RECENT PROJECTS
talamh  cuimhní (land memories), 2025-present, work in-progress showing

Program Information: May 16@7pm and May 17@4pm

Remember (dance film), 2025

Remember stemmed from the Haikeus project, an evening-length work that explores ideas around our emotional response to climate change and environmental destruction. The final section of the work focuses on remembering our connection to land, place, and the natural world, coming into better balance with ourselves, our communities, and the places we call home. The intimacy and large scale that the medium of film can convey inspired me to explore further ideas around our connection to land and place at an outdoor site in the high desert. The work also takes inspiration from a poem of the same name, Remember, by Joy Harjo.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth. – (excerpt form Remember by Joy Harjo)

Choreography: Mary Fitzgerald in collaboration with dancers Nicole Bradley Browning, Zarina Mendoza, and Halley Willcox. Original Haikeus cast members, Jenny Gerena and Sydney Jackson, also contributed to the development of this work. Cinematography: Dmitri von Klein. Editing: Dmitri von Klein and Mary Fitzgerald. Music: pincushioned (Barry Moon and Doug Nottingham). Costumes: Galina Mihaleva.

Remember was made possible with an Artists to Work grant from Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture.

talamh  cuimhní (land memories)

Dedicated to my grandmother, Hannah Hurley, and her son (my father), James E. Fitzgerald.

talam cuimhní is a work-in-process that began with reflections on my Irish grandmother’s life and my connection to the wild and gentle spirit of the landscapes, people, and culture of Ireland. My grandmother, Hannah Hurley, came to the US in the early 20th century, but we know little of her life in Ireland or her journey to this country. Though she died when I was 6 yrs. old, I have many questions, many dreams, and some haunting memories of her presence. This work explores some of those questions through persistent images, body memories, and the deep sense of home I feel in the Irish landscape. The dancers also have brought their own experiences to the creation of the choreography; I am grateful for their generosity in sharing such rich and personal material.

This work is connected to a larger project, pass of the birds, that I am creating with my dear friend and collaborator Eileen Standley, about our Irish roots, particularly our grandmothers. The project also explores ideas around inheritance and land migration more broadly. How do the lands of our Irish ancestors live in on our bodies—in our DNA—how do we carry them forward?

Choreography: Mary Fitzgerald in collaboration with dancers Nicole Bradley Browning, Alecea Housworth, Zarina Mendoza, Ellen Sickenberger, and Dean Saifullin. Music: Benge and Alva Noto.

Special thanks to the dancers and to ASU for the use of rehearsal and performance space.

Some rehearsal photos, documented by Mary Fitzgerald. Dancers: Nicole Bradley Browning, Alecea Housworth, Zarina Mendoza, Dean Saifullin, and Ellen Sickenberger.

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Haikeus: Transmuting Ecological Grieving into Action, 2022-present: https://maryfitzgeralddance.com/haikeus-transmuting-ecological-grieving-into-action/ Photos: Dmitri von Klein

Timeless Land (Dance Film), 2021-2022

Timeless Land pays tribute to an untouched area of the high desert in New Mexico. As if passing through a portal to a secret world, the film offers a glimpse of a space that evokes a sense of wonder and humility. We felt privileged to explore our connection to the place and to each other as we passed through.

Creators: Choreographers and performers Nicole Bradley Browning and Mary Fitzgerald. Filmmaker: Dmitri von Klein. Music: Doug Nottingham.

Photos: Video stills of film

Sylvan, 2021-present

Sylvan is a multimedia performance installation created by dance artists Mary Fitzgerald and Eileen Standley, visual designer Galina Mihaleva, and composer Barry Moon.  The project explores ideas about the visibility and invisibility of older women’s bodies, giving voice to that which often remains unseen, overlooked, or denigrated in U.S. culture.

Creators: Choreographers and performers Mary Fitzgerald and Eileen Standley. Costume/Visual Designer: Galina Mihaleva. Composer/Sound Installation: Barry Moon.

Photos: Jenny Gerena

Melt, 2020-22

During the pandemic in 2020-21, I created two different versions of Melt via Zoom in collaboration with soloists Tahimy Miranda and Faith Markovetz.  Each dancer had an opportunity to perform their version of the work live at venues in Utah and New Mexico.  The work explores the phenomenon of ice formation and glacier melting as a metaphor for inner change.

Creators: Choreographer Mary Fitzgerald in collaboration with soloists Tahimy Miranda and Faith Markovetz.

Photos: Video stills of Tahimy Miranda

Amplified, Amplificado II and Desert Alluvium, 2019-present

The many iterations of Amplified explore ideas about the passage of time, transformation, and the visibility of the older woman’s body.  The work originally was inspired by our research about women, dance and aging, and has evolved into an exploration of metamorphosis and change.  Amplificado II, the film version of this work, uses the visceral poetry of renowned artists Ada Limón and Natalie Diaz as part of the sound score, delving into questions about how the body’s presence expands and contracts over time.  What do we become–and what do we leave behind–as the outer layers fall away?

Creators: Choreographers and performers Mary Fitzgerald and Eileen Standley. Music by various musicians: Michael Vatcher, Barry Moon, and Doug Nottingham.  Costume Design: Claire Fleury (bright orange and red); Mary Fitzgerald and Eileen Standley (grey, white, and black)

Photos: Lawrence Fung, Jenny Gerena and Friends

Twined, 2019

Twined is an intimate duet created for and with Coley Curry and Elisa Reed that explores ideas about the deep bonds formed between twins during gestation.  How do those bonds manifest later in life in terms of movement and energetic patterns, and how vulnerable are they over time?

