Moriah Evans

Moriah Evans positions choreography as an expansive social process. Drawing on somatic choreographic practices and feminist critiques of dance and visual culture, her work expands dance beyond the visible, to explore different ways of sensing both ourselves and our relationships to one other. Evans develops movement from the unseen interior of the body, by activating the emotional, somatic, and sensory systems, in order to question the default hierarchies between flesh, body, self, and subject. For Evans, choreography is a social political project that means far more than arranging bodies and movement in space; it is a serious and wide-ranging exploration of ideological beliefs – including feminist, sociological, and anthropological considerations. In Evans’ practice, one work leads to the next, each project forming a chapter in her ongoing process to inspire transformation – both physical and psychosocially – through action. Evans creates site-specific performances, theater-based productions, gallery and museum-based participatory installations, symposiums, theoretical texts, and curatorial projects.

Recent works include: “Remains Persist” (Performance Space New York, 2022); “Rehearsals for Rehearsal” (Public Art Fund, NY, 2022); “RESTOS” (Espacio Odeon, Bogota, Colombia, 2021); “REPOSE” (Beach Sessions, ΝY, 2021); “Be my Muse” (Pace Live, NY, 2021; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC, 2018; Villa Empain, 2016); “BASTARDS: We are all Illegitimate Children” (NYU Skirball, ΝY, 2019); “Configure” (The Kitchen, ΝY, 2018); “Figuring” (SculptureCenter, ΝY, 2018). She was Editor-in-Chief of the Movement Research Performance Journal (2013-2020) and continues as Editorial Director, Tanzkongress Curatorial Advisor (2017-2019), Dance & Process Co-Curator (The Kitchen, 2016-current). She has been a visiting professor in the Institute for Applied Theater Studies at University of Giessen and teaches workshops internationally. Evans has been an artist-in-residence at MacDowell, Movement Research, The New Museum, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Issue Project Room, New York Live Arts, ImPulsTanz, MoMA/PS1, MANA Contemporary, Onassis AiR. She is a FCA Individual Artist Awardee, a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2023-2024 Hodder Fellow. She has a BA in Art History & English, Wellesley College, and MA in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from UCSD.

Moriah Evans is a participant of The School of Infinite Rehearsals of Onassis AiR 2020-21 and of the Tailor-made Fellowships program 2022-23.