MOONQUAKES
Choreographed and Produced by: Margaret Ogas
Performers/Collaborators: Libby Herrmann, Ashembaga (Ashe) Jafaaru, Judith Shuǐ Xiān
Sound Designer: Dameun Strange
Costuming: Luciamakesart
Choreographer’s Note:Thank you so much for attending my very first self-produced performance, Moonquakes. I started making dances about dreams sometime in 2020, during a period of immense personal and global grief. In the darkest stretches of the Covid-19 pandemic, and in the context of the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police, I was unsure about how to make dances that felt honest. I began to see my dreams as a space to make sense of the dark absurdity that characterized the world around me. Dreams felt like an abstracted mirror for grief. They inspired new dances and, over the past nearly four years, I haven’t been able to stop dancing about dreams. Now, as I witness genocide unfold in Gaza, my dreams have again become a space for processing a level a horror that feels paralyzing. Urgently, I wonder how dreams can exist not only as a reflection of our grief, or a form of escape, but as a tool for imagining and catalyzing a different world. With Moonquakes, I wanted to expand my explorations to a larger group of artists. The work you will see tonight combines the imaginative worlds of Ashe, Judee, Libby and myself. Under the backdrop of Dameun’s spellbinding sound design, I am heartened that this work has transformed from a solo endeavor to a collaborative organism. In times when dancing feels like mere indulgence, I am reminded through fellow artists that its power lies in storytelling and connection.- Marggie
ARTISTS
Margaret Ogas is a choreographer, performer, teaching artist, and arts administrator based in the Twin Cities. She makes innovative and heartfelt dances about the absurdities of the everyday. Ogas’s choreography has been presented by the Walker Art Center, Red Eye Theater, Candy Box Dance Festival, Minnesota International Dance Festival, FD13, Mizna, Center for Performing Arts, Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio, Skewed Visions, and others. Margaret is a 2023 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. She was a 2021 Naked Stages Fellow at Pillsbury House + Theatre and has received grant funding from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. Margaret has been a core collaborator and performer with the Taja Will Ensemble since 2018. She has performed in works by Pramila Vasudevan/Aniccha Arts, Laurie Van Wieren, José A. Luis, Chris Schlichting, and others. She holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities.
Libby Herrmann is a Twin Cities based dancer and arts administrator. She studied Dance at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. A big fan of skipping, spinning, and the element of surprise, Libby loves dancing to research, squirm, get to know someone, and give herself a hug, among many other things.
Ashembaga (Ashe) Jafaaru is an actor + dancer, writer, artistic administrator, + creative/arts director. She has been involved in theatre + film + movement + voiceover work in the Twin Cities + beyond since 2009. Ashe creates art for liberation of the mind, body and SPIRIT + will continue to write + produce imaginative stories.Recent theatre + film credits include: A Raisin in the Sun (Beneatha) w/ South Coast Repetory Theatre, All My Niggas Surround Me, And I’m Surrounded By All My Niggas (creative direction/acting coach) a film w/ Jai Stephenson, Mlima’s Tale (assistant director) w/ Ten Thousand Things, Weathering (Neighbor/Turtle) w/ Penumbra Theatre, JOY ON ME (myself) w/ Pillsbury House Theatre, Impact Theory of Mass Extinction (Fahari) w/ In The Heart of the Beast Theater
Judith H Shuǐ Xiān is a choreographer, improviser, and sound artist based in Minneapolis. She is a 2017/2022 Q-Stage: New Works and 2019 Momentum: New Dance Works recipient and was part of the 2022 Red Eye Works-In-Progress cohort. She is currently focused on researching ritual & meditation through experimental performance.
Dameun Strange is a sound explorer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and sound designer whose conceptual electronic and improvised electro-acoustic works focus on stories and themes of the African diaspora, often exploring surrealist and afro-futurist ideas with unique impressionism. He currently lives in the Frogtown Community of Saint Paul, MN with his wife, Corina, and their inquisitive 5 yo, Ezra.
SPECIAL THANKSSequoia Hauck, Production Coordinator/Stage ManagerEphraim Eusebio, Modus Locus DirectorElise Radspinner, Promotional Photography and designLuisa Armendariz and Veera Vasandani, UshersPallav Kumar, Video DocumentationNicole Neri, Photo DocumentationTamajai’ Grady, ASL InterpretationRehearsal space provided by MOVO Space and Threads Dance Project
Additional Gratitude:- Ashe, Judee, and Libby, for bringing so much light and creativity to this process- Pramila Vasudevan and Taja Will, for giving the best advice exactly when I need it- Ayaka Moriyama, for helping develop the dream world in my previous work, Nightquakes- Veera, for being my #1 dream buddy- Emma, and my brother Andrew, for sharing their Costco memberships which I used to get snacks for this event :)- RESOURCE Minneapolis, for providing workshop space for initial project explorations- Center for Performing Arts, Pillsbury House + Theatre, Candy Box Dance Festival, and Red Eye Theater for supporting earlier iterations of this work.- Many, many others
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.This project is supported by a grant from the Jerome Foundation.