Alma: Despite Time and Distance

Jorge Luis Morejon, (live), and Linda Bair (on video) dance to Alma (Soul), a piece created despite their distance from each other. Alma expresses their connection in dance even though the two dancers live in different cities, on opposite sides of the U.S. The piece establishes the possibility of having a conversation in dance with someone who is not physically present, but whose soul, symbolized by the video, is on stage. Alma was premiered as part of the Art of Dance Festival, directed and produced by Michelle Grant-Murray, at the McCarthy Auditorium, Miami Dade College, Kendall, on November 8th, 2017.

Dancer:Lorge Luis Morejon, Artistic Director and Dance Program Coordinator Michelle Grant-Murray.; Stage Manager Jennifer Puig. Miami Dade College Auditorium, Kendall Campus, Miami, November 4, 2017

This is the first time the piece been danced by Jorge Luis Morejon with Linda's working video in the background. This particular rehearsal took place on Monday, November 6, 2017 at Miami Dade College Auditorium, Miami, as part of Art of Dance Festival.

The Emperor and the Nightingale - A Tale From China / Gables

  Dancers: Barbie, Melanie, Lili, and Jorge Luis Morejon

• Momentum Dance Company Children's Series-New Children's Ballet - The Emperor and the Nightingale - A Tale From China

   

  Miami-Dade Public Library System - Coral Gables Branch

  3443 Segovia St

  Coral Gables, FL 33134

  Phone number(305) 442-8706
• Saturday, May 13, 12:00 am

The Emperor and the Nightingale - A Tale From China / Miami Beach

 

 Barbie, Melanie, Lili, and Jorge Luis Morejon

Momentum Dance Company Children's Series:

The Emperor and the Nightingale - A Tale From China in Miami Beach.

 

The Emperor and the Nightingale - A Tale From China - A benevolent, but sickly Chinese Emperor is healed by the magical song of a simple gray Nightingale. The Emperor and the members of the court are amazed, and want to keep the Nightingale in a golden cage. But when the Emperor of Japan sends a golden, jewel encrusted, mechanical bird, the Emperor and the members of the court forget about the Nightingale, and she flies away. Eventually, the glittering mechanical bird breaks, and the Emperor falls ill again, but the kind Nightingale comes back to to save the Emperor, who agrees that she can be free.

PERFORMERS:

 Kathy Brennan, Barbie, Melanie, Lili, and Jorge Luis Morejon

May 14, 2017

Sunday   3:00 PM

 

Miami Beach Regional Library

227 – 22nd Street,
Miami Beach, Florida 33139

 

 

 

Side Show Freaks and Circus Injuns - Studio Work - 2017

Actors Monique Mojica, LeAnne Howe, Lena Recollet, Evanne Saint, Justin Manyfingers, Jeff Legacy

 during rehearsal of Side Show Freaks and Circus Injuns at the Center for Indigenous Theatre, Toronto. 

Photography: Leslie McCue

Side Show Freaks and Circus Injuns' studio work, based on the play written by LeAnne Howe and Monique Mojica, on  May 25, 2017, in Miami, started on July 28 under the direction of Jorge Luis Morejon. The trans-indigenous project is one of the first attempts to bring together indigenous performers from different parts of the continent. They establish, in a very short rehearsal period, a successful process that integrated a new indigenous dramaturgy-in-the-making with embodied creative work by indigenous actors. Their collective aim was to cover the full content of the written script, to then have an open-studio presentation on August 14th. The plan was to share the results of the documented process with a selective audience of colleagues, friends and supporters. By Sunday, August 6th, before the EDO (Equity Day Off), the team had already worked through thirty pages of the script. Morejon's direction of this fase of the project ended abruptly on August 6th, 2017.  

Side Show Freaks and Circus Injuns - Blowoff

 Lukas Avendaño as the Authentic Cockboy

Aluna Theatre, Toronto

Photography: Monique Mojica

Norma Araiza as the Serpent Woman

Aluna Theatre, Toronto

Performance artist Lukas Avendaño and actress Norma Araiza during the recording of the blowoff pieces of Side Show Freaks and Circus Injuns written by LeAnne Howe and Monique Mojica. The blowoff pieces were directed by Jorge Luis Morejon, produced by Sue Balint, recorded by Andrew Moro and Samay Arcentales; prop mastered by Tim Hill and costume designed by Erika Annie and Kinoo Arcentales. This work, sponsored by Chocolate Woman Collective, was rehearsed and recorded from July 14 to 17, 2017, at Aluna Theatre in Toronto. 