Creators: Choreographer Mary Fitzgerald in collaboration with dancers Coley Curry and Elisa Reed

Photos: Video stills of rehearsal

Vestiges (Dance Film), 2018

Vestiges is a collaborative project that uses dance, film and animation to map and transform the fleeting nature of movement. The piece abstractly delves into questions about the tangible and intangible legacies of dance – what is left behind when the motion of the physical body diminishes, or is no longer fully visible? As dancers and choreographers, we constantly face the reality of our physical limitations and the impermanence of our art form. While they cannot capture the visceral quality of movement, to some degree, digital technologies have the capacity to transcend those limitations. Film and animation can serve as excellent tools for transforming motion, offering a resonant semblance, or vestige, of embodied experiences.

Creators: Choreographers/directors Mary Fitzgerald and Eileen Standley. Filmmaker: Dmitri von Klein. Music and Animation: Casey Farina. Dancers: Taimy Miranda and Joan Rodriguez.

Photos: Dmitri von Klein

ShiftState, 2018

ShiftState is part of a series of works that poetically reflect on the aging process.  It draws inspiration from Buddhist philosophy in a mediation on time, impermanence, and legacy.

Creators: Mary Fitzgerald choreographed and performed this work in collaboration with an ensemble of dancers: Coley Curry, Sharon McCaman, Shauna Meredith, Elisa Reed, Halley Willcox and Rebecca Witt. Music: pinchusioned (Barry Moon and Doug Nottingham). Visual Design: Mary Fitzgerald and Mark Pry.  Lighting Design: Carolyn Koch Costumes: Jacqueline Benard.

Photos: Tim Trumble

Enmei (Long Life): A Dance and Aging Project, 2017-18

Enmei which loosely translated means “long life” in Japanese, examines what it means – and what it takes – to age with a sense of dignity and purpose in the youth-centered culture of contemporary dance. The project brings together dance artists, scholars, musicians and designers from the U.S. and Japan to explore how different cultures value (or devalue) the aging body, particularly the older female body, and how those values have shaped our long careers as performing artists.  Using the dancing body as a site of exploration, Enmei investigates our unique cultural histories by collapsing the past and present, the personal and universal, the tangible and immaterial.  The piece is a testament to the wisdom of the aging body and a celebration of the human spirit.

Collaborators: Mary Fitzgerald (performer/choreographer), Eileen Standley (performer/choreographer/visual artist), Masako Kitaura (performer/choreographer/designer), Rose Weitz (performer/scholar) and Kotoka Suzuki (performer/composer).  Lighting Design: Carolyn Koch.

Photos: Sean Deckert, Jenny Gerena and Eileen Standley

Floating Chronologies, 2017-18

Floating Chronology: “A tree-ring chronology for a particular area that does not overlap with chronologies from living trees in that area, and therefore cannot be dated absolutely.” This piece was originally created as a “ten tiny dance duet,” which expanded into a film that reflects on our relationship to time, aging and notions of beauty. Set in the stunning and timeless landscape of the Painted Desert, the piece offers a poetic look at the body’s shifts in strength, resistance and vulnerability across three generations of women.

Choreography created by Mary Fitzgerald in collaboration with the “ten tiny dance” performers, Jessica Rajko and Kassidy Rogers, as well as the film cast, Danielle Feinberg, Liliana Gomez, Sydney Jackson, Shauna Meredith, Taimy Miranda and Nicole Olson. Filmmaker: Dmitri von Klein   Music and Animation: Casey Farina.

Photos: Dmitri von Klein

Spaces Between, 2016-17

An ensemble work that reflects on the meaning of freedom – in relationship to each other, our bodies, our culture and the spaces we share.

Created in collaboration with the dancers: Liliana Gomez, Sydney Jackson, Sharon McCaman and Joan Rodriguez.  Music: pincushioned (Doug Nottingham and Barry Moon).  Lighting Design: Carolyn Koch.

Photos: Nathan Palance

Blink, 2015-18

Using the elements of movement, light, and sound, five artists created this work in real-time.  The piece was inspired by the passage of time, and explores spontaneous temporal and visual shifts in the body and environment.  Collaborators: Mary Fitzgerald and Eileen Standley (movement artists), Barry Moon and Doug Nottingham (musicians) and Carolyn Koch (lighting designer).

Photos: Tim Trumble and Victor

Flow States, 2013-15

A multimedia work about the relationship of immersive mind states to neural network generation.
Created in collaboration with Casey Farina (sound/video artist) and Jessica Rajko (dancer).

Photos: Dmitri von Klein

Nearby Far, 2014-15

Set  in the gorgeous landscape of the Oregon Dunes, Nearby Far explores the endurance of a relationship over the spans of time, space and distance. The film is shot in monochrome, and uses a time lapse process that gives it the quality of early film genres. The score was composed to capture both the essence of the relationship and the environment.

Created in collaboration with Brad Garner (dancer/choreographer), Dmitri von Klein (filmmaker) and het Udell (composer).

Photos: Dmitri von Klein