ACT I

1. LET IT BE PERFECT AND BE WITH ME ALWAYS

Choreography: Waeli Wang in collaboration with the dancers
Music: Pavel Milyakov & Martyna Basta; Charli xcx & John Cale; The Righteous Brothers
Performed by: Divya Ahuja, Ariel Appel, Mallory Chen, Baylee Ferrerra, Nola Gibson, Rachel Miller, Elsie Neilson, Alondra Perez, Jade Turner
Regional Premiere

What is it that draws us into the very desperate, uncool feeling of being in love? The vulnerability, the ache, the longing. This work reflects on the tenderness, uncertainty, and beauty of relationships: the ways we hold on, let go, and continue to find each other

◆ Curator’s Award Nominee

2. HAUNTINGS

Choreography: Amanda Lizarraga, Madeline Nicholson & Glo Zearett
Original Ambient Sound: Glo Zearett, Madeline Nicholson & Lainey Djajakusuma
Performed by: Amanda Lizarraga & Madeline Nicholson
Work-in-Progress

hauntings takes us on a ghost tour of an old house. Inspired by the concept of chiaroscuro, it explores dualities such as clean and dirty, happy and sad, haunted and haunting. As we are guided into fear, unease, dread, and sometimes absurdity, the work asks: “Who’s haunting what?” and, more importantly, “Who’s haunting who?”

3. FOREST NYMPH

Choreography and Performance: Kayla Bollag

4. REVERIE

Choreography: Claire Hasty
Music: Reverie — Ian Edwards
Performed by: Hannah Bundy, Julia Myers, Giovanna Paulino, Julianna Paulino, Kathleen Speer, Maddie Wilson
Regional Premiere

“A tranquil drifting of the mind into imagination or memory… thought set free to wander the luminous landscapes within.” — The English Nook

Special thanks to lighting designer Isabel Faulkner.

★ Emerging Choreographer Nominee
◆ Curator’s Award Nominee

5. HANIN حنين

Choreography & Performance: Kerri Krizer
Music: Of No Other — Goldmund; Papillon — Johannes Motschmann
World Premiere

Inspired by the Arabic word hanin حنين, which describes a profound longing for something lost, this work explores the somatic experience of complex grief through two symbolic landscapes. Hanin gives physical form to the evolving landscape of grief and the ways it is experienced in the body and psyche.

6. DOES IT NOT MATTER?

Choreography: Madeline Nicholson in collaboration with the dancers
Performed by: Charlotte Breier & Kennadi Davis

Questioning the ways we hold space for each other in times of need, this dance looks at the tender push and pull of offering and receiving support. Interpersonally and globally, two dancers explore what it takes to care amidst a sea of apathy and intentional ignorance.

Are these dancers friends? Are they strangers? Does it not matter?

In our inevitable interconnectedness, to care for others is to care for the self.

★ Emerging Choreographer Nominee
◆ Curator’s Award Nominee

INTERMISSION — 15 MINUTES

ACT II

7. 777 (WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?)

Choreography: Ava Taylor & Avery Trask

A liminal space of betting, loss, and reckless reward. We’ve been here a while and don’t know when it will be over, if ever.

★ Emerging Choreographer Nominee
◆ Curator’s Award Nominee

8. MOTHER, PROTECTOR, WITCH, WOMAN

Choreography: Sadie Weinberg | LITVAKdance
Music: Horse — Keely Forsyth
Performed by: Ashley Akhavan, Cecily Holcombe, Hannah Wyer
Work-in-Progress

This work reflects on the boundary between good and evil and the fuzzy line in between. When do good intentions cross over into bad outcomes? What does it mean to be a woman, a mother, a protector, a witch?

9. HOLD THIS HEAVY HEART, PT. II

Choreography & Performance: Kevyn R. Butler

“Sometimes, most times,
It’s not the whole of you that dies,
But parts.
And only you attend the funeral.” — Della Hicks-Wilson, Small Cures

This work is dedicated to those in flux, navigating their mental health. It may feel lonely, but this dance is for you.

◆ Curator’s Award Nominee

10. FINIS PROPE (THE END IS NIGH)

Choreography: Ariana Mullin
Music: On the Nature of Daylight — Max Richter, with sounds composed by Ariana Mullin
Regional Premiere

“Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.” — Raymond Carver

★ Emerging Choreographer Nominee

11. CRUSHED CRANBERRIES

Choreography & Performance: Caitlyn Wade

This piece is a physical representation of thoughts that stem from loss and time—the violent way grief lingers, somber efforts to continue, and the resentful familiarity of experiencing other losses. How does it feel to grieve someone for longer than you ever knew them?

Let yourself be overwhelmed and fascinated by the passage of time. Get lost in spiraling attempts to process unfathomable concepts like “forever” and “gone.” It’s dizzying. As time pushes on, it carries our experiences with it. They chase us.

★ Emerging Choreographer Nominee

12. BEFORE THE ECHO FADES

Choreography & Performance: Kennadi Davis
Existing Work

This audience-guided improvised dance explores the fleeting nature of the moments we experience and the richness found in the trace every fleeting thing leaves behind.

◆ Curator’s Award Nominee