The trans-indigenous team aimed at producing these two pieces in the context of the enfreakment perpetrated by the circus industry in North America. At the beginning of the XX century, indigenous people were exhibited as freaks because they were "indians." Lukas and Norma embodied their own freak creation process for the blowoff section of the play. They recreated the spectacle of viewing and exhibiting their own version of an indigenous freak, zapotec and yaki respectively, as they layered their indigeneity with other traits such as sexual orientation and disability.

The process included the performers' discussion and exploration of their own background in terms of language, traditions, and cultural markers. Then, there were chosen costumes and props that would aid the process of enfreakment. Third, there was created a dramaturgy that guided the performers throughout the piece in rehearsal and during the recording. They also engaged in character development and the use of voice, props and movement in function of their characters. Finally, the recording team gave the performances the final touch by lighting the set while using multiple cameras for future editing and production of the final blowoff pieces.

Nevada City Dance Fest shines with regional talent

Linda Bair and Jorge Luis Morejon in My Hands/Tus Brazos. 

Nevada County Dance Festival, 2017. Photographed by Steven A. Jones 

LINDA BAIR DANCE CO.

Similar to Hanna, Linda Bair, founder of the Linda Bair Dance Company (LBDC), has committed much of her professional life to presenting world-class dance in her community. Based in Davis, CA, LBDC is in residence at the Davis Arts Center where Bair teaches all levels of modern dance. She also teaches in the Theatre and Dance Department at UC Davis.

"Modern dance is, for me, a participatory art," says Bair. "Sometimes audiences new to this kind of dance are frustrated by the feeling of "not getting it." I want the audience to let the dances wash over them, noticing what sensations, feelings, ideas come to them as they watch or even after the piece is over. Each dance will be viewed differently by each person and informed by their own experiences in life."

Following Lake Tahoe Dance Collective's performance, Linda Bair Dance Company will showcase three pieces. Bair chose three dances that were very different from one another kinetically, emotionally, and musically; and span her company's history from 2002 to a 2017 premiere.

The first piece "Weather" is a bold expression of the wildness, chaos and order of weather patterns. "My Hands/Tu Brazos" was made with Jorge Luis Morejon who she met while he was doing his PhD in performance studies at UC Davis and now teaches in Miami. The piece explores the idea of love in a long-term relationship. Blair's newest piece "I can scarcely move or draw my breath" takes its title from one of the lines in the opening piece of "The Cold Song" by Henry Purcell with lyrics by John Dryden. Composed in the 1600s, the song feels very contemporary to Bair and explores themes of death and love, and remembering of a life lived.

LINK:  http://www.theunion.com/entertainment/nevada-city-dance-fest-shines-with-regional-talent/

Residency at Brown

Dancer Jorge Luis Morejon, actor Monique Mojica and writer LeAnne Howe started thinking about creating "Side Show Freaks" in 2008

ARTS & CULTURE

Artists strive to decolonize indigeneity

‘Side Show Freaks and Circus Injuns’ defies Western artistic norms through theater

By ZACHARY BARNES
STAFF WRITER 
Friday, November 18, 2016

Three artists will present “Side Show Freaks and Circus Injuns,” a play centered on indigenous people, Friday at the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts. Described by LeAnne Howe, one of the artists, as a “decolonizing process,” the piece seeks to resist Western modes of thought and performance.

“We challenged ourselves to put indigenous knowledge, indigenous ways of knowing (and) indigenous structures in the center of our practice,” said Monique Mojica, an artist-in-residence at Brown for the month of November and one of the collaborators on the piece. “Simultaneous to creating an organic piece of theater, simultaneous to working collaboratively, we are also dismantling and unlearning structures that come from Eurocentric performance.”

The artists, Mojica, Howe and Jorge Luis Morejón, first started thinking about creating the piece in 2008 when they came together at the University of Illinois. All three come from different disciplines. Mojica is primarily an actor, Howe a writer and Morejón a dancer. They wanted to create something collaboratively that would “decolonize native theater and ourselves,” Howe said.

