artist bio
mary ann brooks is a movement based performance artist. she has performed and taught in new york city, amsterdam, san francisco and new zealand. she has collaborated with actors, dancers, musicians, film makers and most recently circus artists. her solo performances draw on personal narrative, image, ritual, found text, movement and gesture. she grew up singing gospel music in the african american tradition, playing classical flute and writing ridiculous love poems throughout her childhood and into her late teens.

artist statement
lately i've been seeking realms beyond words
the body is my respite
words are simple vaporous entities without inherant meaning
the body its sensations its temporal nature
it's irreverent and raucus imperfection
cannot be predictable
it's experience is tangible, visceral, felt
here is where impermanence is born
each blood filled human heart reverberates a quiet thunder
as quiet as its kept let my body save me

current focus
my focus is always on some kind of fusion or cross section of ritual, somatics, politics and language. i am currently studying the concept, the physical action and spiritual vow (in tibetan buddhism specifically) of taking refuge. i am deconstructing the word "refuge" in my own personal sphere; how it's portrayed in the media in all it's forms i.e. who gets labeled "refugee", and how it feels in my body or as a physical space or in a relationship or in the tiniest physical gesture. this is my interest at the moment.

interruptions: a benefit for counterpulse
counterpulse
sf, ca dec 2005

mashup
ritual/dance performance
million fishes collective
sf, ca nov 2005

not yet concieved
ritual/dance performance
million fishes collective
sf, ca oct 2005

yemaya
ritual/dance performance,
frey norris art gallery, sf, ca
oct 2005

chosen/mercy w/ Circo Zero
dance mission theater, SF CA february 2005

niggerati story
multi-media performance
848 community space, sf, ca january 2005

dv8 physical theatre
circo zero
afrofuturism