Muriel Miguel

Kuna, Rappahannock

 

Muriel is a founding member and Artistic Director of Spiderwoman Theater, the longest running women’s theater company in North America. Since 1976, they have produced over twenty original works for the theatre. Muriel studied modern dance with Alwin Nickolai, Erick Hawkins and Jean Erdman. She was an original member of Joseph Chaikin's Open Theater where she performed in:  Terminal, The Serpent, Mere Ubu and Viet Rock.

 

She choreographed Throw Away Kids and She Knew She Was She for the Banff Centre. She directed The Scrubbing Project with Turtle Gals Performance Ensemble and Evening in Paris with Raven Spirit Dance Company in Vancouver. As an actor, she performed in Lily’s Revenge, the hit of the 2010 off-Broadway season. She created the roles of Philomena Moosetail in The Rez Sisters; Aunt Shadie in The Unnatural and Accidental Women by Marie Clements; Martha in Buz’Gem Blues by Drew Hayden Taylor and Spirit Woman in BONES: An Aboriginal Dance Opera. She has created one woman shows Hot' N' Soft, Trail of the Otter and most recently Red Mother which premiered at La MaMa E.T.C in 2010.

 

Muriel was an Assistant Professor of Drama at Bard College. She is an instructor of Indigenous Performance at the Centre for Indigenous Theatre (CIT) in Toronto and is also Program Director for CIT’s three week summer intensive. She has been a Program Director for the Aboriginal Dance Program and an instructor of Indigenous performance at The Banff Centre for the Arts.

 

She has been awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She was profiled in American Women Stage Directors of the 20th Century and was the first feminist-in-residence at San Diego State University Women’s Studies Department for the initial development of Red Mother. In 2005, the Museum of the American Indian presented a retrospective exhibit, New Tribe, New York honoring Spiderwoman Theater’s years of work. This past year, Spiderwoman Theater was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art.

 

www.spiderwomantheater.org