In spring 2016, Mojica came to campus to deliver a lecture, and she expressed an interest in continuing work on the piece at Brown. Patricia Ybarra, chair of the theatre arts and performance studies department and a fan of Mojica’s work, was supportive, and Lilian Mengesha GS and Assistant Professor of American Studies Adrienne Keene secured funding to bring the artists to campus. Friday’s event is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America.

“I wanted to have a more critical conversation about art and indigeneity in the department, and I thought (Mojica) was the exact right artist to do that,” Ybarra said.

Similarly, Sarah d’Angelo, assistant professor of TAPS, wrote in an email to The Herald, “There are only a handful of institutions in the United States embracing indigenous systems of knowledge and creation. Given the recent social, environmental and political events, there couldn’t be a better time for our community to come together to honor and experience the value and significance of this performance.”

The inspiration for the piece comes partly from the experiences of Howe and Mojica’s family members. Howe’s great-aunt had a horseback act in a circus, and Mojica’s mother performed and “was displayed” in a sideshow in Brooklyn as a child. As such, the work of decolonizing is very personal for the artists. “We set out to dislodge colonialism from our bodies,” Mojica said. “That has everything to do with the colonizer’s gaze on our bodies. We want to reverse that gaze that sees us as freaks.”

Morejón, the director of the piece, said that working with Howe and Mojica presented a challenge, as he comes from the mainstream theater world that the play means to resist. Despite the challenge, Morejón said the process has been educational. “I’m learning to decolonize through them. I bring terms that are immediately identified by the two of them as part of the process that we’re trying to decolonize. … Every time I say something that is not part of the process of decolonization, the creative process stops because then we have to stop to clarify what I’m trying to say. So I keep saying, ‘Oh, that’s semantics.’”

“And we keep saying, ‘No!’” Mojica said.

All three artists expressed gratitude and affection toward each other, noting how essential each one has been to the process. Mojica also expressed joy about Brown’s hosting and funding of the process. In most theater, she said, “there are production schedules. This is way outside that. I want to acknowledge Brown for believing this work was important.”

“Side Show Freaks and Circus Injuns” will take place Nov. 18 between 4 and 6 p.m. in Studio One at the Granoff Center.

Dance Workshop at Brown

The Art of Dance

 

 

 

PROGRAM

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

7:30pm (Program B)

1.   The Power of Expression: A Journey of Trauma, Pain and Transformation by Jorge Morejon

2. Spiritual Warfare by Melissa Cobblah

3. American Dream by Lisbeth Dominguez

4. PyaarKaVaada by Marjory Harum-Alvarez

5. The Evolution by Fashionette Finley

6. Kahina: A Tangled Root by Michelle Grant-Murray

  -INTERMISSION-

7. Sistas, born out of sorrow by Tiffany Merritt-Brown

8. God’s Messengers by Tiffany Malcolm

9.      Suandende by Jorge Morejon

10.     Choreographic Offering by Pioneer Winter

11.     JDE Finale

Suandende

Suadende: A tale by Lydia Cabrera directed by Jorge Luis Morejon

PROGRAM

"Honoring Lydia Cabrera's Story: Altar, Performance, and the Living Archive"

Saturday, October 22nd, 2017, at 2:00 PM

History Miami Museum

Invocation 

Martin Tsang (University of Miami)

Cascarones Cleansing Ritual

Led by Kay Turner (New York University), Solimar Otero (Louisiana State University),

and Eric Mayer-Garcia (Louisiana State University).

Panel and Discussion

Chairs:

Solimar Otero and Kay Turner

Panelists:

Mable Cuesta (University of Houston)

Jerrilyn McGregor (Florida State University)

Sarah Pina (University of Houston)

Martin Tsang (University of Miami)

Work-in-progress Performance Inspired by Lydia Cabreras's story "Suandende"

Director and Choreographer, Jorge Luis Morejon (Miami Dade College)

Assistant Choreographer: Maria Lopez (Miami Dade College)

Program Director, Michelle Grant-Murray (Miami Dade College)

Dramaturg, Eric Mayer-Garcia (Louisiana State University)

Cast:

Storyteller, Shanna Woods (Miami Dade College)

Woman, Erika Loyola (Miami Dade College)

Suandende, Adam Lara (Guest Appearance)

Jealous Man, Luis Naleiro (Guest Actor)