MEGAFLORA is an immersive multi-channel performance installation that explores the plight of the enigmatic redwood and sequoia forests in California that are threatened by deadly wildfires that have grown in intensity, frequency, and duration. Expanding on earlier experiments in site-specificity in modern dance, Site-Specific Dances animated these forests with local Bay-area based dancers, and captured these performances on film.

Partnering with The Sempervirens Fund, the team is currently conducting a series of video interviews with environmental experts including scientists, park rangers and Indigenous community leaders on the causes and potential solutions to this crisis - a realist “libretto”.

While the arts and the sciences are traditionally separated from one another, Site-Specific Dances will interweave these two components to create a hybrid ‘art-science’ immersive media performance work - and a new model of performance-based environmental advocacy.

Polina Nazaykinskaya will compose and arrange the music for all of the environmental ballet sequences of MEGAFLORA. Darian Donovan Thomas will create immersive soundscapes that accompany the interviews; integrating the spoken voice into his sonic environments.

INTERDISCIPLINARY TEAM

CONCEPT: Michael Spencer Phillips, Dino Kiratzidis, DIRECTOR CHOREOGRAPHER Michael Spencer Phillips, PRODUCERS: Michael Spencer Phillips, Dino Kiratzidis, VIDEOGRAPHY AND EDITING: Emma Kazaryan, DRONES Austin Lopez, Michael Spencer Phillips COMPOSER (Environmental Ballet): Polina Nazaykinskaya INTERVIEW SOUNDSCAPES: Darian Donovan Thomas PERFORMANCE ARCHITECTURE: Dino Kiratzidis DANCERS AND ADDITIONAL CHOREOGRAPHY: Jaime Garcia-Castilla, ArVejon Jones, Allie Papazian, Miche Wong LIBRETTO: Scientists and community members (documentary interviews) RESEARCH / SCIENCE PARTNERS: Sempervirens Fund, Ancient Forest Society