Hi! My name is Michael! I am a queer storyteller that directs, choreographs, performs, and moves. I currently reside in Iowa City, IA where I am amidst my last year as an MFA Directing Candidate at the University of Iowa. 

I gravitate toward the stories that tackles the need to be your authentic self. 

As an artist, I don’t just investigate the truth, I interrogate it by unraveling the workings of an oppressive society. Through my work, I am able to uncover the honesty in a moment by curating a process where actors have autonomy over their bodies; colliding movement with shape, to create spectacle and thus crafting a moving image of the nuanced human experience.  Although my work is rooted in the queer experience, I don’t confine myself to being exclusive, I choose to engage with different works that speak to a call-to-action, encouraging the audience to question, think, and inspect how they play a role.

As a latinè, queer, interdisciplinary artist who grew up in the agricultural Central Valley of California to working-class parents, I saw firsthand what it meant to hustle for what you want. At a young age I was determined to create with very little, creating routines in the garage with chairs, blankets, and anything I could find. I was fortunate enough to start dance classes at the age of 15 through a program at school where I was introduced to diverse styles and techniques in dance and finally discovering a place where I felt like I could express myself in my authentic form. Upon entering high school, I discovered theatre and was soon performing in musicals and plays. With a feminine voice and mannerisms to match, I always searched for spaces where I could fully be myself. 

When I moved away to college, I was able to flourish in my queerness and discover what a true sacred space was for me. 

As a director, I strive to create the same space in my rehearsal room. Where the preservation of sacred space allows for a trust and bond that acts as a foundational force in the room, and therefore enacts honesty in the work. 

As an interdisciplinary artist, I utilize body and movement as the compass. Creating through leaning into the expressionist nature of the Avant Garde and externalizing the internal desire, needs and wants of a character. Through this, we as a collective are able to uncover in the process, a physical vocabulary for actors to embody. In musical theatre I am able to use musicality as a function to serve the moment and drive actors to motivate actions through analysis and impulse. 

My choreographic work can extend to the spectacle of Musical Theatre to the incorporation of stylistic choreography to accompany a Tennessee Williams play, widening the spectrum of utilizing the form of dance and movement as a narrative device and living adjacent to the poetic language of a play. I take dramaturgical research of the period, 

socio economic, political, and popular culture factors to inform the entire world of the play. I am passionate about creating a three dimensional experience for the audience, inviting them to not just be passive spectators but instead, engulfed in the world. 

I lead by striving to form my own congregation with other artists that share the same values as I, reflecting our right to always be our authentic selves, generating curiosity, examining the past, contesting current structures, and exemplifying how we want to see the future through the work we create.

• Michael C. Flores