Monica Mirabile: This Is A Performance School

Monica Mirabile (b. Clearwater, Florida in 1988) is a performance artist living in NYC. She is a choreographer, painter, movement director, coach and educator.
Monica often works with musicians and has choreographed and movement directed live tours and music videos for SOPHIE, Mitski, Yaeji, Kenya Grace, Zsela, Zia Anger & Maggie Rogers. Her performance work has been in the Guggenheim, The Whitney, Performance Space New York, The Broad Museum, PS1, Miami Art Basel, HAU Berlin, NADA, Performa and the Queens Museum among others.
Mirabile is also one half of the performance duo Fluct, co-founded Otion Front Studio in 2014, co-founded THIS IS A PERFORMANCE school in 2023 and is the Director of Open Movement at Performance Space New York in the East Village.

What moments or experiences influenced the beginning of your career as an artist?

I always feel like i'm at the beginning. Way back when I was 4/5 years old, I was brought to a crab shack in Florida with my family. Brown craft paper was spread over the table so that when they dump the crabs the mess is contained. They set out crayons to draw on the table and my mom looked at me and drew a portrait of me. I was so excited and I told her I wanted to draw like that and I honestly decided right then that I wanted to be an artist. She gave me a sketchbook that week and I've never been without one since. That was destiny or something sacred I suppose, though my sketchbooks are mostly choreography notes, performance ideas and spells now. I actually just organized a surprise birthday party for my mom and we all wrote her 66 things we love about her. I wrote “i love that you drew a picture of me when i was little that inspired me so much that it became my career”.

How has your experience founding Otion Front Studio shaped your approach to connecting artistic communities in Brooklyn, New York?

Otion Front Studio grew out of many previous collective approaches earlier in my life. Before, Otion there were several girl gangs, an anarcho experimental dance collective and a diy theater in Baltimore, always co organized.

When I moved to NY with Sigrid Lauren after the birth of Fluct, the same things moved me, maybe it was the desire for an alternative without rigid structure or hierarchy. I had known at that point that I cared about processing information through movement. I loved “rehearsals” being these potent gestation spaces with slippage between making sense and nonsense.

My Dads girlfriend, Donna, had given me $5k after she won a malpractice lawsuit. She won that lawsuit after losing the ability to walk. I'm so honored to have known her, she’s been gone now for 9 years. Her gift is maybe a testament to what I love about this kind of work, something where transformation can occur. I’m really just so grateful to all of the people who have come together to become friends and make this kind of work together.

Today, we're still there. It’s actually 10 years old this year. Fostering something for this long has allowed me to see that collectivity and support is amoebic in nature, it grows and changes over time. Today, I use Otion to hold rehearsals with the musicians and clients I'm working with and it continues to have this enchanted spirit in the walls as the community grows.

What was behind the creation of FlucT, and how does it continue to influence your artistic vision?

Fluct was born out of a need and a deep frustration. Sigrid and I were connected by our experiences of being young women under patriarchal capitalism- we were driven to exorcise and soothe in a playful creative processing with our bodies. We were bound up with each other's liberation in knowing that the ugly was beautiful, that support existed and that sometimes you could find the antidote in the problem. It will always influence my artistic vision. I found things in our practice that allowed me to be free and curious and ignorant- knowing answers were sometimes dangerous and that this was a kind of meditative bliss mixed with all that hurt.

How has your experience directing live tours and videos for musicians such as SOPHIE, Mitski, and Yaeji influenced your artistic approach and collaborations within the music industry?

Working in collaboration is very dna, there is a helix that is unique to each artist and situation. I get really excited to see the material that spins off of a musician. Its body and emotion, lyrics, textures and of course sound. Every live tour is the caldron of depth that comes from an impulsive practice merged with what it took to make the album. Which is often a lot of emotion, desire, practical stress and yearning.

When i'm working with an artist, I like to listen and shape what is there into something ritualistic or actually felt rather than develop something precomposed. With Mitski, it was about the light… I wanted the light to be a character in her show and i was so drawn to it, inspired by the lyrics.

We had a lot of fun letting fun mean engaging with the work. I got to work closely with her lighting designer Andy Watson and my favorite moment became a reality when she waltzes with the light in Heaven. Sophie became a friend and hired me and Sigrid to choreograph her first live tour after she transitioned. I felt that we were guiding each other through a new textural experience in that tour, that transformation was very visceral and palpable. I really could go on and on about the details in every experience ive had with the people ive worked with, i like to think about it. As far as being in the music industry, I wouldn't say that the music industry makes it easy, logistics are complicated, but I know what I need to make the environment conducive for this work, so it gets a little easier every time.

