Photo Credit: Ernesto Galán

Award-winning choreographer Marsha Parrilla is the founding Artistic Director of Danza Orgánica. Born and raised in San Juan- Puerto Rico, she moved to NYC in 1998 where she pursued a Master's degree in Dance Education from New York University. Parrilla is a Luminary Artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. She is a proud recipient of the Creative City Grant, and the New England Dance Fund- awarded by the New England Foundation for the Arts; a Festivals Grant awarded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and a LAB grant awarded by the Boston Foundation, towards her annual production: We Create! Celebrating Women in the Arts. Most recently, Parrilla was awarded a Creative Development Residency at the prestigious Jacob's Pillow, and has been nominated for a Brother Fellowship Award by the Boston Foundation. Marsha has taught Dance in NYC and Boston Public Schools, Boston University, the State University of New York in Stony Brook, the Roxbury Community College, and Green Street Studios. She is the founder of the Dance Research Online Forum- a site dedicated to free and progressive dance education, and is an active member of the Boston Dance Alliance Board of Directors, and the National Dance Education Association.

Marsha's production history includes several evening-length company concerts, as well as the award-winning annual festival: We Create! Celebrating Women in the Arts. For awards and recognition, please click here.


Director's Artist Statement

I'm an Afro Puerto Rican 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, Harvard School of Law, Museum of Fine Arts, Mobius, The Dance Complex, John Hancock Hall, Green Street Studios, Jose Mateo'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- Mark Morris Dance Center, 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, University Settlement, the 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.