artistic director of CIRCUITDEBRIS
• a platform for experimentation in dance & interdisciplinary practice •
co-artistic director of FESTIVAL ZVRK
• international performance & interdisciplinary art festival in bosnia & herzegovina •
www.mersihamessiha.live
www.circuitdebris.org
"messiha sparks flames that speak to the fight for individualized freedom, the fight to be able to be, and become the truest versions of our-selves, pressing against societal norms, institutionalized constructed behaviors, assigned roles based on gender. Her work is emotional, thought provoking, gritty, raw and also joyous and playful"
“…as a refugee artist, messiha is a very important force and a model as a young scholar and maker. She fluently and thoroughly explored how artistic citizenship is constructed and she constantly challenges how dance is situated in “culture(s).” She uncovers our complicated senses of belongings, by challenging both ideas of monoculture or multiculture. ”
“With an impressive Resume of creating, performing and teaching dance and due to mersiha’s international experience and reach the voice of American Dance will be enhanced globally... “
“Tracing lineage with a new voice .”
“With an impressive Resume of creating, performing and teaching dance and due to mersiha’s international experience and reach the voice of American Dance will be enhanced globally... “
“At a time when the threats of ever shrinking opportunity are as great as they are right now, it is all the more important to recognize and support extraordinary talents such as Ms. messiha. If her achievements and her potential are rewarded, the field of Dance in the United States will be richer, and – due to her international experience and reach – the voice of American Dance abroad will be enhanced globally. “
“I met Ms. Messiha in 2008 during my time as Provost and Chief Academic Advisor for the California Institute of the Arts. She stood out as a true movement researcher – something that is evident in the unique movement style that makes up her work today. I know she will inspire cultural and artistic exchange while bridging gaps between Eastern Europe and the United States.”
“messiha’s vision questions the moral fiber of society and she has positioned herself as a major contributor with international significance.”
mersiha mersiha is a Bosnian/Swedish American choreographer/performance artist & the artistic director of Mostar/Brooklyn based CIRCUITDEBRS -a platform for experimentation in dance & interdisciplinary practice, she initiated in 2008 to formally conceptualize her collaboration with artists across disciplines and passion for community engagement.
messiha’s work has been presented internationally and received support from New Dance Alliance and New York Foundation for the Arts. She was a resident artist at the Choreo Collision/Danza Venezia (2012), New Dance Alliance, NYC (2015), Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida, (2015), Earth Dance in Massachusetts, (2016), BRIClab in Brooklyn (2016) and Denmark Arts Center, Portland, Maine (2017), and has collaborated closely with such intrepid artists as the performance artist Karen Bernard, choreographer Reggie Wilson, performance artist/poet Jaamil Oawale Kosoko, saxophonist/somposer James Brandon Lewis and guitarist/composer Zoran Pars Vujanović of NO!Mozzart. In 2015 she did dramaturgy for Kosoko’s critically praised #negrophobia. messiha works with elements of dance, theater, drawing, writing, sound and ethnography to address larger social issues in the globalized world. Her research deepens the connection of the moving body, sound and social structures, setting fame- work for questions related to corporeality, ethnicity/race, citizenship. Her inquiry is centered around Nationalism as a political, social, and economic ideology & the the relationship of our Colonial past and the Neocolonial Present, “the irreducible entanglement of blackness and indigeneity”, the negation of lives which do not operate under a nationalist legal value system and the importance of radical imagination as means of redress, reparation. A synthesis of being deeply steeped in the classical ballet tradition, improvisational techniques (dance and jazz music) the biomechanics of the human body, with the vocabulary of displacement and non-fixity of identity found in diasporic cultures, the trans-national position of her birth land Bosnia and Herzegovina, and her experience as a refugee give birth to her movement language and her ability to facilitate transgressive community spaces. messiha has enjoyed guest lecturing at the Juilliard School of Dance, NY, Wits University, Johannesburg, SA, Princeton University, NJ, Department of Theater and Dance, Grinnell College, Iowa among other. Prior to dedicating herself to her personal inquiry in performance she had the honor of dancing in works by notable choreographers as Trisha Brown, Ohad Naharin, Raami Beer, Colin Connor, and holds a BFA in Dance from California Institute of the Arts, an MA in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU and an MFA in Dance from University of the Arts, Philadelphia PA. messiha is currently touring with “SEVDAH body”, is a resident artist at OKC -Abrasević, Cltural Center in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina & co-directs the 1st International and Interdisciplinary Art Festival in Bosnia and Herzegovina: ZVRK.
a commission for Arab Amp, a nomadic platform for the work of arab experimentalism featuring music, performance and live art from diasporic communities
“....messiha articulates Bosnian experimentalism and a homeland.”
