social media links:
Michael J. Morris | Interactive CV
  • home
  • education
  • choreography + performance
    • Bibliomancy
    • Witchdancing
    • Elemental Rites at the End of the World
    • In This Together
    • Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.
    • SHE MOVE SHE
    • Belonging Here
    • 40 kisses (31 kisses)
    • 40 Kisses, 7 Years
    • FROM HERE
    • becoming becoming becoming
    • TOWARD BELONGING
    • 20 Rue Jacob
    • You Can Be Plural and Maybe You Might
    • I can't see why
    • becoming emma, becoming imperceptible
    • cuddle
    • marriage
    • becoming
    • trauma
    • re-membering the mountains
    • autumn quartet
  • publications
  • conference presentations and keynote address
  • teaching
  • invited workshops + guest lectures
    • Landing/Shifting: Bodies, Gender, and Ecosexuality
  • curatorial projects
    • LINES OF FLIGHT: a screening of new queer porn
    • PRIDE, PORN, PLEASURE: a queer porn screening and g-spot workshop
    • warming up: a queer porn screening and conversation
  • awards + grants
  • more writing
  • additional work experience
  • design
  • profesional affiliations
  • press
  • contact

WITCHDANCING

Witchdancing is a Butoh-based movement ritual practice that I have been developing since early 2020. Having spent nearly 20 years practicing both Butoh and witchcraft, this practice asks the question: what if a dance can be a spell for conjuring our bodies and the worlds in which they live? This practice was inspired by the lineage of Butoh—including the work of Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno—as well as the work of Anna Halprin, Keith Hennessy, and Alkistis Dimech.

Witchdancing was first shared publicly as a participatory movement ritual practice as part of the Friday for the Future: Monthly Virtual Movement Gathering series produced by Livable Futures and Flux + Flow Dance and Movement Center on Friday, February 5, 2021. In this iteration, I guided a group of participants through an hour-long practice of moving through a continuous series of images, qualities, and states, engaging in a durational metamorphosis of the body. This practice was supported by an original soundscore created by Moxy Martinez. Future iterations of this participatory movement ritual practice are forthcoming.

Witchdancing was presented online for a second public iteration on May 1, 2021. It has also been included in the Foundations in Embodied Ancestral Inquiry course presented by Wildbody Somatics in 2022 and 2023.

Witchdancing 5 February 2021 Excerpt from Michael J. Morris on Vimeo.