Maria White
Tallahassee, FL-based performing artist, and educator Maria White uses dance, storytelling, audience participation, and striptease to create performances and inspire collaborators. Her educational approach values play, transformation, and inquiry by celebrating and pushing her students’ capabilities. Maria received her MA in Dance and Studio Related Studies from Florida State University (FSU) and is working on her PhD in Theatre and Performance Research at FSU. Internationally, White has performed in Glass. Einstein. Joints. commissioned by the Latvian National Opera and choreographed by Aigars Larinovs. She participated in workshops at b12 festival in Berlin twice and performed in Cherry Wringing by Fleur Darkin at Dock 11 Theater. White has also trained at Tic Tac Art Centre in David Zambrano’s Flying Low and Passing Through workshop and performed her latest work Invitation Provocateur in their weekly Crude Saturday performance series. White is collaborating with Tiffany Rhynard, on a multimedia project exploring the liveness of interdisciplinary practices within collaborative art-making and performance. White is currently researching the history and politics of striptease and its connections to performing femininity and gender in contemporary dance, theatre, and performance in Florida.
Biography
I make movement-based performances that reveal my layers of existence woven by the cultures and people I connect with in the places I land in real-time and in memory. I create queer and feminist worlds that reveal life’s big questions about loving, living, and being yourself. I edify the legacies of women and femmes who have impacted my life and history. My experimental process pulls from postmodern and contemporary dance, striptease, and theatre. My performances create space for people who appreciate poetic raunch, cheesy humor, and sometimes something gross like throwing up plastic. I make spontaneous performances that have some structure and are rarely entirely choreographed. In my process, I try on different characters and have serious fun with props, costumes, and mini-sets to call back memories and emotions. In these worlds, there is space for my healing, the celebration of others, and opportunities for connection.