FIRE IN THE MOUNTAIN (2019-20)
Directors: Mirah Kllc Moriarty and Rodrigo Esteva, DANCE MONKS
Photography: Eric Koziol, Eye Lasher Films
Additional Photography: Cliff Traiman & Chris O'Dowd
Original Music: Laura Inserra, Samavesha
Location: Huichin territory of Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley California
Rodrigo and Mirah chose the name DANCE MONKS while living in the mountains of Xalapa, Mexico, as it reflects their lifelong commitment to dance/artmaking as a rigorous daily practice and way of engaging with the world. The body is an instrument that may be fine-tuned to sensitize kinesthetic perception in relation to Nature. In their site-specific works, dance emerges from the practice of listening to the land and the stories that are held there, unspoken collective histories that wish to be heard. In Fire in the Mountain, they deepened these practices in relation to their local mountain over the period of one year. Movement is an old way to alchemize pain held in the body and the land. Running is considered a sacred practice for the Raramuri of Rodrigo's homeland of Mexico and in the film, he worked with the deer and states of exhaustion as experiences of transcendence. The project was created during the California wildfires and presented in film format due to COVID.
Official Selection at ODC State of Play Festival (SF) 2022, The MilkBar #51 2022, Bernal Heights Outdoor Cinema (SF) 2021, Essence of Embodiment Dance on Film Festival (Jersey City) 2021, and Festival of Latin American American Contemporary Choreographers (San Fransisco) 2020. Made possible thanks to a Berkeley Civic Arts Grant and FLACC 2020.
Dedicated to our dear friend and collaborator, Eric Koziol, who passed away in 2021. This was his last film.