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| Muriel Miguel | |
|---|---|
| Name | Muriel Miguel |
| Birth date | 1937 |
| Birth place | Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Dancer, choreographer, theater director, educator |
| Years active | 1960s–present |
Muriel Miguel is a Native American Tlingit and Kuna theater director, choreographer, dancer, and educator known for founding the Spiderwoman Theater collective. She has been influential in Indigenous performance, feminist theater, and community-based arts, collaborating with artists and institutions across North America and Europe. Miguel's work bridges oral tradition, contemporary dance, and political activism, shaping conversations in Indigenous studies, performance studies, and museum practice.
Miguel was born in Brooklyn, New York, into Tlingit and Kuna families and raised in an urban Native context connected to tribal communities and organizations such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the American Indian Movement, and local urban Indian centers. She studied dance and theater in New York City with teachers and mentors linked to institutions like the Juilliard School, the New York University dance program, and the American Dance Festival, while engaging with community theater movements in Harlem and Greenwich Village. Early influences included encounters with Native leaders, educators at the Smithsonian Institution, and performances at venues such as the Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art that foregrounded Indigenous art and performance.
Miguel co-founded the Spiderwoman Theater collective in 1976 with sisters and collaborators, establishing a pioneering Indigenous feminist theater company that toured to festivals including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Avignon Festival, the Public Theater's festivals in New York, and the On the Boards series in Seattle. She taught and lectured at academic institutions including Cornell University, Tufts University, University of New Mexico, University of British Columbia, and the University of Washington, and worked with museums such as the National Museum of the American Indian and the Museum of Modern Art on performance projects. Miguel collaborated with choreographers and directors from companies like the Paul Taylor Dance Company, the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and participated in cross-cultural exchanges with artists associated with the Lincoln Center and the Walker Art Center.
Her productions merged storytelling, movement, and multimedia, with notable pieces presented at venues including La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, the Kennedy Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and international stages such as the Centre Pompidou and the Staatstheater. Miguel's repertoire includes ensemble works, solo performances, and site-specific pieces performed at cultural sites like Alcatraz Island during occupation-related events, community centers affiliated with the Urban Indian Health Programs, and festivals tied to Native American Heritage Month. She created educational workshops and devised scores and librettos in collaboration with playwrights and composers connected to Ntozake Shange, August Wilson, Lorraine Hansberry, and contemporary Indigenous playwrights performing at the Humana Festival of New American Plays.
Miguel's style integrates Indigenous storytelling techniques, Tlingit and Kuna ceremonial elements, contemporary dance vocabularies from the Graham technique, improvisational practices from contact improvisation, and Devised Theater methods used by collectives such as Bread and Puppet Theater and The Living Theatre. She cites influences ranging from Indigenous elders and orators who performed at events organized by the National Congress of American Indians to feminist theater practitioners associated with Coney Island and downtown New York experimental scenes. Her dramaturgy resonates with performance theorists and scholars affiliated with Performance Studies programs at NYU and the University of California, Berkeley, and with curatorial approaches used by the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
Miguel's career has been acknowledged by honors from organizations such as the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bessie Awards (New York Dance and Performance Awards), and university fellowships from institutions such as the Guggenheim Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Her work has been the subject of exhibitions and retrospectives at venues including the American Indian Museum and the Seattle Art Museum, and she has received lifetime achievement recognition from Indigenous arts networks and festivals like First Peoples Fund and Red Earth.
Miguel's activism intersects with Indigenous rights movements, cultural preservation efforts, and feminist organizing tied to groups such as the American Indian Movement, the National Organization for Women, and community health initiatives collaborating with the Indian Health Service. She has mentored generations of artists who have worked with companies like Running Strong for American Indian Youth and institutions that focus on Indigenous research such as First Nations University of Canada and the Native American Studies programs at multiple universities. Miguel's community engagement includes residencies and projects in partnership with tribal nations, urban Indian organizations, and arts education programs linked to the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kennedy Center.
Category:Native American actresses Category:American choreographers Category:Women theatre directors