Leyya Mona Tawil, Director of Arab.AMP
a commission for Dance Ensemble/ACTivate, Department of Theater & Dance, Grinnell College, Iowa
STRANGER THINGS: An Immigrant Story You Do Not See On TV!, depicts a refugee/immigrant narrative escaping representation. It is a magical journey inside the complexities of a refugee/immigrant reality, vastly different, yet perversely similar to the banalities - the ups and downs, of our everyday lives. The work acknowledges our entanglement to one another, in spite of our geographical and physical differences, begging us to stop and "suspend" for a moment, to collectively reimagine our current world into a better, gentler place. Stranger Things was developed collaboratively with the cast (dancers and non-dancers) through messiah´s interdisciplinary performance-making approach, utilizing intersectional storytelling methodology.
“The first part of the triptych, “Stranger Things: An Immigrant Story You Do Not See On TV!,” was choreographed by Mesihovic, a visiting choreographer from New York. She responded to the prompt by considering her own background as a refugee from Bosnia. The soundscape interchanges from music to spoken word audio to complete silence, interrupted only by the sound of high heels clacking on the stage or a dancer rolling on the floor. The performance features a voice-over recording by Mesihovic about being a refugee. In an especially intense moment of that monologue, she speaks about her grandfather’s death as he went out to buy an orange, his favorite fruit — and dozens of oranges then spill onto and off of the stage.”
Emma Friedlander, The Scarlet & Black Newspaper, April 27, 2018
scheduled to premiere in February 2021 at Theaterlab, New York
SHE IS A REFUGEE STAR, is a multi-disciplinary/dimensional approach to how a community can transform oppressive structures in performance and politics, into a liberated connection of diverse minds and bodies. With the support of her collaborators, Mesihovic creates a space which is rooted in her experience as a refugee of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995), as well as her experiences as an immigrant woman continuing to navigate Western society. Within the work, she also explores concepts from M-BODYMENT, her self-developed somatic/movement research method. SHE IS A REFUGEE STAR, is more than a performance work, it is an environment void of fear, where all its participants, artists and audience members alike, become active in the promotion of education and healing.
“Alexis’ The Current Sessions is in its 7th season. Honing her curatorial voice to support artists “demonstrating bold decision making and a honed sense of creative intuition” has offered us a vision for the way forward; Mersiha Mesihovic’s SHE IS A REFUGEE STAR examined the “struggle for self-determination as a refugee and immigrant within the context of western society and culture.”
Muara Donahue, “Remake the World”, cutlurebot.org, June 14, 2017
A commission for the Dance Department at Tshwane University of Technology, Breytenbach Theater, Pretoria, South Africa
VOID, is the second movement of The Trilogy of Survival. This work takes a look at the individual struggle against social conformity for self-determination in our vastly standardized society.
“The work is raw and satisfyingly void of any superfluity. The performers indulge in the heaviness of the body and the work itself is so weighty in emotion, one is left holding one’s breath. ”
Creative Feel, premier arts, culture, heritage and lifestyle magazine in South Africa, 2016
A commission for Between the Seas Festival of Mediterranean Performing Arts, Wild Project, New York
DISSONANCE, is a socio-cultural satire with references to Balkan folk dance, music and culture. Highlighting human relationships, while exploring notions of love, power and integrity, the work questions our perceptions of what is accepted as normal in our society.
“Examines a search for beauty in a world of darkness and hatred.”
Theo Boguszewski, The Dance Enthusiast, November 10, 2013
A commission for Between the Seas Festival of Mediterranean Performing Arts, Wild Project, New York
I am is a meditation on freedom, made in support and honor of all the freedom-loving people around the world, and those who have lost their lives fighting for it. The work is specifically inspired by the life and struggle of Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouzaizi, who set himself on fire, confronting everyday frustrations and humiliations of injustice, corruption and poverty. This act ignited the Arab Spring. With its raw and honest physicality, played out to a gritty, percussive and ambiguous sound-score created by Paul Mathis, in collaboration with Mesihovic, I AM takes on a personal journey, where anything seems possible. Its captivating strength and emotional complexity bringing us face to face with the surreal and raw nature of our existence, where we can only be astonished with the inconceivability of our reality. The only thing left to do is to reach inwards to the ever so ephemeral yet incessant encounters with the absurdity of our world.
"A daring performer, Mesihovic flings and throws her body with ragged abandon, underscoring the desire to thwart the realities of physical existence."
Erin Bomboy, Author of The Pas de Deux: A Classical Ballet Romance