Stone to a Mountain
Dance Film & Installation
Stone to a Mountain, is a dance film that follows three characters on a farmland and their journey to connect to Source
Direction Marissa Brown, Performers Mao, Marlie Couto, and Marissa Brown, Director of Photography Max Harper, Made with support from Land & Sky Artist Residency
Are you crying?
Dance Film
Are you crying? depicts a woman in an ending. It’s the sensation of drifting further and further from a relationship, a home, the known. It’s a desire to make beauty out of a time of grief, processing, and growth
A project by Marissa Brown with cinematography by Max Harper . This project was supported by the LA Department of Cultural Affairs 2023 Dance in the Districts Award
Composing A Fall
Live Dance Work & Video Work
Composing A Fall explores the complexity held in the inner world with themes of the feminine emotional body, innocence and expression. Commissioned by California Institute of the Arts and set on 13 dancers, Performed at REDCAT in Los Angeles
A project by Marissa Brown. Performers: Poppy Miller, Meena Manoj, Chloe Rauch, Annika Moseng, Madison Avery, Christina Carlos, Ainsley Beard, Selma Stocker, Piper Reinwald, Sundari Joseph, Shane Higa, Eden Algoso, Elliana Scott
How lonely sits the city
Live Evening Length Work & Trio of Dance Films
How lonely sits the city is a poetic layering of dance film and live performance that tells the quiet interior stories of Black identifying dancers who take on angelic-like characters. Personal and historical narratives unfold throughout the films that have been formed publicly in and around historically Black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, CA. In this moment, we open vast interior landscapes and embrace the multiplicity of our expression
A project by Marissa Brown, with Performance by Damontae Hack, Maya Allen, and Nadia Muhammad, Cinematography and Live work Lighting by Max Harper , Original Sound Score by Isaac Middleton and Ashley “Robi” Robicheaux, Photography by Josh Rose, Production support by Marlie Couto, and clothing by KkCo. This project and it’s creation has been supported by ODC Theater in San Francisco for the State of Play Festival, Art Share LA, LA Dance Project, Los Angeles Performance Practice for the LAX Festival, CalArts, and private donations to Lone King Projects
The ocean is six miles deep
Live Dance Work
Visceral and highly physical movement approached with unclenched hearts drives the personal expression in choreographer Marissa Brown’s new group work, The ocean is six miles deep. The work challenges the seemingly normal and pleasurable expectations of how we perceive one another and engages in creating a new language of desire. Posing the question, “How do you open deeper?,” the work invites an expansion in the vocabulary of beauty, desire, and the attraction of full and free expression
Performed by Marissa Brown, Marlie Couto, and Mao. Presented as part of the REDCAT NOW Festival 2021
You are lost
Dance Film Installation
You Are Lost follows a female ghost-like character through a liminal space of existence. It is viewed as an installation where guests lie down flat solo on a swinging deck outside and look up to the night sky where a floating iPad displays this slow film
A project by Marissa Brown with Production Assistance by Marlie Couto, Photography by Josh Rose, Writing by E. T . Bayliss and support from California Institute of the Arts
the beloved
Video Series
the beloved is a mini series developed by Marissa Brown and presented by the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at California Institute of the Arts. Each episode highlights a CalArts dance student or alum and dives into questions around their current state and how they are navigating the state of the world around them as a young artist in 2020. These stories connect us back to our community during a time of social separation and remind us to believe in possibilities even when everything crashes against our best human and communal development
Do you want a summer romance?
Dance Film
Do you want a summer romance? is a study on the relationship between memory and desire. Pulling from personal experiences, the film explores how we carry our memories and how we sit with the desire of an object that’s no longer there. We see a male figure, slow dancing, romanticizing the memory of a relationship represented by a blob of gold fringe in contrast with a female figure, muscles quaking, as she moves across bridges in order to leave behind memories of love and shake her still present desires
Director Marissa Brown, Performed by Max Harper & Mao, Cinematography by Khadim Dai, Max Harper, and Simon Gulergun, Text written by E. T . Bayliss, Text Performed by James Majewski, Movement Direction by Marissa Brown, Sound Recording by Savannah Weymouth, Sound Score by Marissa Brown, Assistant Camera by Leonardo Pirondi, Color by Yikai Luc Wu, Editing and score Marissa Brown
The Raft
Live Dance Work, Dance Film & Two-Channel Installation
The Raft is a live stage work that was adapted for film. The piece explores identity, youth culture, clubbing, seduction and the uninhibited self.
Director Marissa Brown, Cinematography by Simon Gulergun, AC Max Harper, Stage Lighting Design Macy Rupp, Additional Support Carla Linton, Choreographed by Marissa Brown, Editing Marissa Brown, Performed by Sky Spiegel Im Vorapharuek Orla Regan Lizzy Noriega Damontae Hack
Romantics
Ongoing Live immersive performance, interview, polaroid portraiture and card deck
The card deck is used to create personalized performances by connecting with strangers in public spaces