MEGAFLORA REQUIEM

Music by Polina Nazaykinskaya

Megaflora Requiem is one of the environmental dance acts within our larger MEGAFLORA project.

MEGAFLORA is an immersive multi-channel performance installation that explores the plight of the enigmatic redwood and sequoia forests in California that are threatened by deadly wildfires that have grown in intensity, frequency, and duration. Expanding on earlier experiments in site-specificity in moder n dance, Site-Specific Dances animated these forests with local Bay-area based dancers, and captured these performances on film.

Partnering with The Sempervirens Fund, the team is currently conducting a series of video interviews with environmental experts including scientists, park rangers and Indigenous community leaders on the causes and potential solutions to this crisis - a realist “libretto”. While the arts and the sciences are traditionally separated from one another, Site-Specific Dances will interweave these two components to create a hybrid ‘art-science’ immersive media performance work - and a new model of performance-based environmental advocacy.

Polina Nazaykinskaya will compose and arrange the music for all of the environmental ballet sequences of MEGAFLORA. Darian Donovan Thomas will create immersive soundscapes that accompany the interviews; integrating the spoken voice into his sonic environments.

Year of Completion: On-going (expected 2024)

CONCEPT: Michael Spencer Phillips + Dino Kiratzidis

DIRECTOR / CHOREOGRAPHER: Michael Spencer Phillips

ORIGINAL SCORE: “Megaflora Requiem” by Polina Nazaykinskaya

EDITING AND VIDEOGRAPHY: Emma Kazaryan

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Michael Spencer Phillips + Dino Kiratzidis

PERFORMANCE DESIGN: Dino Kiratzidis

S-SD IMMERSIVE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA, CONDUCTOR: David Hattner