The One I Keep

Merli V. Guerra (MFA in Dance, Rutgers University) is a professional choreographer and award-winning interdisciplinary artist with a background in ballet, modern, and classical Odissi Indian dance. She is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Luminarium Dance Company—merging dance with video projection and nontraditional lighting design in Boston, MA, since 2010—and has performed lead roles with acclaimed companies on tours to India (2007, 2012) and Japan (2009). Guerra is a freelance choreographer, filmmaker, writer, and graphic designer whose works have been presented by 80+ events across the U.S., and abroad in Argentina, Canada, Georgia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. She is a 2015 recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s prestigious Gold Star Award for her work with site-specific dance and community engagement, and presented on her work with merging dance and history through AR/VR/XR technologies at Our World Heritage International Globinar 2.0 (2021), and Harvard University Virtual/Augmented Reality (2021). Guerra now continues her work in Boston in addition to her more recent work in the Mid-Atlantic, where she is a Part-Time Lecturer.