I am Marielis Garcia (she/her), an artist whose work is deeply rooted in identity, plurality, and abundance. My practice intentionally embodies various professional roles—dancer, choreographer, digital investigator, director, curator, and educator—allowing me to experience and engage with the shifting perspectives within dance. I see these roles not as separate identities but as fluid extensions of my artistic inquiry.

 

My choreography is driven by collaboration and responsiveness, influenced by my training in Balanchine, Horton, and Limon techniques—systems shaped by the institutional and biopolitical frameworks of their time. While they once provided structure and strength, I now complicate and corrupt these forms, merging dense choreographed phrases with improvisational movement tasks that regenerate and reanimate upon themselves. This process allows for multiplicity, pushing beyond technique into experiential abundance.

 

I exist in the tension between the human body as specimen and my own conditional body, defined by history, society, and physical manifestation. I acknowledge that the body is inseparable from emotional, spiritual, and self-awareness. The work my collaborators and I create materializes through colliding roles—makers, performers, and audience—placing deep emphasis on shared experience. For the past seven years, my investigations have focused on identity and multiplicity, a plurality of self that has come into kaleidoscopic focus.

 

I believe everyone embodies multiple selves, shaped by imagination and experience. My interdisciplinary research and creative practice use abstraction to remix themes of identity, allowing us to claim ownership over who and what we can be. This understanding ultimately leads to acceptance—of self and others.

 

When I begin a project, I follow a feeling before the concept or context becomes clear. Feelings are multilayered—complicated, specific, even transparent—before becoming fully understood. Moving toward the feeling is the driver, and collaboration becomes essential. Artistic exchange—reading, writing, drawing, and dancing through ideas—guides the work, uncovering specificity as it develops.

 

I often collaborate with my husband, a musician and composer, to develop the sound landscape of a work, but every artist in my process contributes to the shared exploration. As a director, I am interested in situating performers in a cyclical movement process, engaging in listening, openness, and responsive spontaneity. The work pushes physical and cognitive boundaries, requiring commitment in the moment.

 

There are few female, Dominican-American choreographers shaping interdisciplinary performance in nontraditional spaces. I hope to change that. While I create through my Latina experience, I firmly believe, as Miguel Gutierrez asserts, that abstraction does not belong to white people. My work is deeply contemporary, abstract, and interdisciplinary, challenging the boundaries between form and improvisation while remaining rooted in a discovery of  identity.

 

I investigate and share a world rich in possibility and acceptance, exploring belonging and impermanence. My work embraces unpredictability—wandering, yelling, repeating, raving, settling—gestures that feed my process. I do not force creation; I listen in, follow instinct, and critique after reflection. My approach honors honesty in movement and expands on the inherent unpredictability of performance.

 

For this residency, I bring Desirable Wait, a budding idea exploring pleasure at the boundaries of discomfort. It asks us to wait—not in anticipation but as a generator of wisdom. A striking image guides me—bodies attempting to lift something impossibly heavy—a metaphor for both struggle and resilience. The work stems from ecofeminist ideas, examining the connection between environmental degradation and the oppression of female-identifying people. This concept may float forward or recede back, shifting with the time and space of the residency.

 

I carry my family and lineage. As a daughter of immigrants, I feel the responsibility to create authentically, honoring my parents’ sacrifices while forging my own path. They carry me as well, lifting me through the burden of our multiplicitous existence. Two years  ago, I became a mother. Now, I am learning to carry my son less as his heart grows. He unknowingly carries me by offering hope.

 

Beyond, I am carried by a need for interconnection, collaboration, and mutual care—a vision for a world shaped by unflinching divine love.

 

All of this feels true right now, but I must add: absurdity and humor are elemental to my practice. Multiplicity demands the willingness to laugh and be laughed at. In the process of questioning identity and abstraction, I welcome the unexpected, the surreal, and the joy that arises through true fulfillment.

 

I create to connect—with myself, with others, and with the shared, shifting spaces that hold us all.