Danspace
Project

FROM THE CHOREOGRAPHER

Visible is a tender, visceral and messy abstraction of a big idea.

We began our process with conversations about how we are seen and not seen in society and how each of us has hidden aspects to our identities. Who we are, what we have been through and the roles we play in our lives are not always apparent to the outside eye.

Once we arrived in the studio and started moving, I found that the subtle intersections and overlaps of these identities were the most interesting part of the inquiry. What evolved was not a revelation, but a series of vignettes that energetically held these relationships. I added Tristan Kasten-Krause’s beautiful sonic environments in counterpoint with the nostalgic Scriabin Preludes as the process expanded.

Dancing gives us a place to be seen and a place to take refuge. Dancing has always been a way of knowing and being known. “Dancer” is only one part of who I am in this tumultuous life, and as I age, as my vision blurs and my tinnitus increases, I feel more alive, yet more distanced from this calling. Dancing is how I know I am here on this earth and it is what brings us together as performers and as viewers.

Though Visible is a distinctly non-narrative work, it is full of our stories.
We are excited to share them with you, and we are grateful you are here.

FROM THE COMPOSER

Potential Landscapes is an album composed of songs created in 2020, remotely recorded by musicians whose performances were then edited, elongated and shifted to create the beautiful, impossible landscapes I needed to inhabit at the time.

From Thin Air was created as a collaboration with vocalist Eliza Bagg. When she sent in her vocal contribution I was startled by how quickly it ended after her climactic peak. “Such is life” she replied. Shortly before this song’s creation we had faced the loss of a mutual friend. The title refers to the way in which we enter and exit from the material world. Our magic trick.

Euphoria Cancel consists of performances by drummer Jayson Gerycz and violinist Carol Johnson. It looks at the way in which percussion – an instrument usually used to delineate time and rhythm – can become a drone if our ears are given enough time to sit inside it. Continuous toms, snares, cymbals and bells underpin continually shifting violin chords pushed to the edge of a euphoria abruptly canceled.

Dawn Looming, created with guitarist Brendon Randall-Myers and Synthesist Matt Evans, draws parallels between optical and aural illusions. Looming refers to a phenomenon where objects on the horizon appear to elevate, lower, stretch or distort due to atmospheric conditions. In this song the bass tones rise and fall again, and again, and again – cresting and lowering over a sonic horizon – while the upper instruments slide between close notes, producing sonic interference patterns known as “beating”.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Robert Mark Burke (Dancer)
Robert Mark Burke (he/him) is an Astoria-based dance artist who currently dances for the Lucinda Childs Dance Company and Megan Williams Dance Projects. Previously, he was a dancer with 10 Hairy Legs and has worked as a freelance artist with numerous choreographers including Doug Elkins, Pascal Rioult, Bryn Cohn, Matthew Westerby, among others. As a choreographer, Burke has shown his work throughout the United States and has been a guest artist at Montclair State University, Marymount Manhattan and Rider University. @robertmarkburke

Esmé Julien Boyce (Dancer)
Esmé Julien Boyce (she/her) is a dancer and choreographer. She holds a BFA in dance from The Juilliard School and an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is a 2024 Bronx Cultural Visions Fund grantee, a 2023 Baryshnikov Arts BAC Open artist in residence, and a 2016–2017 New Direction Choreography Lab Fellow at the Ailey School. As a dancer, Boyce has originated works with Megan Williams Dance Projects, Janis Brenner & Dancers, Aileen Passloff, Marta Renzi, Da-On Dance (JinJu Song-Begin), Amber Sloan, Yara Travieso, and Catherine Tharin Dance. Boyce is thrilled to be dancing in tonight’s performance of “Visible.” www.esmeboycedance.com

Clarence Brooks (Dancer)
Clarence Brooks (he/they), who has toured the US and world, freelances with the Dance Exchange, Pioneer Winter Collective, Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble, danceTactics performance group, Megan Williams Dance Projects, and David Parker & The Bang Group. A former associate professor, who has taught in educational institutions across the nation, they can be seen in the video documentary The World of Alwin Nikolais and their essay, Dancing with the Issues, was published in One Teacher in 10: LGBT Educators Share Their Stories. The Library of Congress recorded their interpretation of Talley Beatty’s “Mourner’s Bench” for the national archive. Follow them on Instagram: @clbdreadeddancer.

