Performances

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Current Productions: There are no current performance productions at this time. 
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"Reflections", a video poem by Malia Burkhart

 Video: Butoh Dance, videography, and poem by Malia Burkhart.  Music by Dan Solzberg with Ghost 7.

This solo piece was created on June 21, 2009 at Earthdance in Massachusetts, as research for "breatheloveknowrelate".

 Past Performances:

breatheloveknowrelate

a performance

directed by Malia Burkhart

February 5-7 and 12-14, 2010

at Dreamland Arts in St. Paul

 

 breatheloveknowrelate performers (clockwise from top):

Leah Nelson, Alejandra Tobar-Alatriz, Friede Rica, Malia Burkhart

 

A circle of four women,

daughters of four different continents,

enact a creation story for the healing

of the planet and its people 

How do we connect the threads of our cultural past, as we reweave the patterns of our selves and our world?  What are the stories that locate our position, as we dive into breathing deeply, loving fully, knowing honestly, and relating consciously?  Artists Malia Burkhart, Leah Nelson, Friede Rica, and Alejandra Cecilia Tobar-Alatriz navigate answers to these questions aboard a boat woven of stories, movement, improvisation, original music, puppetry, and Butoh-inspired dance.

 

“The inspiration for breatheloveknowrelate is rooted in the creation story of the Hopi, in which all people of the world were originally one.  We were sent to each of the directions to learn from the elements of air, water, fire, and earth.  These four peoples were instructed to return, and share their gathered wisdom.  In our story, the words “breathe, love, know, relate” correspond to the essential teachings of these four elements.  In the body of this performance, we focus on these words, using improvisation and storytelling.  Each night’s performance will change, reflecting a truth of human experience that is woven from our four different perspectives. ”  

~Malia Burkhart, Director and Producer

 

"breatheloveknowrelate" is the second performance in a series of work directed by Malia Burkhart, in which she investigates the environmental crisis through the lens of culture, identity, and place.  The first performance, The Survival Pages, was a solo show created through Intermedia Arts’ Naked Stages Program in 2007.  This piece was re-presented for the 2008 Minnesota Fringe Festival.  Malia Burkhart's puppetry is best known through her work with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater.  She has been an Associate Artist with the company since 1999.  Ms. Burkhart studied Butoh Dance in Japan in 2001 - 2003 with teachers Min Tanaka, Ken Mai, and Bridget Satsuki.  Malia is a 1994 graduate of the Arts High School at the Perpich Center for Arts Education.  She graduated in 1998 from St. Olaf College in "Arts as Community Activism" and Studio Arts, with additional studies in Performance Art through the School of the Art Institute in Chicago.

 

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More Past Performances:

The Survival Pages
July 31 – August 8, 2008

Intermedia Arts

2822 Lyndale Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55408

612) 871-4444

Find out more at - http://www.fringefestival.org/2008/show/?id=787

More information on the development and content of this piece at:
http://thesurvivalpages.blogspot.com

In a time when environmental issues are so highly abstracted and politicized, The Survival Pages invites you to reconnect, viscerally, with the ecological good sense of what it means to survive. Using Butoh Dance, original music, video, and found-object puppetry, performance artist Malia Burkhart journeys into the roots of our human disconnection from the natural world. Smell the dirt as Malia unearths her relationship troubles with the planet through humor and beauty.

"The Survival Pages is about a piece of nature –myself—investigating itself as a piece of nature. I developed this piece through a series of outdoor, site-specific explorations of Minnesota environment and seasons through Butoh, a postmodern form of Japanese dance. When immersed in the experience of the dance, my senses are heightened; the layer of separation between myself and my environment becomes permeable. The messages I received throughout the course of these explorations form the basis of this piece."

— Malia Burkhart; Creator, Performer, "The Survival Pages"


Quote from the Audience

"The Survival Pages? I thought at first. Malia Burkhart, she does good work I remembered. Once her performance launched I was glad to have worn reading glasses because subtle fiction written in Butoh, music, video, and puppetry unfolded like our future might if we cared enough to reengage. The Survival Pages, I thought at last: one of the smartest pieces of art I’ve seen so far in the 21 Century."

— J. Otis Powell!; Writer, Performance Artist, Curator