Miki Orihara
29 Jun. – 20 Jul. 2026
© Jubal Battisti - Dance On Ensemble
Miki Orihara, born in 1960, is best known for her work as a principal dancer in the Martha Graham Dance Company, which she joined in 1987 and earned a Bessie Award in 2010. She has performed on Broadway in The King and I and with Elisa Monte, PierGroupDance, Lotuslotus, Rioult Dance, Twyla Tharp, Martha Clarke, Anne Bogart (SITI Company), and Robert Wilson.
Her teaching credentials include numerous workshops in Japan, at Art International in Moscow, and at Peridance, the Ailey School, New York University, Florida State University, Henny Jurriëns Stichting (Holland), Les Etés de la Danse in Paris, and New National Theater Ballet School (Tokyo,Japan). She is on the faculty of the Graham School and The Hartt School (University of Hartford). She has set Martha Graham’s work all over the world, including for Diana Vishneva’s Dialogue and on Wendy Whelan of the New York City Ballet.
She recently released the Martha Graham dance technique DVD Level 1 and Level 2, collaborating with Susan Kikuchi, Dance Spotlight and the Martha Graham Center. A third DVD for advanced level 3 is coming in Spring 2026.
As a choreographer, Orihara has presented her work in New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, and in Japan. She premiered her solo work Searching Dimensions in New York in 1995, followed by, among others, VOICE, a piece for eight women for M’Deux Ballet in Nagoya, Japan (2001), Stage (2008), Prologue (2014) and Shirabyoshi (2017). In 2023, she was invited to choreograph for Anne Bogart’s Beautiful Lady at La MaMa, in NYC. Her on going solo concert project series RESONANCE-共鳴, in 2014, 2017, and 2019, presented works by modern dance pioneers alongside new creations.
She is a casting producer/Dance Director for mishmash＊Miki Orihara, a movement designer for Jen Silverman’s Crane Story directed by Katherine Kovner. In 2023, she was invited to choreograph for Anne Bogart’s Beautiful Lady at La MaMa, in NYC.
Orihara curated/produced the benefit concerts Dancing for JAPAN in 2014 and 2017, and started the NuVu Festival NYC in 2017 and 2019.
Her film Broken Memory was featured at Dance on Camera Festival in New York in 2017. With Stephen Pier, Orihara created this dance film Conversations and Ceci C’est Pas Un Jouet (this is not a toy) filmed by Gene Gort.
Miki Orihara was featured in the Inaugural performance of Peace is… at the United Nations as a part of the Permanent Mission of Japan in April 2017 and August 2018.
Orihara is a member of Dance On Ensemble in Berlin, Germany since 2019.
Workshop & Open Rehearsal
Instructor: Miki Orihara
11 Jul. 2026 | 1-4pm
This residency project develops an ongoing choreographic work that began with Orihara’s 2014 solo Prologue (performed at La MaMa), originally centered on her relationship with her mother and now expanding to explore the broader influence of mothers—women she has encountered who have profoundly shaped her life and artistic voice.
Orihara and her team will open their studio and activate their rehearsal throughout the art center to engage viewers and provide space to experiment and deepen the work. As part of the event, Orihara will lead a workshop and share a selection of movement gestures with participants, guiding them to develop their own movement vocabularies and collaboratively build new material.
Workshop
Instructor: Miki Orihara
18 Jul. 2026 | 1-3pm
This residency project develops an ongoing choreographic work that began with Orihara’s 2014 solo Prologue (performed at La MaMa), originally centered on her relationship with her mother and now expanding to explore the broader influence of mothers—women she has encountered who have profoundly shaped her life and artistic voice.
A key inspiration for Orihara is her late teacher Nanako Yamada, who transmitted Dalcroze’s 20 gestures, an early modern dance practice that influenced both Japanese and American pioneers. Prior to the final performance closing out her residency, Orihara will lead a workshop and share a selection of these gestures with participants, guiding them to develop their own movement vocabularies and collaboratively build new material.
Miki Orihara’s Performance
18 Jul. 2026 | 3-4pm
This residency project develops an ongoing choreographic work that began with Orihara’s 2014 solo Prologue (performed at La MaMa), originally centered on her relationship with her mother and now expanding to explore the broader influence of mothers—women she has encountered who have profoundly shaped her life and artistic voice. Tentatively titled Resonance, the project will evolve through a series of workshops, an open rehearsal, and a final performance. A key inspiration for Orihara is her late teacher Nanako Yamada, who transmitted Dalcroze’s 20 gestures, an early modern dance practice that influenced both Japanese and American pioneers. During the residency, Orihara will share a selection of these gestures with participants, guiding them to develop their own movement vocabularies and collaboratively build new material. An open rehearsal will provide space to experiment and deepen the work, while the culminating performance will present this evolving choreography, incorporating projection and video in collaboration with a videographer, as she continues to investigate the intersection of memory, lineage, and embodied resonance.
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theatre. They are a creative home to artists and audiences from around the world and a dynamic hub for risk-taking performance. La MaMa believes in the power of art to reveal our shared humanity and supports artists of all identities in the creation of new work.
Founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, La MaMa is the only original Off-Off-Broadway theatre still in operation. Over the course of 61 years, they have grown from an underground refuge for the avant-garde to a world-renowned cultural institution, with 30+ Obie Awards, dozens of Drama Desk Awards, Bessie Awards, Villager Awards, and the 2018 Regional Theater Tony Award. They have supported nearly 160,000 artists from all over the world, such as Blue Man Group, Peter Brook, André De Shields, Ping Chong, Olympia Dukakis, Harvey Fierstein, Philip Glass, Tedeschi Kantor, Shuji Terayama, Adrienne Kennedy, Diane Lane, Taylor Mac, Bette Midler, Meredith Monk, Sam Shepard, Andrei Serban, Elizabeth Swados, and Julie Taymor, to name a few.