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MAMMAL HALL (2022) is a polyphonic, sensory study of museums and the questions that arise as we wander through them. The film was created during the pandemic while in residence at the Museum of Natural History at the University of Iowa by Stephanie Miracle, Auden Lincoln-Vogel, and Ramin Roshandel. The three artists center their creative process around dialogic listening practices with “space”. MAMMAL HALL is an anti-dance film. Differing from traditional dance films that center on virtuosic movement performed by the dancer, this work references the Anthropocene and questions the dominance of humans in the narrative by literally placing the bodies of the dancers at a lower level in both the space and the camera frame. The shift in hierarchy elevates the motionless animals and draws attention to the timeless and time-bound qualities of the “natural” and artificial spaces of natural history museums and the complex histories they house.

“Mammal Hall” Directors’ Bio Stephanie Miracle (choreographer), Auden Lincoln-Vogel (cinematographer) and Ramin Roshandel (composer) are an Iowa-based artistic team that has produced two collaborative dance films - "Hyperdistanced" (2020) and "Mammal Hall" (2022), with several other projects in the works.