Mar 4, 2022
John Moran is a composer, choreographer, and theater artist. He began his career composing large-scale operas, but later began choreographing detailed works in which performers silently mime and lip-sync his precisely timed musical compositions. He often employs repetitive structures in what he calls sound-scores that consist of spoken word, recorded music, and layered noises. Moran describes his recent works as theatrical portraits of people that he meets and asks to record their vocals in a studio setting.
When John was a teenager growing up in Lincoln Nebraska, he gave a tape of his work to Philip Glass after a Glass Ensemble performance. This lead to John Moving to New York 1988, and sleeping for several years behind Phillip Glass's couch.
From 2005 to 2011 Moran created works for the dancer Saori Tsukuda in which they portrayed representations of themselves, touring internationally under the name John Moran... and his neighbor, Saori.
In 2013, Moran completed a trilogy of solo performances, Etudes: Amsterdam (The Con Artist), and Goodbye Thailand (Portrait of Eye) that won Best of Fringe in Amsterdam and Spoleto. His works have featured performers such as Uma Thurman, Iggy Pop, Allen Gingsberg, and Julia Stiles.