5th Annual Transmodern Festival Live.Art.Action

Elisa Urtiaga - Fri. December 4, 2006

Filed under: Browse All Artists, Roaming — transmodernfestival @ 8:01 pm

Elisa Urtiaga is from Chicago, but has found a second Home in Uruguay and has held residence in Baltimore for the past 4 years. She studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, majoring in Fiber Arts, concentrating on Fashion and Culture. Additionally, she studied music in the jazz department at the Peabody Institute as part of her Music and Culture Minor. Elisa’s costumes are made of recycled materials, using techniques acquired during an apprenticeship with Cat Chow in Chicago. Music and intentional silence have always been a part of Elisa’s work, which is influenced by both traditional, non-traditional and free jazz. Recently, Elisa has focused her performances in Baltimore and the DC metro area, but has also performed in Montevideo, Uruguay. In the latter, she initiated “La Casa Encantada,” a starting-off for the project “Subsuelo” — a performance series curated by Brazilian Biennale artist Martin Molinaro. It was an immersive night of performances both composed and improvised, conceived by el Nucleo, a collective of artists who share a vision of performance art as interactive and challenging forms of social communication. She continually challenges established ideas about art by taking it out of the gallery setting and putting it into direct social spaces showcasing in bars, streets and rooftops. Lately she has been working on burlesque-inspired works by introducing sideshow audiences to the less traditional participatory experiences of her work. She is a rotating regular at the “Viva la Decadence” series at The Palace of Wonders under the stage name La Malicia Pajarita.

photo credit: Rick Fleddermann (C) 2007 - All Rights Reserved