Mia Star van Leeuwen practices the body of performance to explore wide-ranging themes while playfully blurring the lines between theatre and visual art. Unsettling, juxtaposing, queering, re-mixing, winking, collaborating, guiding, and making strange are some of the actions that inform the devising of her various projects. Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lethbridge and visitor on Treaty 7 Territory, Canada. Mia is an organizing member and co-producer of the upcoming Waking Death: Arts & Culture Event Series to take place in Lethbridge in the Fall of 2023.
interests: postdramatic theatre, theatre of images, physical theatre, devised theatre, tanztheatre, contemporary approaches to adaptation, performance art, queer theory, feminist theory, decolonizing practices, research-creation, arts-based research, practice-led research, movement, dance, viewpoints, yoga, qigong, meditation, walking, contemplation, ritual, object theatre, tabletop theatre, puppetry, spectacle, photography, wunderkammers, peepshows, burlesque, tango, lip-sync, drag, Pochinko Clown, Grand-Guignol, DIY design, death studies, the macabre, religious theatre, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, Madonna Ciccone, fandom, pop-culture, stand-up comedy, the Tarot, the ineffable, intuition, weirdness, altered states, effigies, dream-logic, collage, bricolage, assemblage, stream of consciousness.
(2010)
Mia was the co-artistic director (alongside Ian Mozdzen) of the notorious – out of line theatre – founded in Winnipeg, Canada (2003-2016). The company created 10 original works, various shorter projects, and toured nationally. (Some of the best days of my life!)
Mia’s recent ventures include Sapientia (Montreal 2019, Lethbridge 2018, Winnipeg 2015), Destroy She Said (Winnipeg 2018), Postcolonial Postcards (Dalnavert Museum, Winnipeg 2017), and White Bread (Edmonton 2016 and Antwerp, Munich, Innsbruck, Belgrade, 2014). Her object theatre adaptation of Sapientia – a martyr play written in the 10th century by history’s first (known) female playwright Hrotsvitha of Gandershiem, won two 2018 METAs (Montreal English Theatre Awards) for Outstanding Independent Production and Outstanding Contribution to Theatre (produced by Scapegoat Carnivale Theatre, Montreal).
contact: miavanleeuwen.ool@gmail.com
Mia Star van Leeuwen 