original Performance workS

Ghost Love

Part wild experiment, part performance, part cocoon, Ghost Love is a ceremony of change. Inspired in part by Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, the show weaves personal narrative with puppetry, projection, and (of course) aerial storytelling, to stare fear in the face and orient towards love.  

Conceived, written, and performed by Nicki Miller
Creative Collaborators and Performers: Jillian Faye Garibaldi and Kallisti Milatou-Fakountou
Project Advisor: Caden Manson
Creative Consultant/tech Stage Manager: Frank Barret
Aerial Choreographer:  Nicki Miller
Choreographers: Nicki Miller and Jillian Faye Garibaldi
Projection Designer: Kallisti Milatou-Fakountou
Overhead Projection Designer: Nicki Miller
Aerial Rigging Designer and Rehearsal Safety: Benjamin E. Oyzon
Costume Designer: Nicki Miller 
Puppet/Mask Designer and Director: Nicki Miller
Puppet Advisor: Lake Simons
Sound Designer: Nicki Miller
Sound Engineer: Frank Barret
Lighting Designer: Moneé Mayes 
Lighting Programmer:  Jillian Faye Garibaldi
Board Operators: K. Stanger and Julia Cowitt

Premiere presented in partial fulfillment of the Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre at Sarah Lawrence College in March 2024.

sticks & Stone

“Sticks & Stone” is a new performance project that actualizes many years worth of dreaming from the imaginations of veteran interdisciplinary artists Benjamin E. Oyzon (The Metropolitan Opera, Breaking Surface, Grounded Aerial) and Nicki Miller (Only Child Aerial Theatre, Blunderland, Ripe Time). This soulful and visually stunning work combines aerial rigging, puppetry, dance, and martial arts while interrogating the old proverb of sticks and stones, asking a question those words don’t address:

What do we do when our bodies become strangers to our souls?

The first workshop showings were presented
at The Performing Garage in Soho NYC on August 8-9, 2022.

Co-created and performed by Nicki Miller & Benjamin E. Oyzon
Author: Nicki Miller
Aerial & Puppet Rigging Designer: Benjamin E Oyzon
Stage Manager: Ethan Mast
Original Song: John Oyzon
Poster Design: Connor McMurtrie

ASYLUM

(only child aerial theatre)

Described as "extremely imaginative" (Raleigh News & Observer) and "haunting" (Independent Weekly), Only Child Aerial Theatre's  ASYLUM unearths the forgotten lives of patients and employees in a state mental institution that was shuttered in the 1970s. Six multi-skilled performers balance poetic storytelling with aerial acrobatics, live music, projection, and shadow work. An original song written for the show by Grammy nominee Sophie B. Hawkins echoes throughout this heightened theatrical world.

Authors: Kendall Rileigh & Nicki Miller
Director: Nicki Miller
Choreographed by the company
Primary Composer: Walken Schweigert
Original Song: Sophie B. Hawkins
Costumes: Jan Chambers
Sound: Laura Sisskin Fernandez
Projections: Jesse Garrison
Aerial Rigging: Benjamin E. Oyzon
Creative Collaborators: Sloan Bradford, Rowen Haigh, Deon Releford-Lee, Mikaela Saccoccio, Shannon Spicer, Samantha Sterman, and Craig Whitehouse
Poster Image: Andrew T. Foster

ASYLUM was made with support from Brooklyn Arts Council, Burning Coal Theatre, Circus Warehouse, The Muse Brooklyn, Constellation Moving Company, The Hybrid Movement Creative Lab and individual donors.

Premier: 2015/2016 season at Burning Coal Theatre in Raleigh , NC
Festival presentations: Circus Now: International Contemporary Circus Arts Exposure (2017)

twofold

(only child aerial theatre)

TWOFOLD IS A POETIC WORLD OF DUALITIES, WHERE THE ORDINARY AND EXTRAORDINARY ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN.

Volleying between the seemingly mundane and the magical and between isolation and collectivity, four unique souls unpack and reconstruct what it means to be whole.

Performed in an intimate, site-specific loft for less than 40 people per evening, TwoFold features aerial dance and acrobatics, live music, overhead projection/shadow puppetry, and a few surprises.

Developed by Nicki Miller and Cassady Rose Bonjo
Directed by Nicki Miller
Devised and Choreographed by Nicole Valerie Miller and the Ensemble
Featuring: Cassady Rose Bonjo, Šara Stranovsky, Gil Verrelli, and Ashley Winkfield.
Original Music by Šara Stranovsky and Ashley Winkfield
Production Designer: Cassady Rose Bonjo
Aerial Rigger and technical director: Benjamin E. Oyzon
Production Manager: Ayla Weisz
Creative Collaborator: Kenneth Stephen Neil
Poster Images: Chelsea Robin Lee & Cassady Rose Bonjo

Presented at a secret location in Bushwick, Brooklyn May 2019.

framework

(only child aerial theatre)

Aerial acrobats, dancers and live musicians reimagine a construction site during Depression era New York City when immigrant workers risked their lives on a daily basis to build the city's iconic skyscrapers. Inspired by 1930s photographs of construction workers and the stories behind them, Only Child Aerial Theatre's poetic physical storytelling revisits how the New York City we know came into existence.

Conceived and Directed by Nicki Miller
Created and Performed by: Leo Abel, Kyla Ernst-Alper, Nicki Miller, Sylvana Tapia and Ayla Weisz
Original live music by: Ben Lieberman and Laura Sisskin-Fernandez
Rigging Design and Counterweight System by Benjamin Oyzon

This site specific aerial theatre was presented as part of INSITU Site Specific Dance Festival @ Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria, Queens July 2017