CLOSE UP by Nina Aladaro.
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Stefanie Batten Bland brings together Mizuho Kappa, JoyBoy, and Miguel Miranda, three immersive artists exploring the audience/performer in relationship within other spaces.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Stefanie Batten Bland - (SBB) is a global award winning director/choreographer, who creates proscenium, cinematic and immersive worlds that answer the quest for belonging. 2025 NYSCA Artist, 2023 Dance Magazine cover artist, 2022 BAM NEXT WAVE commissioned artist, SBB was Raised in SoHo when it was led by artists. She interrogates contemporary and historical cultural symbolism – their categories of cultural identifiers and how these identities influence human relationships.
Producer/Director of THE LAST - PHARAOH, Artistic Director of Atelier SBB, Creative Casting & Movement Director for Life & Trust, SBB pioneered the methods which made her Performance-Identity liaison for Sleep No More, and the Artistic Director of the first immersive theatre summer intensive in the USA CONCRETE. She is Associate Professor at Montclair State University and researches boundaries of mixed reality art. @sbb_land.
Mizuho Kappa is a choreographer and performing artist originally from Osaka, Japan, with a degree in Entomology.
She has recently performed with Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More NY, Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, Yoshiko Chuma & The School of Hard Knocks, Ballet Collective, among others.
Her self-choreographed solo works have been presented at The Shed, La MaMa, Gene Frankel Theater, TheaterLab, The Brick, Ars Nova, NOoSPHERE ARTS and more.
She frequently collaborates with cross-disciplinary artists, including a neuroscience researcher, transmedia playwright, hybrid writer and puppet designer. These collaborative works have been showcased at the New Museum, New York Hall of Science, Open Source Gallery, Grace Exhibition Space, City University of Hong Kong, House of Yes, the Chocolate Factory and beyond.
Kappa is a commissioned choreographer for Peridance Contemporary Dance Company ‘25 Season, and a recipient of the GALLIM Moving Artist Residency '25, Mark Morris SharedSpace Residency '26 and Triskelion Art Split Bill '26.
Her choreographic voice is recognized for conveying narrative through raw expression, unexpected physicality, and striking surrealistic tableaux, described as “evoking and unhinged” by Brooklyn Magazine and “potent” by The New York Times.
JoyBoy is a Bessie award nominated interdisciplinary performing artist, writer, and educator based in Queens, NY who creates humorously surreal, confessional, and immersive performances to explore themes surrounding identity, power dynamics, and our emotional lives.
Miguel Miranda is a Peruvian choreographer and multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Entering through the doors of folkloric dance, he later continued into academic training at the Ballet Hispánico School of Dance. His practice emerges from the encounter between folkloric and contemporary dance forms as well as dance theater techniques. His work spans performance, choreography, and immersive creation, centering social reflection shaped by the search for belonging. He has performed as a company artist in Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More NYC, Emursive’s Life and Trust, for Stefanie Batten Bland and has collaborated with Abarukas, among others.
His choreographic works have been presented at venues including the 92nd Street Y, New York City Center, the Ailey Citigroup Theater, the Martha Graham Studio Theater, the Mark O’Donnell Theater, and Battery Dance Festival, among others. Miguel holds a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from Montclair State University, where he was recognized with the Choreographic Excellence Award. His work includes commissions with the José Limón Dance Company’s Limón 2, McKoy Dance Project, Alessandra Corona Performing Works, and Tabula Rasa Dance Theater.
OPEN STUDIOS is a series of work-in-progress showings held regularly throughout the year, organized by guest curators, and serves as an incubator for new work, inviting the public into the artistic process.