Janet Charleston (Dancer)
Janet Charleston is a performer, teacher, rehearsal director and choreographer. Currently she dances with Baye & Asa, Christopher Williams, and Douglas Dunn (also rehearsal director and manager), and has worked with Lucinda Childs (including second world tour of Einstein on the Beach), Taylor Stanley & Alec Knight, Kota Yamazaki, RoseAnne Spradlin, and Sarah Friedland, among others. She teaches for the Cunningham Trust, Mark Morris Dance Center, and Sarah Lawrence College, and is on faculty for the Cunningham Technique® Teacher Training Program. A Fulbright Scholar in Chile, she subsequently served as Peer Reviewer in Dance for the Fulbright Program. MFA, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Réka Echerer (Dancer)
Réka Echerer hails from Vienna, Austria and has performed with the Vienna State Opera, Sue Bernhard Danceworks, Kizuna Dance and Cornfield Dance. She has performed works by Merce Cunningham, Christopher Wheeldon, Gabrielle Lamb and Aszure Barton as well as currently dances with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and MeenMoves. She has presented work at Triskelion Arts, Hudson River Museum and the 10th annual Reverb Dance Festival. Her theater credits include choreographing Julius Caesar at Catskill Mountain Shakespeare and the Visit at Columbia University. She holds a BFA from SUNY Purchase and is a proud member of the Board of Governors at the American Guild of Musical Artists.

Chelsea Enjer Hecht (Dancer)
Chelsea is a Brooklyn based dance artist and licensed massage therapist with roots in Minnesota and Mongolia. They have enjoyed performing in fashion shows, dance films, museum installations and onstage for the past 10 years. She most recently performed with Monica Bill Barnes and Donna Uchizono, and frequently works with MeenMoves, POGO Dance, Amber Sloan, and Megan Williams. Their work has been shown at Fort Greene Park, and Arts on Site, and they have guest taught for Midday Movement and Peridance. Chelsea is curious how improvisation and performance can access deep listening, connection and transformation. www.chelseaenjerhecht.com

Mary Lyn Graves (Dancer)
Mary Lyn Graves(she/her) is a dancer and teacher. Her performance credits include Lucinda Childs Dance Company, Megan Williams Dance Projects, and the Mark Morris Dance Group, as well as works by Joanna Kotze, Thryn Saxon, Robert Mark Burke, and Helene Simoneau. From 2012-2018 she was a member of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, originating roles in over 25 new works and touring across the US, France, Mongolia, and South Korea. Mary Lyn is a faculty member of Ballet Tech where she introduces young dancers to ballet and facilitates movement exploration. A sixth-generation Oklahoman, Mary Lyn is from Tulsa, OK.

Courtney Lopes (Dancer)
Courtney Lopes is originally from Bermuda and attended UNCSA for her high school education. She graduated with a B.F.A. in dance from SUNY Purchase in 2012 and studied at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Courtney worked as a freelance artist with John Heginbotham, Megan Williams, Sameena Mitta, Kathryn Alter, Sue Bernhard, and Robert Mark Burke. As an educator and répétiteur, she has worked with the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Ballet Tech, 92Y Harkness Dance Center, Dance for PD®, and the José Limón Institute. Courtney joined the Mark Morris Dance Group in 2022.

