Emine Mira Hunter (née Burke)

It can be argued that Mira Hunter has been whirling for most of her life. A visual artist and second-generation sufi mevlevi whirling dervish, she began her traditional training at the age of 16 with her father Raqib Burke and Sheikh Jelaladdin Loras. As a visual artist, she studied at NSCAD and Yale, graduating with a BFA in Interdisciplinary Art. For the past 10 years she has collaborated with Turkish born, Canadian producer/musician/DJ Mercan Dede, performing at such acclaimed international events as the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Vancouver Folk Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival, Celebrate Brooklyn, the London Forum and the Paleo Festival. She has toured all over the world, from New York, to London, to Japan. She was recently featured in David Michalek’s Slow Dance project that was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2008. Hunter continues to challenge the fundamental forms of whirling by incorporating innovative movements and concepts, coaxing the 13th century practice into a contemporary context. She recently returned from a two month tour with Mercan Dede Secret Tribe, with shows in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Emirates and Australia, where she also had the opportunity to work with the avant-garde performance group Stimmhorn. She studies Sufism under Sherif Baba Catalkaya and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She recently started a collaborative project with her husband Derek Hunter that looks to translate the restorative energy of the act of whirling through multi media installations using binaural sound recording and bullet time photography within custom built viewing structures. She is currently collaborating with Mary Mattingly and others on Waterpod™ Project in New York.

>>Click here to see video of Mira Hunter, including excerpts from her recent installation Time Machine
>>Click here to see pictures of Time Machine
>>A Short History of Whirling