KinoSaito and La MaMa Present their 2026 Artist in Residence Partnership Program featuring Artist Miki Orihara with Workshops and Performances

Verplanck, NY (July 2026) – KinoSaito and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club are pleased to present their annual Artist in Residence (AIR) Partnership Program featuring artist Miki Orihara from June 29th to July 20th, 2026. This three-week AIR Program will take place at KinoSaito’s nonprofit art center in Westchester County, NY, where the artist will hold public workshops, an open rehearsal, and a performance.

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 workshops, Orihara will share a selection of movement gestures with participants, guiding them to develop their own movement vocabularies and collaboratively build new material.

Miki Orihara’s workshop and open rehearsal on Saturday, July 11th, from 1-4 pm 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.

Orihara will lead a second workshop on July 18th from 1- 3 pm, followed by a final performance from 3- 4 pm.

All ages and abilities welcome. Refreshments provided. These events are free to the public; find more information and RSVP here.

This is the fourth year of the AIR Partnership Program between La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and KinoSaito. To learn more about this program, visit https://www.kinosaito.org/current-resident-artists. For any additional inquiries, please contact Executive Director Holly Hobart at 914-293-7468 or [email protected].

About Miki Orihara

Miki Orihara (b. 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.

An accomplished educator and choreographer, Miki Orihara teaches at the Graham and Hartt Schools and has staged Martha Graham’s works globally for stars like Wendy Whelan. Her creative portfolio includes her “RESONANCE” solo concert project series, numerous international commissions, and instructional Graham technique DVDs, with a third volume arriving in Spring 2026. Beyond the stage, she is a prolific producer and film collaborator whose work has been featured at the United Nations and the Dance on Camera Festival. Since 2019, she has continued her performance career as a member of the Dance On Ensemble in Berlin.

About La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theatre. We 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 our 65 years, we 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. We 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.

About KinoSaito       

KinoSaito is a nonprofit center founded in 2018 and dedicated to the creation of abstract art. We are committed to nurturing art experimentation across all mediums and perpetuating the legacy of our founding muse and Japanese-American artist, Kikuo Saito (1939-2016). The center opened in 2021 upon renovation of its historic St. Patrick’s Catholic School located in Verplanck, NY. Since opening our doors, we have served a multicultural intergenerational audience of 3,500 annually.