Talia DeLeo

mirage (2025) expresses the complexities and specificities of female psychology and reflects a swirling mindscape in the wake of anxieties, fears, and doubt.

Music: “Stillhetens hav II” by Vargkvint, Jakob Lindhagen, Brueder Selke

Message from Talia:

putting together mirage was such a great experience – I had the opportunity to work with the incredible Giselle Paulson again who graciously filmed for me at the beautiful Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre studios. this short film was created for a final project for my course “Dance Lineages”, a class where two choreographers of the past and present were studied each week, comparing their choreographic processes, philosophies, and style. the prompt for our final was to study a choreographer and respond to their work by either writing an essay, or creating a piece in artistic dialogue with their work. I chose the latter option and chose Columbian-Belgian dancer and choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa as her choreography and artistic vision have resonated with me for a long time. she has created incredible ballets about powerful women in history, among them being Frida Kahlo and Coco Chanel. she is such a singular artist and her ability to curate depth and introspection in dance is so remarkable to me, so I just had to choose her to research in this project. I was struck by Ms. Lopez Ochoa’s technique of balancing power and lightness as well as the inherent psychological aspects in her work, so I tried my best to implement those qualities within mirage. the name of this piece didn’t come from a super complicated place, I really just loved the sound of the word mirage but the word’s meaning turned out to be a good analogy for the concept of this piece. a mirage is a mind trick where something appears to be physically present, when in reality it is just an optical illusion. I thought this was an interesting comparison to mental health – in personal experience, my brain tends to trick itself into worrying about countless things that are not currently happening or very unlikely to happen. it really does feel like living in a mirage, being so nervous about something you’re so sure is there and when you directly approach it, you realize nothing is actually wrong. I wanted to expand mirage to express larger themes in female psychology, and although these doubts and anxieties are not unique to women, we have specific, shared psychological feelings in our lived experiences and history as women. it was a challenge to encapsulate these themes into one short piece, but it felt therapeutic to transform these hardships and fears into the art form I love most.

Read Talia’s accompanying paper to mirage