Michele Oka Doner
We dove in with Michele Oka Doner, the visionary scenic artist and costume designer behind our reimagining of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She shared insights into the inspiration and creative process behind this aquatic adaptation, exploring the delicate world beneath the ocean’s surface.
Tell us about who you are and your journey as an artist.
I’m sitting here at Miami City Ballet, across the street from the old Miami Beach Public Library. Who I am really is centered exactly where I’m sitting. I could walk to my home where I was born, where my grandfather lived, and where I was educated. This is a community that gave me a wonderful start and gave me the language, which I spoke before I had words that were in English. So, who I have become is so embedded in this site, and it was wonderful to return and turn a ballet that was centered in a forest in Athens into something that wanted to be in the court of Miami.
What was it like in the early stages of working with Miami City Ballet on this reimagination?
The beginning phases of the project were very interesting because I brought Lourdes Lopez with me to the Rosenstiel School of Marine Biology at the University of Miami to see the Miami Invertebrate Museum, which nobody knows is there because you need a license to go in. There were 90,000 jars with over a million specimens of what’s in the water that none of us really see. It’s either algae, or it’s bits and pieces. From that stew, I created the visuals and it was wonderful. Lourdes met Dr. Nancy Voss, for whom the museum is now named, and that was such a great beginning.
Instead of focusing on well-known sea creatures like dolphins or fish, you took a microscopic approach to Miami’s waters. What inspired that decision?
I think that when we look at the ocean, when we think of the water, we don’t see what’s really there, what’s in a drop of water. It’s easy to celebrate the big whale or look at the stars at night, but what you don’t see, for example, is Saturn in its rings. How do you know it’s there? It was natural to turn that into what I knew best from childhood, walking barefoot, using all my senses and looking closely, knowing you’re close to the ground. It was that experience I wanted to bring, and I also was aware at that point that you can’t take care of what you don’t see, and I wanted to become an ambassador for that wonderful world we have discovered.
Is there a particular prop, costume, or set piece that holds special meaning for you? Can you share why it stands out as a favorite?
There are actually several pieces that make me want to sing. One is Puck’s seaweed outfit—the sargassum seaweed is golden. And to see him jump with this golden looking fringe is just always beautiful. I soar when he jumps! Of course, Hippolyta’s bow, which is so beautiful. It’s white gold leaf, and it’s alive. It’s a branch from a very exotic bamboo, and it’s knobby so it wouldn’t slip from her hands. And to find that and to finish the edges and to gild the bow was something I just loved doing. And when I see her jumping with that, I’m there too. And finally, how could I not think of the seahorses? When you see them come leaping across the stage, it’s so happily absurd to see seahorses dancing, but so joyful, and it fits.
How did you get into set and production design?
Set and production design is something all of us do over a lifetime. We present ourselves in a costume every day, so to speak, and we live in a stage set of our own making. And so all my life, I have seen that life is theater in some sense, and self-presentation is so important. What did Shakespeare say? “We are all actors on the world stage.” In terms of the designs for the ballet, I’m very aware of the audience’s eye level and not having to look up—the comfort level of what you see when you’re sitting or standing. I brought a lot of ideas to the table when I did the design for the sets. I’m a minimalist at heart, so it was nice to take the simplicity of sculpted forms and shapes and the spatial relationships, and then use the ballet’s language of excess in the sense the sparkle, the glitter, the tulle, to make the yin and yang. And it worked. They came together very beautifully.
Experience Michele's exquisite designs come to life in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oct 18 - Nov 2 in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.
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