Moments of truth: Dancer Miki Orihara proves what makes live performance unique
News 12’s Mark Stevenson stopped at the Verplanck arts center on a Saturday afternoon expecting to see the work of painter Kikuo Saito. Instead, he found renowned dancer and choreographer Miki Orihara leading an open rehearsal for Five Mothers, a new work she developed during a residency.
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What began as an unplanned visit to KinoSaito Arts Center became an exploration of what makes live performance impossible to fully preserve.
News 12’s Mark Stevenson stopped at the Verplanck arts center on a Saturday afternoon expecting to see the work of painter Kikuo Saito. Instead, he found renowned dancer and choreographer Miki Orihara leading an open rehearsal for Five Mothers, a new work she developed during a residency at the art center made possible through a partnership with La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and the NYSCA's Target Opportunity Grant.
Unlike a traditional rehearsal closed to the public, Orihara invited audiences into the creative process.
“I like to have open rehearsals because having audience eyes is a very different feeling,” Orihara said. “I want audiences to know how we work.”
The residency gave Orihara the time and space to develop a piece inspired by four women who shaped her life and career, including her mother, Martha Graham, Yuriko and Japanese dance teacher Nanako Yamada. Collaborators Nya Bowman and Ghislaine van den Heuvel helped bring those ideas to life through a process built on experimentation and trust.
“We have been so collaborative,” Bowman said. “Usually, in my experience, dancers are so competitive. A lot of times we deal with ego and meanness and unkindness. I trust Miki emotionally.”
Van den Heuvel said that trust encouraged her to take creative risks.
“She trusts us,” she said. “That brings more trust in me… I can do more.”
For Orihara, the audience becomes part of that collaboration.
“I have a strong idea,” she said, “but it’s okay for them to take it a different way. I’m very open to it.”
The following day was scheduled to include a workshop and the residency’s only public performance. A fallen tree blocked the road, making it impossible for Stevenson to attend.
“I hate to tell you,” KinoSaito Executive Director Holly Hobart said afterward, “but it was really wonderful.”
Reflecting on the performance, Hobart said what happened in the room could never be fully captured afterward.
“You have to kind of be here because it’s that energy,” she said. “You can’t get that through a video, through photographs. It’s palpable.”
Later, searching for a way to describe what had been lost, Hobart returned to the idea of presence itself.
“Dance is a lot about breath and movement,” she said. “Whether it’s actually hearing the breathing of the dancers or syncing your own breath with the dancers… that’s what you miss if you’re not here.”
For Stevenson, the missed performance unexpectedly became the story.
“Sometimes the absence of something is what makes you really appreciate it,” he said.
The experience became a reminder that while paintings, photographs and recordings can preserve moments, live performance exists only in the unrepeatable exchange between artists and the people who are there to experience it.
