About

Miriam Barbosa

Miriam Barbosa was born in Brazil, a nation rich in cultural diversity and artistry. Early in her life, she was exposed to numerous art forms, which sparked her passion for dance and later inspired her to delve into choreography and architecture. Her multifaceted background allows her to merge different artistic disciplines, creating a synergy that sets her apart from her contemporaries.

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Choreographer, dancer, educator, and movement architect whose work lives at the intersection of structural form and emotional flow. Her journey began with a formal education in architecture, where she discovered a deep fascination with space—not only how we shape it, but how it shapes us. When transitioned as a professional dancer, she brought this sensibility into her work. Her choreography is guided by an architect's eye: grounded in line, balance, rhythm, and the relationships between the body and its environment. Whether creating site-specific installations or theater performances, Miriam Barbosa builds immersive worlds with movement as the foundation.

As a former dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Miriam embraced the architectural rigor of Graham technique while developing her own voice-fluid yet defined, introspective yet expansive. Her performances often explore themes of memory, transcendence, and transformation, bridging physical architecture with the internal architecture of the human spirit. Furthermore, a spinal injury led her into deeper studies of the GYROTONIC® Expansion System, which reconnected Ms. Barbosa to her core both literally and figuratively.

Today, as a Specialized Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis Master Trainer, she views healing and training not as separate from art but as integral to it. Each gesture, rotation, and spiral is a dialogue between structure and sensation. Her works - Transcending, Blood Memories, Catharsis and Resilience - merge visual art, music, and dance into spatial experiences that invite reflection and transformation. She has staged performances internationally, from urban rooftops to historic cathedrals, museums and arts galleries, while choreographing with a sense of form, balance, and sacred geometry. Through teaching, creating, and performing, she continues to explore how movement sculpts space-and how space, in turn, evokes emotions and healing.

Mission

To provide artistic excellence performances to diverse audiences and to educate and nurture young dancers by creating programs that offer professional contemporary dance training and arts appreciation.

MBD presents performances of the highest artistic excellence two to three times per year providing a structured environment in which professional dancers will project creative expression, dance technique, musicality and artistry to diverse audiences enriching their knowledge of dance as an art form.

In addition, young dancers will have the opportunity to participate in performances that empower their dance education. This experiential, educational outreach integrates the mission of the company by providing educational programs and community performances to a wide audience. After completing their dance education, talented advanced students will be invited to join the company as a profession.

HIGHLIGHTS

SKETCHES FROM CHRONICLE SCETV DOCUMENTARY MIRIAM BARBOSA, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Staging masterpieces from legendary choreographerMartha Graham within the University of South CarolinaDance Program for the Columbia Festival of the Arts. Featuring “Sketches from Chronicle” to music by Wallingford Riegger and original set design by Isamu Noguchi

COLLABORATIONS

MARCELO NOVO

CATHARSIS was a full-length three-act piece choreographed by Barbosa to a synopsis and art installation by visual artist Marcelo Novo. It was originally performed in 2005 and reconstructed in 2010.

COLLABORATIONS

MARIKA POPOVITS

ENTER THE LUMINOUS is a collaborative work choreographed by Miriam Barbosa and Francisco Graciano to paintings by Marika Popovits and Poetry Book by James O’Day, performed originally in NYC in 2017, and Italy in 2018.

COLLABORATIONS

PABLO ARTCHUGARY

Pablo Atchugary is a Uruguayan artist, best known for his abstract sculptural art. His works are included in major collections worldwide. He was the artist featured for the DAP Festival in Pietrasanta, Italy, where he created several majestic marble sculptures and Miriam Barbosa was the guest artist in residence to create dance and movement to his work, adding aerial components with silks to better reflect his abstract lines (2019). Ms Barbosa created da ance on site around the sculptures and on the main stage inspired by his abstract art.

ONENESS

ONENESS is a performance choreographed and directed by Ms Barbosa. It is a journey through sacred sounds, dance and visual art performed in NYC and in Brazil as an extension of original work TRANSCENDING.

