We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shaina and Bryan Baira a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Shaina and Bryan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Our most recent project, Memento Mori, is an immersive dance theater experience that reflects on the fleeting nature of Life and the choices and relationships we make along the way. It features an interactive set design composed of cardboard boxes and haptic/vibration technology which augments the sound score and allows for audience and performers to physically feel the shifting energies as the world unfolds. Secular spirituality is at the bedrock of this work, cultivating a divine relationship to ourselves, others and the environments we are in through a movement ritual that invites the spontaneity and unknown of live audience choices throughout. The creative team for this project is particularly meaningful, consisting of dancers whom we have worked with over the past 10 years between both Detroit and New York City; as well as the continuation of a multi-year collaborative artistic relationship with artist/designer/scholar Jessica Rajko. As co-choreographers/directors and life-partners, this project was created on the cusp of a decade of making work and sharing our life together. Each project we venture into is a recommitment ceremony to living a life that we believe in. It is stepping into the unknown again and again reminding ourselves that life is endlessly mysterious if we allow it to be. It is an ongoing experiment in approaching the mystery with curiosity and resilience. Because when we do, and when we even partially discard the illusion of needing to be in control, real magick and miracles can and do happen. Memento Mori was our latest example of this truth.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We are life partners, body-mind healing artists and founders/directors of BAIRA MVMNT PHLOSPHY, a multimedia dance theater company that creates performances, community events and movement training. Shaina completed studies in Religion and Philosophy at the New York All Faiths Seminary International where she was ordained as an Interfaith Minister, and where she began developing MVMNT PHLOSPHY; a synthesis of movement research, spirituality and cognitive inquiry. Bryan is a Licensed Massage Therapist and Sound Designer/Singer-Songwriter with a passion for physicality and kinetic design. We found each other 10 years ago both dancing in NYC and have since developed our own dance-theater pedagogy and training system for movers and dancers. Additionally, we lead workshops on methods for effective collaboration for couples/personal relationships and other non-dance fields such as the corporate workplace. Central to all projects and training that come out of BAIRA MVMNT PHLOSPHY is the fundamental human necessity to be in relationship with others, as well as the need to continuously nourish our connection to self. We create and share our movement culture, artistry and collaborative methods – rooted in Bravery, Awareness and Adaptability – as our contribution to manifesting a listening world amidst an often overwhelmingly divided reality.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

A few years into our life of teaching and performing together in NYC we transitioned into full-time RV living, allowing us to spend more time researching and less time working various jobs to make ends meet. We lived, parking on different streets in Brooklyn, without electricity, running water, or heat for 2 years; bringing us to face much of what we often took for granted. During these years we certainly became more durable, grounded and tethered to what is real and important in life. We drove cross-country twice from New York through SE Michigan to Texas and back, on a grassroots tour bringing dance theatre performances to unexpecting audiences at truck stops, parks, city squares, and gas stations along the way. This mobility eventually landed us in Detroit where we have based our work out of for the past 5 years.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Everything we do comes back to movement of the body, mind and spirit. Our style focuses on partnering, floorwork and physical dance theatre as tools to create longevity, health and awareness in our lives. We share our philosophy, movement practice and collaborative methods with participants of all levels, ages, and backgrounds and we choreograph and perform; crafting movement stories to remind us that we are not alone.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.baira.co
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/baira_mvmntphlosphy
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/mvmntphlosphy
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bairamvmntphlosphy

Image Credits
Effy Grey