Miguel Gutierrez

Miguel Gutierrez

Miguel Gutierrez is a dance and music artist based in Brooklyn. He makes solo and group work with a variety of artists under the moniker Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People. Miguel assembled the first incarnation of the Powerful People in the fall of 2001 when he was invited for a choreographic residency in the pilot season of the Ensemble Studio Theater’s Lexington Center for the Arts. Never having been interested in a traditional model of a “company,” Gutierrez sees the participating artists in his work–dancers, composers, designers and visual artists–as part of an ever-expanding net of inspiring collaborators. Gutierrez’s interest in working with others is related to the questions in his work involving group identity and communal experience. He continues to work in solo form and on smaller scale pieces. Regardless of the size of the project, it is Gutierrez’s goal to create challenging and thought-provoking performance experiences. 

The work has enjoyed considerable attention in the printed and virtual press. Increasingly, the company is engaged to perform in venues across the country and internationally. Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People have created eight works: enter the seen (2002), I succumb (2003), dAMNATION rOAD (2004), Retrospective Exhibitionist and Difficult Bodies (2005), myendlesslove (2006), Everyone (2007), Nothing, No Thing (2008), and Last Meadow (2009). In 2001 Miguel instigated the performance/protest/meditation freedom of information (2001, 2008 & 2009). More information: http://www.freedomofinformation2008.blogspot.com/. In the U.S MGPP has been presented by Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, The Abrons Arts Center, and The Kitchen (New York, NY), ODC (San Francisco, CA), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), the Flynn Center (Burlington, VT), DiverseWorks! (Houston, TX), and the Fusebox Festival (Austin, TX). Internationally it has toured to several venues and festivals such as Antipodes Festival at Le Quartz (Brest), Politics of Ecstasy (Berlin), Kampnagel (Hamburg), Explore Festival (Bucharest), ImPulsTanz (Vienna), Les Halles (Brussels), Le Menagerie de Verre (Paris), Zodiak Center for New Dance (Helsinki), Perforcije Festival (Zagreb), Festival Nouvelles (Strasbourg), Latitudes Contemporanies, (Lille) and Springdance (Utrecht).

In 2010 he received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Art, and United States Artists. He has also received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital, the Jerome Foundation, the Rockefeller MAP Fund, the National Performance Network Creative Commissioning Fund and New York Foundation for the Arts’ Fellowship and BUILD programs. He is three-times the winner of a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award: in 2002 for dancing with John Jasperse Company, in 2006 as a choreographer for Retrospective Exhibitionist and Difficult Bodies, and in 2010 along with the entire creative team for Last Meadow. He has worked as a curator for The Kitchen’s Dance and Process program, and SHTUDIO SHOW at Chez Bushwick. WHEN YOU RISE UP, a collection of his performance writings, is now available from 53rd State Press. He teaches regularly around the world and he invented DEEP AEROBICS, an absurd(ist) workout for the leftist imagination-revolutionary in all of us. He has been lucky to work with a wide variety of extraordinary contemporary dance artists, such as Joe Goode, Juliette Mapp, Sarah Michelson, Jennifer Lacey, Deborah Hay, and Alain Buffard.

Returning Choreographic Fellow | March 27th - April 18th, 2011

And lose the name of action

Gutierrez returned to MANCC in the first of a two part residency to work on a new evening length piece, And lose the name of action. The piece is the performance result of three years’ worth of research into the over-lapping and divergent conceptions of mind/body in the fields of neurology, embodied philosophy, somatic practices, improvisation and the paranormal. In reference to this work Gutierrez writes, “My work has always looked at the ways in which we look for meaning and location in the world, and with this new project I hope to articulate these questions in the most complicated and sophisticated way yet.”

In both content and form, Gutierrez conceived a series of innovative Entrypoints and modalities of creative research, which reflected the cross-disciplinary scope of his current work. While in residence, he conducted interviews with imminent scholar Dr. Richard Shusterman, Director of the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture at Florida Atlantic University, as well as FSU faculty in the Philosophy and Neuroscience departments, gave a lecture on the origins of the new work, hosted an INEFFABLE INTANGIBLE SENSATIONAL workshop for students, engaged in extensive studio-based research, and moderated a "Mind/Body Problem" panel discussion with the wider Tallahassee community.

This residency was made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Collaborators in Residence: Michelle Boulé, Hilary Clark, Luke George, K.J. Holmes, Ishmael Houston-Jones [performers], Neal Medlyn [sound designer], Boru O'Brien O'Connel [video artist], Lenore Doxsee [lighting designer]. Slideshow photos by Chris Cameron, Al Hall, Shoko Letton, and Bridget Williams.

Choreographic Fellow | October 22 – November 9, 2006

Everyone and myendlesslove

Gutierrez divided his time between the movement, audio, and visual investigation for Everyone and the staging of his solo myendlesslove. Gutierrez sought to find a new mode or sensibility for his work in which the performance serves as an experience, a condition or situation which houses the audience and performers, rather than a presentation or product for consumption. Community was invited to participate in Gutierrez’s experience-based exercises, and to observe and discuss work in progress showings of both pieces.

Myendlesslove premiered at MIX NYC: The Experimental Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival in October, 2006.

Everyone premiered at Abrons Arts Center in March, 2007.