Movement & Sound

NON-TRADITIONAL SPACES

MUSEUMS, PARKS AND ARTS GALLERIES

GYROTONIC & GYROKINESIS METHOD

A severe back injury has lead Ms Barbosa to Juliu Horvath and his Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis method of exercising, while fully recovering and calcifying a shattered vertebrae. She returned to dancing with amazing strength, great balance, alignment, and most importantly, pain-free. While working with Mr Horvath privately, in the 90s', she helped him to build his handmade equipment, which is now manufactured worldwide. As the Gyrotonic system expanded, Ms Barbosa became a Specialized Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis Master Trainer with expertise in dance vocabulary, body conditioning, rehabilitation,n and injury prevention, certifying teachers internationally.

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In May 2025, Ms. Barbosa graduated at NYIT with an M.S. in Architecture Health & Design and received a Faculty Award for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Research and Design.

History

Miriam Barbosa Dance (MBD) is fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas, Inc., as a 501(c)3 non profit organization. MBD (formerly known as South Carolina Contemporary Dance Company) was originally founded by Artistic Director Miriam Barbosa in 2007 with President Marvin Chernoff and Vice President Chuck LaMark.

Spring 2021, MBD was the first dance company back on stage at the New York Live Arts Theater, with a very limited live audience due to covid restrictions and live streaming. Her new work “Transcending” was inspired by her continuous experience with sound meditation which helped her healing, as well as her battle to move and breath. It became a powerful artistic healing journey in collaboration with choreographer Javier Dzul, to live music by Franck Raharinosy, Darya Savishkina, Michael Mustafa Ulmer, and multimedia design by Marcela Bragagnolo. This work is in further development for the Fall 2021 season in NYC.

In 2017, Ms. Barbosa's work “Blood Memories” was awarded one of the best choreographies at the DAP Festival - Italy. She premiered the choreography “Resilience” with the University of South Carolina and then staged in Italy and Spain in 2018 when she also created a new work "Enter the Luminous" in collaboration with painter Marika Popovits, Poet James O'Dea, composer John Stone and principal Paul Taylor dancer Francisco Graciano. This work premiered at NYLA in 2018, and it has been re-staged in Colorado, Mexico and Italy in 2019, where she was invited to create “Rhapsody in Blue”representing the US as the guest choreographer for the International Dance Festival in Italy in 2019.

Ms. Barbosa is a former Martha Graham Dancer and she has co-staged with Jennifer Peterson and Denise Vale some of Martha Graham’s legendary pieces such as “Diversion of Angels”, “Maple Leaf Rag”, “Appalachian Spring” Suite and “Sketches from Chronicle” which was awarded a grant and became a documentary broadcasted for the Educational Television (ETV).

MBD performs seasonally at the New York Live Arts Theater, and has been touring nationally and internationally working with theaters and festivals such as Dap Italian Festival, Dzul Dance International Festival in Mexico, Dairy Arts Center - Colorado, Charlotte Dance Festival - NC, the Brazilian Festival in North Carolina, the South Carolina Contemporary Dance Festival, Aerial Dance Festival - Portugal, Columbia Arts and Dance Festival - SC, Koger Center for the Arts, Sumter Theater, Township Auditorium and Piccolo Spoleto Festival - SC.

Ms. Barbosa is also known for performing in non-traditional spaces in collaboration with other painters and musicians, such as 701 Center for Contemporary Art, Columbia Music Festival Association (CMFA) and the Columbia Museum of Art, where she initially choreographed The Chemistry of Contemporary Dance, the Museum’s Impressionism Exhibition Gala inspired by Alvin Loving’s paintings, Columbia State Museum with Brian exhibition and outdoor parks.

She has choreographed “Catharsis” inspired by paintings and synopsis by Argentinian Artist Marcelo Novo and has performed it within several festivals as well as television. This work was originally set at the University of South Carolina in 2005 where Ms. Barbosa was an Assistant Professor, and later on it was staged with MBD professionally for several seasons.

Inspired by anti gravitational sensorial experience, Ms. Barbosa utilizes elements of aerial dance in her choreographies, adding multidimensional perception to contemporary dance.

Miriam Barbosa also offers a program to help injury prevention, body alignment and overall strength and flexibility for dance technique. She continues educating dance teachers world wide through the Gyrotonic Method as a Master Trainer.

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