RU alumna, Moon Ribas, is a Catalan contemporary choreographer and the co-founder of the Cyborg Foundation, an international organization that aims to help people become cyborgs, defend cyborg rights and promote cyborgism as an artistic and social movement.
Since 2007 Moon has been experimenting with different cybernetics devices that allow her to perceive movement in a deeper way. Moon’s main research consists of developing the seismic sense, perceiving the movement of real-time earthquakes all around the world, small as 1 in Richter scale. Moon then translates this new sense on stage, her main piece is called Waiting for Earthquakes, a piece where she stands waiting for an earthquake to take place, when this happen she moves according to the intensity of the earthquake, so if there are no earthquakes there will be no dance.
Recently she has had her seismic sensors removed from her feet. After seven years of sensing earthquakes as a cyborg, she’s now learning how to adjust to life without seismic activity registering in her physiology. However, Moon has reported to be experiencing phantom movements, confusing her nervous system.
“I’ve started to experience how it feels to lack a cybernetic sense and I’m now feeling phantom earthquakes. How long will these last? Will the extraction of the cybernetic organ affect my identity? Am I a phantom cyborg now?” – Moon Ribas
Moon is curious to see how this transition plays out, while looking forward to experiencing movement through new forms in the future.
