Orange County Dance Company Heads to New Zealand Peace Conference
- Kaitlin Wright
- Oct 31
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 3
Re:born Dance Interactive will premiere a new work examining the human cost of war and the fragility of peace.
For nearly a decade, choreographer Boróka Nagy has been quietly shaping a corner of Orange County’s dance scene through Santa Ana-based Re:born Dance Interactive, a company known for transforming audiences from spectators into participants. Next week, her work will reach a new kind of audience.
On Nov. 7, Re:born will perform at the International Peace Research Association Conference in New Plymouth, New Zealand – one of the world’s leading gatherings devoted to peace research. The company will premiere “A Tale of Two Tables: Un/Covered,” a 45-minute contemporary work that contrasts the intimacy of family life with the cold calculus of political power.
It’s a rare opportunity for a dance company to take the stage at a conference better known for academic presentations than performance art. For Nagy, that invitation reinforces what she’s been exploring through Re:born since 2015 – the idea that movement itself can communicate what words cannot.
“When we watch another body move – struggle, fall, reach, surrender – something in us recognizes that experience,” Nagy said. “That shared response is empathy in motion.”
Why This Invitation Matters
For the International Peace Research Association (IPRA), Re:born’s inclusion underscores a widening view of what peace research can look like. The biennial conference brings together scholars, policymakers and community activists from across the globe. But as IPRA co-chair Professor Kelli Te Maihāroa explains, art belongs in that conversation too.
“IPRA openly supports and empowers artistic license and presentations on the themes of peace, conflict and justice as a creative outlet,” she said. “Creative expression speaks to an audience at a vibrational level through art, dance, joy, love and inspiration.”
This year’s conference theme, “Peace, Resistance and Reconciliation,” draws from Māori history, specifically the peaceful resistance at Parihaka Pā, where communities gathered under the “cloak of peace” to protest colonial land confiscations.
For Nagy, it’s a fitting backdrop for a work that asks audiences to confront humanity’s tendency toward both creation and destruction.
A Performance Built on Duality
“A Tale of Two Tables” unfolds around two physical tables: one brown and wooden, representing the warmth and struggle of family life, and another covered in green baize, a stand-in for the calculated decision-making of war rooms.
“The work exposes the tension between the need for peace in our daily lives and the interests of war often pursued by political, military and global leaders,” Nagy said.
She began developing the piece in late 2024, months before the IPRA invitation arrived.
“The middle section, which explores both the conviction and the devastation that drive war, became the emotional foundation for everything else,” she said.
The six-member cast, which includes Nagy, Simon Harrison, Katie Marshall, Kristy Hwang, Katie Walsh and Jestoni Dagdag, has been rehearsing since April. Many are graduates of UC Irvine’s dance program, where Nagy also earned her M.F.A., and several now teach and perform throughout Orange County and nearby Long Beach. Each dancer portrays multiple roles, from soldiers and officers to family members and mourners.
“At first it felt daunting and hard to personally connect to,” said Re:born dancer and company manager Harrison. “However, performing “Burdens of War” allows me to embody both the orchestrators and the victims of conflict, deepening my empathy for perspectives far from my own lived experience.”
Another dancer, Marshall, described the emotional shifts within the piece.
“As the work unfolds, I represent a wife, a soldier, a military officer and finally, a person having to heal from the destruction of war,” she said. “Having not personally experienced war, I attempt to empathize with and honor the experience of those who have by grounding my performance in authentic sadness and despair.”
PHOTO 1: The company in performance at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of Re:born Dance Interactive/Taso Papadakis. PHOTO 3: Kirsty Hwang in “HOME” by Re:born Dance Interactive at the Odyssey Theatre. PHOTOS 3 & 4: Re:born Dance Interactive in the inaugural performance of“HOME” in May 2024. Simon Harrison, left, and Katie Marshall. Photos courtesy of Re:born Dance Interactive/Jazley Faith
Dance as Dialogue
For Re:born, movement is more than metaphor. The company’s mission is to “create movement experiences that transcend cultural, social, gender, socioeconomic, generational and language barriers,” encouraging community, creativity and expression. In practice, that has meant performances staged in unconventional spaces and a focus on audience participation.
“When I founded Re:born, interactivity meant physical movement through space,” Nagy said. “Over time, the emotional exchange has taken a larger role. Now I see interactivity as what happens internally. A silent dialogue where empathy becomes the connective thread.”
In her choreography, Nagy often looks for ways to erase the typical conventions between performer and audience. For “A Tale of Two Tables,” the audience will sit in the round.
“There’s no hierarchy, no single front or center,” Nagy said. “It’s an equal exchange in all directions.”
The setup mirrors the company’s purpose: to dissolve boundaries, invite empathy and, in this case, share movement with a room of peace researchers from around the world.
“It’s exciting to represent the O.C. dance scene at an international stage,” Harrison said. “But even more exciting is that they’ve invited a dance company to present at a conference usually consisting of academics and discussions. It’s wonderful they recognize the arts as a powerful vehicle for change and an entryway to addressing global concerns without a language barrier.”
Members of Re:born Dance Interactive perform an excerpt from “Burdens of War” during a gala and work-in-progess showing. Photos courtesy of Re:born Dance Interactive/Ashlie Valerio
A Shared Language of Peace
For Professor Te Maihāroa, whose family has ancestral ties to the Taranaki region where the conference will be held, peace is a living practice grounded in both history and community.
“Peace, resistance and reconciliation in Aotearoa is both a personal and professional call,” she said. “It’s about unearthing stories of living peacefully under the values and guidance of our ancestors and creating a bright future for our grandchildren.”
That intergenerational vision resonates with Nagy. Her own mother, peace researcher Maria Subert, who has served for the past six years as the North American representative on the IPRA Council, encouraged her to apply.
“Our conversations about peace, empathy and the human condition helped me realize that what I have been doing all along has been a form of peacebuilding through art,” Nagy said.
Bringing it Home
Re:born’s six dancers will travel to New Zealand Nov. 3–9 for the conference, performing on Nov. 7 before an audience of international scholars and peacebuilders. The company plans to bring the work back to Southern California afterward through its ongoing “Dance for Peace” initiative and a series of community workshops.
“The performance at IPRA is the beginning of the next chapter,” Nagy said. “If one artist collective can ignite even a small fire of empathy and dialogue, then we are on the right track.”
Nagy describes peace the way a musician might describe sound – as vibration, coexistence, and resonance.
“For me, peace is the presence of harmony,” she said. “Different notes resonating together to create something fuller and more beautiful than a single note could on its own.
“In the end, it is our humanness, our ability to stay self-aware and empathetic that keeps peace alive.”
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