Photo Credit: Ernesto Galán

Award-winning choreographer Marsha Parrilla is the founding Artistic Director of Danza Orgánica. She was born and raised in San Juan- Puerto Rico, and is of Afro Caribbean and Taína origins. Marsha moved to NYC where she pursued a Master's degree in Dance Education from New York University. Parrilla is a proud recipient of several grants from the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Boston Foundation- among others. She is currently a resident artist in the city of Boston, through their unique Boston AIR (Artist in Residence) program. Parrilla is also a Luminary artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where she is now a commissioned artist. In addition, she is a Dance Ambassador at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Most recently, Parrilla was awarded a Creative Development Residency at Jacob's Pillow, and was recently featured at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Inside/Out Festival. Parrilla is a 2017 recipient of the Brother Thomas Fellowship Award by the Boston Foundation, and is the founding producer of the acclaimed annual festival: 

Marsha has taught Dance in NYC and Boston Public Schools, Boston University, the State University of New York in Stony Brook, Wesleyan University, the Roxbury Community College, and Green Street Studios- to name a few. Marsha's production history includes annual evening-length company concerts, as well as the award-winning annual festival: We Create! Celebrating Women in the Arts. She is the founder of the Dance Research Online Forum- a site dedicated to free and progressive dance education.
For awards and recognition, please click here.


Director's Artist Statement

I'm an Afro Caribbean Taína woman and dance theater artist. In 2007, inspired by a lifetime of dealing with discriminatory issues, I founded the dance theater company Danza Orgánica (DO) with a focus on social justice oriented performance and practice. Through DO we share voices that are underrepresented, as we envision an equitable society free of oppression. Danza Orgánica excavates complex issues through intensive research and collaboration and embodies these findings to create challenging and honest dance theater.

My relationship with dance is filled with risk-taking, love, struggle, curiosity and surprise. I am intrigued by the subjectivity of movement; the way we embody our experiences, and how they become alive for others through our self-expression. I’m equally intrigued by the collectivity of movement, and the power that shared energy creates. My work explores not just the imprint of the world on our bodies, but also our agency – both individual and collective – to rewrite our stories through creative movement that de-colonizes our bodies and reinvents our way of experiencing the world.

My dance creations are a reflection of my eclectic training. I combine my training in Modern and Contemporary dance forms, classical Ballet, and my deep-rooted influences of Afro Caribbean movement. However, what sets Danza Orgánica apart is that the movement is not easily classified. My movement is organic, an embodiment of the experiences and emotions we seek to convey.

In addition to creating work for DO, I have created spaces for other artists to develop work and build community through the arts. I am particularly interested in developing containers for women as creators, and have organized the annual artistic festival We Create: Celebrating Women in the Arts.    



Choreographic Highlights

Massachusetts- Jacob's Pillow Dance Inside/Out Festival, Jacob's Pillow's Creative Development Residency, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Harvard School of Law, Museum of Fine Arts, Mobius, The Dance Complex, John Hancock Hall, Green Street Studios, Jose Mateo Ballet's Dance for World Community Festival, Figment, Boston Center for the Arts, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Mills Gallery (through Boston Center for the Arts), Wellesley College, Roxbury Community College, Spontaneous Celebrations, Third Life Studio, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Hibernian Hall, and the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

NYC- Judson Church (through Movement Research), Gibney Dance, Dixon Place, Mark Morris Dance Center, Cloud City, The Far Space, The Flea, SOB's, Spoke the Hub, the State University of NY, Djoniba Dance and Drum Center, Dance New Amsterdam, NYC Dance Parade, University Settlement, HERE, Clemente Soto Velez, Dance Theater Workshop (through Movement Research), and Downtown Arts. 

Additionally, Marsha has performed in venues such as: Alvin Ailey, Symphony Space, DNA, New York University, Long Island University, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston.