The Wall is High: A Performance in five Chapters
The Wall is High: A Performance in five Chapters is a solo movement theater piece that unfolds across five chapters, exploring memory, brevity and wry comic wit. Set to Patti Smith’s Kimberly, the piece invites reflection through a stripped-down sense of physicality, ephemeral text, and stillness.
Using only handwritten posters and the raw presence of my body, the work draws on Brechtian performance strategies to challenge immersion, calling the audience into a state of witnessing rather than consuming. There are only written words and the lyrics that Patti sings, often in juxtaposition with each other.
This performance exists between liminal spaces and chance happenings, The Figure is an enlightened idiot who is stuck between riot and rupture, between a landscape of nothing and everything. Each chapter marks a shift in energy and form, asking: What burns? What remains? And what has remained after the barn has burned down?
Music by Patti Smith, Kimberly from the 1975 album, Horses
I shared the stage with other soloists, Gayatri, Scott Stafford and Parisha Rajbhandari for this evening of
Tiger Balm
PROCESS DANCE PROCESS
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
7 pm
Red Eye Theater
Juya Nokakamea
This work emerged from my research on the Yaqui creation story, where Juya Nokakame reached from earth to sky, resonating with a humming that could only be understood by Yomumuli, a young girl. The girl recounted the warning of the tree, speaking of colonization's arrival and the importance of living with the natural world. By embodying this story, I avoided mimicry and tried to create an immersive environment that I could live in, that reached back to this time. A portal door marks the beginning of the piece, and as the light from that projection scans me, I am cleansed as I enter into ceremony. The soundscape was written for the “guello” , a hybrid instrument I built, which was run through a loop pedal as part of my process to reimagine Indigenous presence. There are three sections to this score, which include emergence, the talking tree and living in relationality to the natural world.
March 2024, RSD Studios, Minneapolis, MN
Ania Bwia Bwia Toochia
Ania Bwia Bwia Toochia, which means the world, the land, the soil, the dust. It grew out of my many experiences and relationships such as living in Tempe, Arizona, camping in Tucson, talking with other Yaqui folks, working on my monograph, “Performance as Ceremony”, building a cello out a busted guitar that was gifted to me, a genuine desire to integrate my love for playing stringed instruments and dance, and working with Natalie Diaz, being inspired by her poem, “isn’t the air also a body moving?”.
As a Native artist, my work is not created in a vacuum of extrapolation and extraction. It is a direct response to being accountable to the natural world and to my community.
Finding Sentience
In the realm of central vision, the dancers directed their focus straight ahead, immersing themselves in a concentrated and detailed examination of the space before them. They honed in on specific points and movements, allowing their attention to be drawn to the nuances and intricacies of their environment.
Peripheral vision, on the other hand, brought a broader, encompassing perspective. The dancers expanded their awareness beyond their central focus, taking in the entire performance space as well the other dancers moving within it. They were able to respond and interact with their surroundings, in a surprising interplay between individual and collective.
Fringe vision pushed the boundaries of perception to the very edges of the dancers' visual fields. They explored the subtle shifts and movements that occurred at the peripheries of their vision. I encouraged them to listen to the shifting of subtle energies and sensations which existed at the fringes of their conscious awareness.
By experimenting with these different visual modes, the dancers transcended the limitations of ordinary perception. They delved into a heightened state of sensory awareness, where the boundaries between self and space, and individual and collective, became fluid and interconnected.
Additionally, the division of the dancers into quadrants added another layer of complexity to the piece. This spatial arrangement prevented any dancer from having a complete view of the entire group, creating a fragmented and disjointed visual experience. This fragmentation served as a metaphor for the fragmented nature of perception itself, reminding us that our understanding of the world is always partial and incomplete.
Danzas Mexicans
(El Indio)
Total Length: 3:15
Performed by Sam Aros-Mitchell
Choreographer: Jose Limon
Costume Design: Sam Aros-Michell
The Indio solo is one of five solos in Danzas Mexicanas, (Conquistador, Peón, Caballero Indio and Revolucionario. This was a work by José Limón that premiered in 1939: Indio represents the Indigenous peoples of Mexico Limón's Danzas Mexicanas was inspired by Mexico's history, land, and people, and was originally titled Murals of Mexico. The solos in the work explore themes of destruction, redemption, triumph, and despair.
Limón's work is known for its dramatic expression and technical skill, and his technique is still taught in many dance institutions today. The Limón Technique emphasizes the importance of the whole body in dance, with a focus on the spine as the foundation for movement. Sam Aros-Mitchell is collaborating with Dante Puleio, the director of Limón Dance in New York City, to reconstruct and restage the Indio Solo from Danzas Mexicanas (1939). Aros-Mitchell and Limón share a Yaqui ancestry, which is a new development for both Limón Dance and Aros-Mitchell.
O'Shaughnessy Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota
SOLO Concert, McKnight Foundation
The Unsung
Total Length: 2:38
Performed by Sam Aros-Mitchell
Choreographer: Jose Limon
Year Work Was Created
Completed: 2024
Year Work Was Filmed Completed: 2024
Costume Design: Sam Aros-Mitchell
The Deer solo is a piece from José Limón's The Unsung, a dance that pays homage to the American Indian. This work was the result of a nine month collaboration with Dante Puleio, the director of Limón Dance and myself, to reconstruct and re-stage the Deer solo, based on my own experience as a Yaqui person. The Unsung is performed in silence, except for the sound of the dancers' feet and bodies hitting the floor. The original suite was five to seven men performing solos, each with a different style that suggests an aspect of an American Indian leader. Limón created The Unsung to honor the true heirs of the Americas, and his image of them is as builders and defenders, not noble savages. Limón's choreography often focused on human drama, and he incorporated themes from literature, history, and religion. Limón's technique emphasized the importance of good breathing and the rhythms of falling and recovering balance.
O'Shaughnessy Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota SOLO Concert, McKnight Foundation