Alive at all Costs
NORTH AMERICA is the performance group headed by Ara Glenn-Johanson and Matthew Milo. We make visceral and intellectual, genre-smashing performance that never for an instant resembles something we could get on our phones. We create living abstractions that inspire audiences to feel more and to reflect, using their own lives as the narrative with which to interpret the images put before them.
We take a flexible, un-precious approach to our quite serious experimentations, discovering new terrain by connecting pre-modern and post-modern performance practices.
We seek increased sensation and liveness — alive at all costs! — and encourage all, audience and performers alike, to revel in it.
The work of North America’s artists has been presented in Toronto, New York City, San Francisco, San Diego, and Boston at venues/presenters including Movement Research, ODC Theater, CounterPULSE, Dance Mission Theater, SOMArts, Series 8:08, Golden Gate Park Bandshell, Casa Del Prado Theater, and Mobius. We’ve made shows for theatres, galleries, street corners, parks, dinner parties, and a pirate ship. We were Artists in Residence at The Headlands Center for the Arts (CA), Videofag (TO), and The Garage (SF) as well as the recipients of a Fort Mason In Performance Grant (Hewlett Foundation).
Past Praise for North America
“their energy is infectious”
“beautiful, funny, and intense”
“something in which to immerse oneself, and then come up for air.”
-Lisa McKeown, myentertainmentworld.ca