"To dance is to hear our heart speak"- hopi proverb
Healing Movement. Body Wisdom.
We were as struck by Aurora’s project, which worked toward a cause dear to our hearts in a language we had never heard before.
- The Huffington Post
Aurora Lagattuta (she/her) is an interdisciplinary performer and choreographer whose work has been presented across the U.S.A., Europe, Asia and New Zealand. The Huffington Post describes her work as "otherworldly and transformational" as well as "bizarre and beautiful." She is known for creating mystical and poetic community-inclusive performances that engage with dance as a means for personal and environmental transformation.
She is the founder and director of Aurora Dances, which shares embodied practices that empower all types of movers to deepen their relationships with their bodies, communities and their local environments. She has just relocated to Omaha, NE.
Lagattuta has created performances, installations and community engagements in theaters, galleries and site-specifically. Some of the venues her work has been presented at include: Theatre Row on Broadway and Movement Research in New York City, Electric Lodge and Highways Performance Space in Los Angeles, Cindy Pritzker and the Chicago Public Library in Chicago, k77 in Berlin, The New Space in Brussels, La Caldera in Barcelona, Café de las Artes in Santander, Spain and by Malashock’s Engagement Ring, Vanguard Culture and the Mingei Museum, La Jolla Gallery and La Jolla Institute of Oceanography in San Diego. She has been awarded residencies at Bali Purnati in Bali, Indonesia; Palacio de Festivales and Forn de La Calc in Spain, Shiro Oni in Onishi, Japan and at New Zealand Pacific Studios in New Zealand.
She has danced for various companies and noteworthy choreographers in New York City, Portland, Germany, and Spain. She holds an M.F.A. in Contemporary Dance Making and Performance from the University of California San Diego (2019) and a B.A. in Theatre Directing from Fordham University at Lincoln Center, New York City (2008).
Her solo, Inside the Whale, toured throughout Europe, Chicago, Los Angeles and at the United Solo Festival on Broadway in NYC, where she was awarded, The Best Multi-Media Solo Award and the United Solo Award. The United Solo Award hosted Lagattuta’s solo performance at the United Solo Europe Festival in Warsaw, Poland.
She is an Academy Member for United Solo, NYC, a member of the New Space Collective in Belgium, and an associate member of ISMETA somatic practitioners. Lagattuta has over 15 years of teaching experience in contemporary dance and yoga. She has taught beginners to physically and mentally uniquely-abled young adults to university students to elders. She also has completed Stanford's Cultivate Compassion Training (CCT). She is 500 Hour Registered Yoga Teacher, Yin Yoga Certified and Marma (Ayurveda Acupressure) Point Therapy Certified.
"Lagattuta is an artist who provides a wild yet sacred space for both audience and performer to practice inclusivity."
-San Diego Voyager
Artistic Statement
I understand dance as an ancient and innate source of embodied wisdom. It is available to all bodies regardless of ability, age, and background. Therefore every body is a dancer. Every body has its own unique set of sensations or voices which desire to be heard. Learning to listen to our bodies re-connects us to the powerful dance that every body holds.
Dance is the language of our hearts. The language of our hearts is a language of expansion, connection, power and love. I am passionate about sharing dances, performances and tools that empower dancers to unearth the intuitive expression and innate power that their body naturally holds.
Like the movement of wind and water, I see dance as a presence already within all bodies, just as movement is inherently present in our environment. For this reason, I work with diverse dancers: dancers who don't think they are dancers, dancers with loads of training and dancers with zero training and a deep curiosity. And I dance with various places: neglected places, sacred sites and mundane places. Places, like the body, are containers for movement.
I see performance as a means to transform and enrich our relationships with our bodies and place through the practice of inclusivity. I believe that when time and space are taken to be with things, they positively respond and reinforce the connectivity within people and places. My performances, installations, and community-inclusive rituals invite audiences to engage with dance in non-traditional and experiential modalities. Often working site-specifically with maps, guides, and audios, the audience has permission to roam and experiment in subtle, curious and self-selected ways.
I am curious about how movement is a practice of 'being with'.... How can I be with myself? And all my conflicting parts? ...my mixed feelings, my mixed race, my mixed up movement from my mixed up past, future, present?
My greatest aim is empower all bodies to share their dance as a means for personal, communal and environmental transformation. The spark that keeps sustaining my dancing is a deep passion for nurturing the relationships and environments that I am woven within.
