This Friday and Saturday (March 9-10), choreographer Marissa Osato (Dance MFA 18) presents her MFA thesis concert, The Spectacular Society, at CalArts. The work is rooted in Osato’s family history of detainment in U.S. government-sanctioned Japanese internment camps during World War II, and examines issues of ethnicity and identity.
From the program:
This intimate 60-minute performance follows seven dancers through vignettes of calm and chaos as they explore themes of dislocation, assimilation, witnessing, silence, patriotism, community and spectacle. Employing visceral, intricate, and highly charged contemporary dance movement, choreographer and MFA candidate Marissa Osato re/presents an embodied archive of the past while provoking questions about present societal repetition.
Osato lives and works in Los Angeles as both a dance educator and choreographer. She is the co-founder/co-artistic director of the Los Angeles-based professional contemporary dance company, Entity Contemporary Dance. This summer, the company presents a new evening-length work in New York City, as part of the Capezio A.C.E. award for choreography that Osato and her partner Will Johnston won in 2017.
Check out The Spectacular Society preview video below, which features interviews with the cast and choreographer Osato.