Will Noling (Dancer)
Will Noling is a performer and educator born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. They graduated summa cum laude from SUNY Purchase, having spent a term on exchange at London Contemporary Dance School. In addition to their work with Megan Williams Dance Projects, they are a company member with Doug Varone and Dancers, as well as a founding collaborator with Hannah Garner’s 2nd Best Dance Company. Will previously served as Artistic Associate with Gibney Dance Company, and additional performance credits include works by Raja Feather Kelly, Chuck Wilt, and Crystal Pite.

Emily Pope (Dancer)
Emily Pope is a NY based dance performer, choreographer, and videographer. She received a Bessie Award in 2020. She currently performs with Yoshiko Chuma and The School of Hard Knocks, Douglas Dunn + Dancers, Tamar Rogoff Performance Projects, Hilary Easton + Dancers, Megan Williams, Tiffany Mills Co., and Bodymouth. She created HoverBound Productions in 2006, to create multimedia work in collaboration with local artists. She received three choreographic residencies at Chen Dance Center, and was nominated for The Yard’s Summer Residency in 2011. She has an Off-Broadway credit for choreography in “Teenage Dick” first previewed at The Public Theater in 2015.

Isabelle O’Connell (Musician)
Described by the New York Times as one of “the finest, busiest pianists active in New York’s contemporary-classical scene”, pianist Isabelle O’Connell has an international career as soloist and chamber musician that has taken her around the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Europe, to venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Chicago Cultural Center, Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Art Institute, the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, St David’s Hall, Cardiff and the National Concert Hall, Ireland. Isabelle is co-founder of Grand Band piano sextet and is currently on the piano faculty at Bard College, New York as Artist-in-Residence.

Tristan Kasten-Krause (Composer/Musician)
Tristan Kasten-Krause is a bassist and composer living in Brooklyn, New York whose work enlarges the minutiae of close tones and subtle gestures. As a bassist he has been credited with lending his “low-end authority to vital New York institutions” (the New Yorker) and praised for his “heavenly” (the Guardian) original compositions. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, The Whitney Biennial, and Germany’s state of the art Elbphilharmonie, while his music has been showcased at Issue Project Room, The Stone, The Hudson Basilica, Cleveland’s CUSP Festival and the Grey Sound series at the University of Chicago.

Brendon Randall-Myers (Musician)
Brendon Randall-Myers is a Brooklyn-based composer and guitarist working at various intersections of rock, experimental, theater, and classical music. His work has received support from the Jerome Foundation, New Music USA, New York State Council for the Arts, Chamber Music America, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and been performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Chicago and Omaha Symphonies, Dither, and W4RP. Brendon co-leads experimental metal band Scarcity, and is a member of electric guitar quartet Dither and the Glenn Branca Ensemble. He has performed in clubs, concert halls, and basements around the world, including the Barbican Theatre (London), the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), and the Forbidden City Concert Hall (Beijing).

Zosha Warpeha (Musician)
Zosha Warpeha is a Brooklyn-based composer-performer working in a meditative space at the intersection of contemporary improvisation and folk traditions. Using resonant-stringed instruments alongside her own voice, her music explores transformations of time and tonality, informed by the cyclical forms, rhythmic elasticity, and the physical momentum of Nordic folk music.

Kathy Kaufmann (Lighting Designer)
Kathy Kaufmann is a New York City native, and two time Bessie recipient. She designs regularly for Dorrance Dance, Music From The Sole, Joanna Kotze, Sally Silvers, The Bang Group, Mariana Valencia, Koma Otake, Ephrat Asherie Dance, and Vicky Shick. She is delighted to be collaborating with Megan and her company once again.

Sarah Thea (Costume Designer)
Sarah Thea is Resident Costume Designer for New Chamber Ballet. Recent Credits: Assistant Costume Designer for NBC’s Law & Order: SVU (Seasons 24–26) and Nickelodeon’s The Really Loud House. She designed Sound Asleep (short) and Brownsville Bred (episodic pilot), and holds an MFA from NYU Tisch, Design for Stage and Film.