Off-Season: Wendy Osserman Dance Company, Concetta Abbate and Cori Kresge present ECHO GLASS
Thursday, February 5 | 7:30PM
Friday, February 6 | 7:30PM
Saturday, February 7 | 7:30PM
Concetta Abbate‘s “Echo Glass” compositions are written for vocal quartet. They are an exploration of how partially sighted individuals experience the world through hearing and vibrational touch as their primary senses. The compositional approach was inspired by Concetta’s personal experience of being born with a visual impairment, and echolocation techniques utilized by blind and partially sighted individuals to navigate space. The piece will be sung by the composer themself in collaboration with vocalists Jimmy Kraft, Judette Elliston and Damon Hankoff.
As a music and dance performance choreographed by Wendy Osserman in collaboration with dancers Cori Kresge and Hui Wang Zhang, the piece further considers the ways we might communicate with the natural world including plants, trees and celestial bodies through re-imagining ideas about sense perception.
All general admission tickets are offered at a sliding scale $20–$100, pay what you can. Please consider that ticket sales support the artist and production costs. Thank you!
Before you visit:
Accessibility at Danspace Project
Covid Safety at Danspace Project
Concetta Abbate (www.concettabbate.com) is a violinist, music composer, death doula and disability advocate residing in NYC. She has won awards and residencies from New Music USA, the Rauschenberg Foundation, NYFA and SWALE Environmental Arts on Governors Island.
Wendy Osserman, a New Yorker, has studied many dance forms including modern dance with Martha Graham, José Limón, Hanya Holm. Osserman performed as soloist with Valerie Bettis, Kei Takei, Alice Condodina, Frances Alenikoff and the Hellenic Chorodrama. She founded Wendy Osserman Dance Company in 1976 and performed nationally and internationally. Osserman has choreographed works in collaboration with outstanding dancers, visual artists and composers. She interprets current events an dhistory with drama and humor and has been presented in dance venues including 92nd Street Y, Joe’s Pub, BAC, Dixon Place, Joyce SoHo, Symphony Space, La MaMa, and Theater for the New City. www.wodance.org
Cori Kresge is a NYC based dance artist, licensed massage therapist, writer, and teacher. She has been a member of José Navas/Compagnie Flak, Stephen Petronio Company, the Merce Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group, and is an authorized teacher of Cunningham technique. She currently collaborates and performs with various artists including Rashaun Mitchell+Silas Riener, Liz Magic Laser, Rebecca Lazier, Sarah Skaggs, Wendy Osserman, and Esmé Boyce. She is the author of two poetry collections, isn’t devotion (No, Dear/Small Anchor first chapbook prize, 2019) and Combustion Suite (Bored Wolves, 2023). In 2020 she founded Play With Matches Workshop, pairing artists of different disciplines together to co-mentor one another.
Hui Wang Zhang was born in Jiujiang, China and graduated from the Beijing Dance Academy in 2012. He was a principal dancer with the China Opera and Dance Drama Company in Beijing before getting a full scholarship to pursue his M.F.A in modern dance performance and choreography at the University of Utah. He received his first choreography commission from Paul Reynolds, curator of the Salt Lake City Library to present his original work at their much-praised 12 Minutes Max program in 2017. He has since presented his works at venues in NYC and abroad. He was a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company from 2017-2026. You are welcome to learn more about his work at www.huiwangzhang.com
Skip La Plante invents, builds, composes for, performs on and teaches with musical instruments built from trash and found objects. His collection of instruments explore a variety of alternative materials and tuning systems. He has led workshops and performances about acoustics in hundreds of NYC schools. He has worked collaboratively with Wendy Osserman, Joseph Chaikin, Sam Shepard, Paul Simon, Olympia Dukakis. He has performed on his original musical instruments at The Smithsonian Institution, PS1, New Music America, American Festival of Microtonal Music, Materials For The Arts, and Carnegie Hall.
Judette Elliston (they/she) is a Haitian-Canadian vocalist and composer whose work amplifies our inner worlds, exploring the emotional and ancestral histories that reverberate within. Elliston’s sound exists at the intersection of jazz, singer-songwriter, and Haitian folkloric traditions. In 2024, Elliston released their debut EP Tiny, a collection of chamber jazz songs about intergenerational healing and the beauty of chosen family. Notable performances have taken place at Dizzy’s Club (USA), Smalls Jazz Club (USA), Greenwood Cemetery Catacombs (USA), Koncertkirken (DK), PRiMi (DK), MAI/SON (CAN) and The Victoria Jazz Festival (CAN).
Jimmy Kraft is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and composer from the San Francisco Bay Area whose work spans jazz, original music, and contemporary performance. Now based in New York City, he appears regularly throughout the city as both a performer and arranger, bringing a sharp musical curiosity and a collaborative spirit to every project. A dedicated educator as well, Jimmy approaches teaching with the same creativity he brings to the stage. After Echo Glass, you can catch him live the second Saturday of each month at Good Judy in Park Slope, presenting fresh sets of standards, bespoke arrangements, and original tunes.
Damon Hankoff is a multifarious musician. Primarily a film composer, he also performs IRL in a wide variety of settings: choirs, experimental-improvisational ensembles, early music consorts, straight-ahead singer-songwriter bands, and his own Out of Sight of Land, an ever-evolving project that draws on all these. He has trained hard on jazz piano and choral singing, but looks ever forward towards the mystery.