Can you explain more about the concept of authority in your work and how it manifests across different mediums?

Maybe the best way to answer is that i've always asked some version of the question, ‘Is it god or am I dog?’( which is also the title of a Fluct piece from 2018). It means, Is it that the conditions of my life are precomposed by an authority outside of my control or am i being controlled? Have I become obedient to the conditions? What has authority? Is it the culture, the government, the system, the spirit of chance? the god of me? What authority do I have to control what? What am I obedient to? It’s a riddle. There are many interpretations. This question shows up in everything I do. But in my life I've studied the way we absorb information without consent and I recognize how our bodies and behavior are affected by holding onto this information. Currently I know it is both god and dog in the act of processing movement.

Monica Mirabile with Eartheater [Photo Credit: Kat Nijmedden]

What was the creative process like for your immersive performance "GUIDANCE" on March 1st, 2024, at your painting exhibition at Albert Projects, especially regarding your collaboration with Eartheater?

I've been interested in near death experiences for awhile, I've listened to thousands of stories.The soundtrack is made up of these stories, sound clips of my family and music including Eartheater. After a 15 year hiatus, I started painting again after my dad died in 2020. The painting show at Albert Projects was titled Guidance ,the process of making these paintings felt like being guided, often adding shadow and light to let something be revealed.

Eartheater and I have been friends for over a decade and have collaborated many times. In the performance she guided with her movement, voice and light.

The performance was a kind of ritual in more ways than I can say right now, but I had been searching for the light. In the performance, Eartheater finds me in the dark with the light. At one point she puts the light in my mouth and I swallow it, it lets me move and then Alex helps me through the struggle of my body before holding me. It was a testament of growth and support for both of us.

Do you have any dream collaborations in mind, either within the realm of visual arts or music, that you aspire to pursue in the future?

Honestly, I do but i dont know who they are yet, i feel very let god about connections. I know i want to do more scaled up performances and it seems more and more my performances are involving my paintings.

Could you walk us through a typical day in your life as an artist and choreographer?

I’m not sure that i have a typical day. I wake up, i try to eat healthy, right now im focusing on a healthy liver, the seat of vitality. I sometimes do yoga. I often meditate and then i go to my studio, whether its my painting studio or movement studio depends on what i’m working on.

Right now I am writing a new performance so a lot of my time is spent in meditation and writing. Soon I will contact performers and start to workshop in the studio, it will be playful at first and then it will begin to take form.

This coming Saturday i am movement directing a music video for an artist named Yatta in Forest Hills. We have had lunches and zoom calls to set the scene. I’ll arrive on Saturday and we will create compositions before each shot and rehearse in the margins. ill work with the artist, the band, the director and the DP to bring the dream to life. The days change and i love that.

How do you stay grounded and focused on a tough day?

On a tough day, I meditate. I let go and i go in. To ground, Ill do a body scan where i identify sensations in my body and let myself explore there. I have a practice i call ‘unblocking’ that allows me to guide myself through these sensations and land in a pretty psychedelic impulse. I also guide others, you can find it on my website. Tough days are annoying but in retrospect they always have something to tell us, like “walk a little further” ( which is also what my girlfriend tells me).

What is the most valuable piece of advice you have for artists aspiring to work in your field?

Nobody can do what you do. I think we often dont recognize when our insecurities are sneaky telling us to conform, especially with social media giving so much input all of the time. Truthfully, you are made up of very unique experiences that inform your body language and that is not replicable, it’s like a fingerprint. If you are listening to your body, you'll find what feels right, trust it. Sometimes people need that thing only you have to offer. Continue fighting for liberation.

What are your aspirations or goals for the future of your artistic career?

To continue listening.

** Interview by ninakeh for shesaid.so

Monica Mirabile’s New Projects:

“Viscous” Painting show at Current in Baltimore, MD

Opening July 27th. Closing August 17th.

THIS IS A PERFORMANCE school

Sept 7-14th in Lincolnville Maine. Register online.

Open Movement October 6th - June 15th

Every Sunday 12-6pm at Performance Space New York in East Village, New York

Paradise Container, A new performance by Mara Mckevitt and Monica Mirabile

January 2026 at Pioneer Works - more soon.