The New York Artist Mur Is Moving Into A New Dimension

“My screentime is down to forty-five minutes a day,” Mur tells me over the phone. It’s an unheard-of metric in today’s always-online world, but the New York-based artist is a rare breed. Mur is a Manhattan-residing, performance-producing, creative-directing, full-time composer who can name directors, playwrights, opera singers, costume designers, and choreographers of every generation. In this particular conversation, Mur is talking about how they’re entering a new phase in their career — one that involves taking more breaks from their phone, experimenting with new styles of music, and working on their first full-length opera called MOMMY! “I am interested in success that exists on a phone but wasn’t birthed for the phone,” they say. “I’ve made a lot of art for phone audiences and I’m glad it reached people. Those pieces will be at my MoMA retrospective, but I don’t have the same desire to create that way now.”

At 37, Mur has a lucid vision for their long-term dreams, and they’re setting the stage for their next act. Over the last three years, the New York artist has written and staged four new shows, each part of a series that addresses how we live in the modern world, and how we might be better. The first, Children of the Earth, released in 2021. Six performers sang Mur’s music and lyrics about childlike intuition, dreams, the state of our environment, and love. Next, they produced Wonders of the Water, another musical that paid homage to our decaying planet through a series of songs Mur wrote and composed. Third and fourth were Angels of the Air and Salamanders of the Fire, each of which carried out Mur’s signature melodic conversations around fairies, ghosts, folklore, Greek mythology, and the topics philosophers like Eckhart Tolle and Marianne Williamson often explore. Now, they’re blending these themes into one production, MOMMY, a dissertation on folklore, religious teachings, and existential questions.

“If you have a voice, use it,” Mur tells me when I ask them what draws them to spiritual subjects. “I think they can help the world heal. These are all philosophies that have helped me heal, and I know if it’s helping me, then maybe it can help at least one other person.” There is a sense of purity in Mur’s work that is equally earnest and humbling, joyous and sobering.

For their next show, MOMMY, Mur is working alongside their long-term collaborator, Hannah Cullen as co-author, co-director, and choreographer, to produce bone-chilling performances that carefully consider how words and movement might leave a bigger impact on the audience. And despite taking on such heavy topics, the performances remain light and even comical. In rehearsals for Angels of the Air, I watched as Mur and Hannah guided the cast as they practiced the song, ‘Birds.’ Have you met the woodcock? Flying into glass. Do you know the Blue Jay? She’s got a fat ass’, they sang while walking in a line, just as one would imagine birds might do.

Aside from making their foray into producing a full-length production, there’s another announcement that comes with Mur’s next chapter: “I’m coming out as someone who lived illegally in their art studio,” they say, as if part of a press release. “It’s a big deal because I’ve had to keep it a secret.” For the last five years, they’ve been committed to the genuine bit as a struggling artist in New York by making their shared Lower East Side studio space their full-time home for the sake of cutting living costs. “I learned the power of being quiet, clean, and kind. Living there was the wisest choice for me economically, but it was also miraculous. The studio was full of light — with four giant windows. Pigeons and morning doves visited me everyday. I fed them. Sometimes, they jumped inside during the winter to keep warm. I let them stay for a few hours before leading them back out (and apologizing profusely). A rescued bunny, named Char, lived with me there too. He slept behind my canvas paintings. No one knew about Char either. We were two bandits in Dimes Square. I loved the studio and the studio loved me. It gave me Susan Alexandra the Musical, TREES, and all the music for MOMMY.”

Mur’s sentimentality around their home isn’t surprising. It’s the same tone of voice reflected in the lyrics in their shows. Gratitude, gifts, love, compassion, light — these are the recurring themes that have not only guided Mur’s work, but also the way they interact with the world. As for their experience as an undercover studio dweller, they consider it to be karma. “I was a terrible roommate in my twenties. I hated all my roommates. I was bitchy, I was dirty,” they tell me. “Here, I had to learn how to love my studio mates. To be clean, considerate, and grateful. They didn’t know it was my living space, it was strictly not permitted. I was so scared of getting caught and kicked out. I knew the only way to make it work was by truly feeling love for the space and the other people using it. I think one of them suspected I was living there, but it was don't ask, don’t tell. I say all of this because it was my karma.”

“I feel liberated,” Mur says after receiving their security deposit back from what was supposed to be just their daytime studio space. “I had never met anyone else living like that, but I’ve had friends tell me they know people who do. I’m sure everyone just wants to be discreet.”

Now, they’re living on 5th Avenue (with Char) and still feel the urge to keep quiet, even though they no longer have to hide where they are sleeping. “During the first two weeks in my new home, I was tip-toeing around my room. I had to tell myself, you’re allowed to be here, Mur.” Granting one’s self permission to take up space is an act of liberation. While Mur’s new home marks finally entering a legal living space, it’s also a metaphor for their next dimension.

If it’s true that learning to live in solitude is a study in becoming the master of the energy in our space, then Mur is a scholar in this regard. It seems their tenure as a live-in-studio resident served a sacred purpose, leading them to hone in on the spirituality of themself and their work. Their new space is a place where they will continue making work, just like they did in their old studio space, but with a brand-new lease, a fresh environment — one they can have for themself, one they can bring their whole self into, one they are permitted to call home.