I take people on adventures where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, where work becomes play, senses come alive and perspectives shift.
I am serious about play and passionate about engaging in the world fully by aligning body and mind with all my senses activated.
MANSHIP PROJECT
Over a period of five years, Erika Senft Miller envisioned an immersive, multi-media and multi-sensory installation while inviting a multitude of artists and fishermen to collaborate with her. Originally planned to coincide with Gloucester’s 400+ events as a program that would highlight the continuing importance of the fishing industry on Cape Ann and the role artists play in our community, the project was finally realized in May 2024 in a former fish processing plant at the Fort, in the heart of Gloucester’s fishing community.
STATEMENT
I work and play with all the senses from a place of free will (and free won’t). Just like life, my art seeks to draw us together with our full physicality, and our mind and soul. When my work is successful we meet in the liminal space of the creative process we call art. To effect this meeting, I take people on adventures where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, where work becomes play, where senses come alive and perspectives shift. I know that when we see the road ahead (new terrain, new technology, new opportunities) we see it with eyes, body and brain that are shaped by our past. We continuously reference, judge, and scale what we see to our prior experiences, proceeding from limited perspectives and scared souls. When we locate our “stand–point”–our perspectives, habits and experiences–in a larger context, we become able first to see and then to consider perspectives, possibilities, and paths previously outside our visual fields. Such encounter with larger context leads us to the uncharted territory of growth, adventure and freedom, the place where exploration and play, and the chance to become truly human begin to unfold.
BIO
Erika Senft Miller is an interdisciplinary performance artist and creator of collaborative multi-sensory experiences. Her work, set in unique physical sites, employs a complement of art forms that foster exploration, and that invite empathy and connection within the context large-scale performance. Senft Miller speaks three languages and has relocated seventeen times, both inform her creative interaction with people and her site specific work. She has performed in the United States and Europe, and has spent over twenty years teaching in universities, theaters, businesses, and community centers. Senft Miller trained in dance theater with Fe Reichelt, and holds a doctorate in Dance Education, a masters in Physical Therapy as well as a bachelors in communication. She is also a certified teacher of The Alexander Technique.
