Shot over three nights of Mitski’s The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We tour, new film Mitski: The Land captures the album’s haunting beauty live. Ahead of its release, we asked the artist’s tour choreographer and long-time collaborator to tell us how the lyrics, mood board and movement references came to life on stage.

Mitski’s tour for her 2023 gothic Americana masterpiece The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We was a stop-the-clocks moment: a much-mythologised star returning to the stage to bring her most vulnerable self, and songs, to life in a dazzling, sometimes confounding performance. It vividly channelled the album’s themes of loss, isolation, the profane and healing through both song and movement.

Breath-catchingly beautiful, hypnotic and absurd all at once, the stark, minimalist staging served as the perfect mirror for her songs. “I think part of Mitski’s lore and magnetism is that she doesn’t mask; she purposefully strips herself of glamour and engages with what’s already there. It’s courage,” says tour choreographer and performance artist Monica Mirabile.

Mitski: The Land – a new concert film shot over three nights at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre by director Grant James – offers another chance to experience this otherworldly show. Here, Mirabile, who’s worked with Mitski since 2018, unpacks how it all came together.

What was the starting point for the choreography?

“I listened to the album on repeat while meditating in my studio, before Mitski and I had a phone call about its themes and what came up for me. I choreographed the tour in my New York studio with the help of my assistant Jes Nelson over two months, before heading to Nashville for rehearsals with Mitski for three weeks. There were many starting points, but rehearsal is my heaven, and it was here that everything helixed through our conversations and the learning of the choreo.”

What did the mood board look like?

“A dance scene from Metropolis, where the dancer captivates this stew of men, whirling her hips with a glare and rigid hands, until the crowd reaches a hysterical frenzy. The light was a big mood, Mitski’s orange (a colour made for her), the small, round platform stage, Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity and the Liza With a Z live tour filmed in 1972. Liza Minnelli became a spirit guide.”

What did you encourage in your choreography?

“Every movement is a container for expressed emotions while also engaging with the world of the song. I choreographed this tour a lot like I did Mitski’s Be the Cowboy tour, where I encouraged facial expressions and allowed movements to change as they seeped in. The choreography is counted, from top to bottom – even, and especially, in the nuances. Everything is a subject, especially the mic, the stage, the light and the chair. I mostly discarded what doesn’t feel right in the body.”

Were the movements freeing for Mitski?

“There is always a desire to let go – with Mitski, and maybe with everyone I work with. I create containers to release in. The movements are as complex as the world she occupies in her songs – soft, heavy, fun, serious, mundane and absurd – so the performance of them
is alive.” 

Mitski moves like a dog for I Bet on Losing Dogs; did her lyrics inform you?

“I have a history of dog motifs in my choreography. It’s about the dichotomy of the bitch, and of obedience and authority. Mitski’s lyrics are fun to work with because she layers the metaphor, so I do this in the choreography – often literally or lyrically – to embrace the dialectic.”

Do you have a favourite moment?

“The moment Mitski waltzes with the light, this was a god moment for me. When I was in my studio choreographing the tour, some things weren’t hitting, and I had to remind myself that I’m an artist – and that means the world can be engaged with. I’d been working on a piece about near-death experiences; many people talk about ‘moving into the light’, and I thought: the light is something we dance with. So, I emailed Andi [Watson], the stage designer, and asked if we could make this happen. When she waltzes with the light, I cry every time.”

Was the choreography an impulsive reaction?

“It’s drawn from emergent interests and sits somewhere in my deep, unconscious collection of memories, emotions and things I absorb without knowing. And Mitski and I did an impulse-based warm-up before every rehearsal to get closer to the centre of herself. It’s something I do with everyone I work with.”

You’re a choreographer, artist and hypnotist. Is hypnotism part of your choreography practice?

“Definitely, but not in a Hollywood way. I don’t make people do things they don’t already want to do. Hypnotism is using trance states to bend the mental gatekeeper to gain access to information in the unconscious – like being guided into a dream. It becomes a central listening practice in the creation of my work. Sometimes I use performance or movement as an induction; other times, I use narrative techniques, like a countdown, so whoever I’m working
with can access their own creative intelligence.”