Glitch
Laban Studio Theater, London 2019
A theatre dance performance that uses distorted projection generated live in real-time by the dancer in correlation to the music's amplitude and frequencies. With an original application developed by Chris Vik reimagined and redesigned for the stage by Zjana Muraro
live music performance Alex Paton
performance Zjana Muraro
Touching from a Distance (strong sensations)
Laban Theater, London
December 2019
Zjana Muraro with the dancers Adam Moore, Ashley Handel, Irene Gimenez, Nico Migliorati
Computational design Colin Higgs
Dramaturgy Reynir Hutber
Touching from a Distance (strong sensations) is an interdisciplinary performance. Using motion-captured from dancers live on stage with an application developed in collaboration with Colin Higgs. Input in real-time via OSC animates the space. A mysterious and whimsical landscape appears and disappears as the dancers navigate their way through.
Touching from a Distance was supported in part by the European Culture Foundation and Compagnia di San Paolo.
More here!
performances photography by James Keates
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" 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 for this work started from Zjana's very personal explorations into ideas around exclusion, surrender, resistance, and questioning if it is possible to feel as both an insider and an outsider at the same time. 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. The movement research also informed the 'Body-to-body transfer' MFA by Gianna Burright.
performances photography by Julia Testa
Gallery
Becoming Hardware
2019
"Spending most of my time working with movement direction and digital art in the winter of 2019, as a dancer I had the imaginative feeling I was transforming my body into a computer while missing the physicality of the dance studio." ~Zjana Muraro
This digital art exploration with live music from musician Alex Paton is a falling and transforming, morphing into metal for a dancing body. Emphasizing the entangled inseparability of matter and meaning. Using digital art to depict the feeling of the inside of the dancer to the outside.
Filmed by Reynir Hutber edited and performed by Zjana Muraro.
Workshop Participants
What They’re Saying
Facilitating workshops and performance labs internationally and having delivered lecture/seminars on Dance and New/Digital Media, Somatics, and Performance in Museums at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and as a visiting professor of dance at the Belgrade Institute for Performing Arts (Serbia) teaching contemporary dance technique including contact improv, floor work, improvisation and performance making participants have given the following feedback.
Even though most things are actually not (physically) possible because I’m not actually there (in the digital space), many things felt a lot more possible than in real life. I felt like I could go up and touch things that ordinarily would be way out of my reach. The worlds feel like they exist only for my private curiosity.”
For the duration of this workshop, I have felt completely disconnected from my own world and introduced to many new ones that allow for absolute and utter feelings of freedom to explore. This experience has allowed me to reevaluate the idea of approaching sensation through my movement.”
Cynthia C.
Izzie C.
Critics Reviews
An experience full and complete. Remarkable.
Jenny Gilbert, The Independent UK
Has magnetic appeal. The alchemy on stage is engrossing.
Cathy Culver, Voice Magazine
Publications
Re-imagining the Future of Dance in Higher Education. Post-human times in the age of information.
Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, May 2015
Improvisation, Avatars and New Media, hosted by Coventry University
Performance Knowledges: Transmission, Composition, Praxis, University of Malta, March 2020
Resilience - Parallel spaces, self-caring and heterotopias
Dance Studies Association
Conference Vancouver, October 2020 (canceled)
London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, July 2020 (online)
Zjana Muraro is supported by Studio Wayne McGregor through the FreeSpace programme.
Lasting Impact
Teaching Gyrotonic for nearly a decade, Zjana currently offers individual sessions at Triyoga in London. Training first with master trainers Kathy VanPatten as a dance student at Boston Conservatory and later Sebasion Plettenburg in New York, she was incredibly fortunate to also be accepted and study directly with Julio Horvath himself, the inventor of the system. Gyrotonic is a somatics based movement system used by professional dancers and athletes to level up their skills and/or recover from injuries. Click to read more about Gyrotonic.
Professional Guidance
Zjana is currently a distance mentor for recent graduates at the NYU Tisch dance department and has been a career advisor for dancers at the Dancer Transition Resource Centre in Toronto, Canada. She has led lecture/seminars and taught contemporary dance technique and performance making at the university level. Get in touch to learn more with a free 15 min. phone meeting!
Creative Synergy
Zjana is the first to bring the Ilan Lev Method to London in 2015 both as a movement class teacher and as a practitioner qualified directly under Ilan Lev himself. ILM is a unique and joyful somatic movement therapy. Using gentle hands-on movements ILM classes are a neuromuscular re-education that gives you a chance to restart and reboot. How can you do less and still get more? ILM is a floorwork based class that is suitable to help you get grounded and clearer in the way you move. The nervous system that works healthily makes it so whatever you do either through internal drive or as a reaction to external stimuli is performed with ease, comfort, and elegance.