Performing Artist

Zjana is a multicultural choreographer and dancer creating contemporary dance performances inspired by books, fashion, art, multiculturalism, and science. Her works are at the edge of the natural physical world and virtual digital spaces. Her dance projects bring together layered perspectives on the physical, virtual, imaginative and real and explore the possibilities of dance to open up new perspectives and escape conventional norms. Trained as a classical ballet dancer and performing as a contemporary dancer for some renowned choreographers, her practice as a dance artist spans mainly live performances but also film, video, projection, dance for camera, and VR | AR.

Zjana's recent works focus on the body and its environment which includes the physical natural world of forest, oceans, land and sky and the virtual digital space of VR | AR. As a dancer and dance maker Zjana enjoys exploring new technologies and how they can intersect with embodied physical dance practice and believes the process of art and dance making can be a way to build diverse communities.

Her current works ask what will the future of embodiment be? What is nature if we grew up on the internet? And is the 'self' lost somewhere online?

Critics Reviews

Critics have recognized Zjana’s artistic strengths in her stage presence, technical skill, and imaginative portrayals.

An experience full and complete. Remarkable.

Jenny Gilbert, The Independent UK

Has magnetic appeal. The alchemy on stage is engrossing.

Cathy Culver, Voice Magazine

a wonderful mix of fluidity and strength....masterfully executed

iDance, NYC

Live Dance and AR

Performed at
Kingston University London
September 2022

Now more than ever before, the way we are seen and if our bodies matter or not happens not only physically but also digitally. This multidisciplinary live dance performance for three female dancers and one sound artist on modular synth explores body image, displacement, body dysmorphia, and the augmented self or “The Doll.” It's inspired by our very personal yet very common experiences as women on social media through a tragic comedy style. Bringing together contemporary dance with Augmented Reality this live show blends digital images with physical bodies. Using their personal mobile phones audience members are invited to change what they see on stage and around the dancers, transforming the spaces and the faces of the dancers as they move.

This work is supported by East London Dance and London College of Fashion through the Creative Lab Fund for independent artist working with dance, fashion and technology.

Dance and DIY MoCap

Touching from a Distance

Touching from a Distance (strong sensations) is about a man who goes for a walk and on the way must pass through a forest. But this forest is filled with unbelievable things - a levitating man, magical Technicolor shadows, and talking forest creatures. In the end, the question is what was real and what was not?

The emergence of the story in this work was discovered through Zjana's distinctive creative process in juxtaposition and multidisciplinary collaboration.

The work uses live motion capture technology on stage to illuminate and hide things that are there but can’t be seen. Using an app specially developed by the choreographer with collaborator Colin Higgs for the motion capture system. Input from the dancer's movement and from the choreographer's mobile device create a projection that animates the space in real-time. A mysterious and whimsical landscape appears and disappears as the dancers navigate their way through.

Touching from a Distance was created in partial completion of MFA research in choreography at Trinity Laban in London and was supported in part by the European Culture Foundation and Compagnia di San Paolo.

More here! www.digitaldance.xyz

performance photography by James Keates

Trinity Laban Theater, London December 2019

Dancers Adam Moore, Ashley Handel, Irene Gimenez, Nico Migliorati
Computation Colin Higgs
Music Alex Paton

Experimental Dance Films

Glass on Glass

Analogy film colouring

Zjana Muraro

Goldsmiths University of London

2018

collaboration with

Ben Sassen music

and

Reynir Hutber camera

Dancing in churches across Europe this project began in 2014. Performing in spaces from the Sistine Chapel to small churches in the Old City of Jerusalem this project is a feminist protest and performance art piece aiming to broaden perspectives of how a woman's body can be seen socially and political.

Interview

The Work
of
Art

Interview for the Oulu Dance Hack at Oulu Museum of Art in association with Oulu University of Arts, Finland August 2018

Residencies & Other Works

Set Sail
( Untitled X+3 )

Resolution at The Place, London
February 2017
Choreography & Performance Zjana Muraro
Actress Gabriella Flarys
Live Video Projection Reynir Hutber
Music Catarina Dos Santos, Ged Flood, Matt Kirk
Rehearsal Coordinator and R&D assistant Gianna Burright

An interdisciplinary performance about the line between fake and real, questioning how we might be able to, or not, see the difference between them. Described by critics as "an entrancing mix of live and recorded" Jenny Gilbert, The Independent. The poetic narrative traces a lone dancer in an absurdly oversized baby-pink jacket at an exotic beach scene, suggesting of Brazilian beats and Brazilian heat "that seep under your skin. An experience, full and complete" (J.Gilbert) with live music, storytelling, and projection encompassing unrealized dreams and how no matter the chaos around us or which beach we're on we just must still, keep dancing.

The R&D titled 'Being seen and the difficulty of being seen' for this work started from Zjana's very personal explorations into feelings around exclusion, surrender, resistance, and questioning if it is possible to be both an insider and an outsider at the same time. To belong to everywhere and to belong to nowhere. Exploring the relationship between body and environment and society, the work questions what is excluded in our ethics, in our thoughts, and in our actions. Bringing attention to things that are there but can't be seen.

performance photography by Julia Testa

Glitch

Laban Studio Theater, London 2019

A theatre dance performance that uses distorted projection generated live in real-time through an interconnected loop of improvisation between dance movement and live music. The music's amplitude and frequencies generate the projection using only a webcam.

Creative code originally developed by Chris Vik

Reimagined and redesigned for the stage by Zjana Muraro

Live music performance Alex Paton

Dance performance Zjana Muraro