has been a framework for creating choreographic material with the dancers. This data also connects to an over-arching interest in things which connect, link and weave us: spider webs, stories, breath, light, water, sound, women, dreaming, hugs, the senses, and…I see dance as a means for social and environmental improvement through the act of felt interconnection. My work turns to dance to create open, inclusive, diverse and compassionate dancing places. For me, dance is an embodied knowing of oneself, others and the environment. To dance is be in a sometimes silent, moving, irrational exploration with place and other. Thus, I am interested in untamed and natural human movements with place, particularly places we live within. These dancing places are both within and without us, evolving with every breathe and re-meeting us in each moment as they unearth the unknowable threads between us. The practice of dancing responds with a gentle attention, a kindness and a responsible freedom in this intimately vast world that we dance together. 
bottom of page