Michaela Lind

Michaela is an Award-winning performer, Filmmaker and Theatermaker, and co-founder of ARA Theater & Media. She has studied theater at GITIS-Moscow Art school, worked with legendary clowns Slava Polunin, Bill Irwin, and David Shiner. Been performing professionally since debuting alongside the Beijing’s children’s opera 20 years ago and have toured her own solo clown shows under guidance of Kendal Cornell and Felix Ivanov to various festivals such as Edinburgh Fringe.

Michaela left her native country of Sweden to join the GITIS-Moscow Art School after seeing John Caird’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Royal Theater of Sweden. From GITIS, she continued her reckless streak when meeting the director Alexey Buragao from Theater 86, NYC, who encouraged her to move to the US.  After getting accepted into all the theater schools she had applied to, Michaela decided to attend the CUNY Baccalaureate program, where she designed her own path with a Degree in Ritual Focused Performance Techniques. Michaela rounded out her performing arts pedigree with photography and filmmaking studying at HDK Valand (Ruben Ostlund’s University) DCTV NYC and the School of Visual Arts, NY.

She continues her filmmaking career with her narrative short film, “Where is Now,” which will be screened at international festivals and grassroots screenings around the US in 2024/2025. Post-production of her short documentary, “Meänmaa” in the arctic circle in her native Sweden, based on her fathers history growing up as a minority in the far north.

Under her theater company ARA, she is currently assisting in Scenic design for “LakePlay", as well as devising an absurd piece of theater, “Piff, Paff, Poof-The Magic of Nothing,” that had its first showing at Theaterlab in 2023.  In theater she is directing an adaptation of Franz Kafka’s “Der Bau” that will debut at the Czech Embassy in Washington DC. As a performer she is heading back into the rehearsal room with the all-female clown troupe Clowns Ex Machina director, Kendall Cornell. As a filmmaker she is launching a collective with fellow filmmakers along side preparing for her next short film, “Look Into My Palm,” based in the East Village and the subculture of the Psychics of NYC.