Support DANCE MONKS' Project in Ireland

Dances arise from the stories held in our bodies and the land; collective and personal histories, traditions, lost narratives, and the spaces in between. Movement helps us to know ourselves and, at the same time, challenge those perspectives, creating pathways toward unexplored potential.

What moves us? And how can movement incite the change we wish to see in ourselves and the world?

Mirah Kllc Moriarty, Artist of Irish and Slavic traveler descent raised in the lands of the Abénaki (Vermont), will travel to Ireland as the first in her family to return to her ancestral homeland. She will re-trace the route that her father's family likely took after being forced out of the country during the mass evictions known as the famine clearances.

Mirah will offer Land-based dances at sites along the way to be documented by Collaborating Artist Rodrigo Esteva in a Film to be projected as part of a performance installation. Her research in Ireland will include studies of the old Irish language inspired by the writings of Manchán Magan and Irish-language revivalist and re-wilder poet, Siobhan De Paor. She will also visit the Irish Emigration Museum and local sacred sites.

This journey is not only personal... It is in response to a worldwide call to bring healing through the recovery of ancestral memory and ancient ways of relating to body and place. The arts are a vital aspect of this mending.

Many of us today carry a deep longing to know who we are (self- knowledge) and our unique purpose (creative voice) with the support of community. The arts, dance specifically, are often overlooked as essential to this profound reckoning.

As dancers, we must reclaim our practices as a vital response in service of the transformation that is needed in this beloved world.

Help make DANCE MONKS' project in Ireland possible!

THANK YOU for your support!

MIRAH KLLC MORIARTY is the Co-Founding Director of DANCE MONKS (1999-present), an internationally traveled company based in the San Francisco Bay Area with Rodrigo Esteva (b. Mexico). She has dedicated her life to interdisciplinary, experimental work that delves into the intimate and ancient relationship between body and place. Mirah is devoted to listening to that which wishes to be spoken, the (at times hidden) stories that are held deep in our bodies and in the land, or what the old Irish called Tuiscint na Talún. Moriarty has a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Dance (2014) from Hollins University in conjunction with William Forsythe and HfMDK/MA Code, Germany. She also formally studied visual art and dance at the School for New Dance Development (SNDO/EDDC) Hogeschool voor de Kunsten of Amsterdam, Netherlands, Oberlin College (OH). She received her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) from Goddard College (VT) with a focus on Interdisciplinary Arts in Education. Mirah has taught and performed internationally over the last 20+ years in major festivals, universities, and venues throughout the United States and Mexico, as well as in Canada, Peru, and Europe. View website

RODRIGO ESTEVA RAMIREZ (Nuu Savi/Mexico) is the Co-Founding Director of DANCE MONKS. He was born and raised in Mexico City, overlooking the volcanos of Popocatépetl and Iztaccihuatl of the Náhuatl peoples. Rodrigo is mestizo of indigenous Ñuu Savi (Mixteco), the people of the rain of Oaxaca, and European ancestry. As an experimental dance artist, he is dedicated to unblocking energy pathways through movement toward transformational and heightened states of being. Rodrigo Esteva holds an MFA in Dance (2023) from the University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA) in conjunction with Centre Chorégraphique National (Montpellier, France). His current research is focused on Indigenous epistemologies of Mexico relating to the body, energy, space and time.

EXPENSES:

International Travel: $1,000 x 2= $2,000 (Flights)

Local Travel: $1,270 (Train + Bus)

Housing: $1,500/month (Rental)

Food: $41/day= $1,230

Artist Fees: $5,000 (Dance + Film)

Collaborating Artist: $1,200 (Poetry)

Materials & Costumes: $800

TOTAL: $13,000