Photo of Nina Winthrop | Photo of Oguri and Roxanne Steinberg by Denise Leitner | Photo of Shinichi and Dana Iova-Koga by Claude Hofer | Photos of Mina Nishimura and Kota Yamazaki by Ian Douglas

Off-Season: Nina Winthrop & Dancers presents Love

Saturday, June 6 | 3:30PM

Love explores the dynamic nature of intimacy, partnership, and creative expression. Featuring three unique couples, this program explores harmony and tension, individuality and interdependence, competition and trust.

Love is a tribute to composer and musician Jon Gibson with whom Nina Winthrop had a loving and creative personal and professional partnership.

Performers:

Roxanne Steinberg & Oguri
Dana & Shinichi Iova-Koga
Mina Nishimura & Kota Yamazaki

Music: Jon Gibson

RSVP

General admission tickets are offered free of charge. Please consider that ticket sales support the artist and production costs; pay what you can. Thank you!

Before you visit:

Accessibility at Danspace Project
Covid Safety at Danspace Project

Nina Winthrop formed Nina Winthrop and Dancers in 1991. Her numerous works have been presented in venues throughout New York City and Los Angeles, including Danspace Project, Joyce SoHo, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Roulette, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Toronada Theater at PS122 and The Flea Theater. Her dance films have been screened in the US and abroad.

Nina danced with Wendy Perron, Susan Rethorst, Yoshiko Chuma, Sally Silvers and Kei Takei, with whom she toured the USA and Japan. She studied with Erick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham, and Deborah Hay.

Nina was the curator of Dance Conversations @ The Flea, a performance and discussion series, from 2005-2013.

Photo by S.K. Dunn

Honoring Carol Mullins

We are mourning the loss of Carol Mullins, our longtime residential lighting designer and true force, who passed away on March 24. Carol dedicated so much of her life and energy to Danspace Project and to all the artists, neighbors, and partners at St.Mark’s Church. Her passion is infused into the floor, the lights, the walls, the windows.

Please save the date for a memorial celebration for Carol Mullins on Saturday, June 13th at St. Mark’s Church in New York City. A reception will begin at 6:15PM in the Parish Hall, and the memorial celebration will begin at 7:30PM in the Sanctuary. More information will be shared soon.

If Carol Mullins lit your work at any time over the past five decades please send us the ‘title, company/artist name, year, and venue’ (if not Danspace) and any photos to info@danspaceproject.org so that we can begin a record of Carol’s Lighting Legacy!

If you would like to make a donation to Danspace in honor of Carol and her ‘high voltage’ legacy, you may do so at the link below.

DONATE IN HONOR OF CAROL MULLINS

Photos of MAJOR by Maria Baranova

Ogemdi Ude: MAJOR

Friday, June 19 | 6PM

Advanced RSVPs are full, and there is limited seating available on a first-come, first-served basis. Everyone is welcome to attend. Please bring water, blankets or camp chairs, and sunscreen.

MAJOR is Ogemdi Ude‘s dance project exploring the physicality, history, and interiority of majorette dance. These Black femme teams accompanied by marching bands created a movement style that requires master showmanship with allegiance to count, undulation, groove, and sensual yet strong performativity.

MAJOR had its NYC premiere at New York Live Arts in January 2026. This celebratory Juneteenth performance will take place at the Prospect Park Boathouse as a co-presentation between Danspace Project’s Platform 2026: Secret Gardens and Prospect Park Alliance’s ReImagine Lefferts initiative. This outdoor iteration kicks off MAJOR‘s summer tour of outdoor performances that delve into how technique, effort, and mastery can be attempted, achieved, and abandoned in pursuit of cultural belonging. Ude’s cast of all Black femme dancers and collaborators embraces majorettes as a form and fundamental relic of Black girlhood. Together they pursue the intimate journey of returning to bodies that they thought were lost. A fierce investigation of physical memory, sexuality, sensuality, and community, MAJOR is a nuanced love letter to the folks who taught the team how to be proudly Black and proudly femme. The Chord Archive is showcased alongside performances, a physical and digital documentation of the creative process and personal historical accounts from former majorette dancers.

Prospect Park Alliance is the nonprofit that sustains, restores and advances Prospect Park, Brooklyn’s Backyard, for the diverse communities that call Brooklyn home. The Alliance’s ReImagine Lefferts initiative is transforming the park’s historic house museum to explore the legacies of resistance and resilience of the Indigenous people of Lenapehoking, whose unceded ancestral lands the park and house rests upon, and the Africans enslaved by the Lefferts family. Learn more at prospectpark.org.

Danspace Project presents new work in dance, supports a diverse range of choreographers in developing their work, encourages experimentation, and connects artists to audiences. Platform 2026: Secret Gardens, co-curated by Executive Director and Chief Curator, Judy Hussie-Taylor and Program Director and Associate Curator, Seta Morton, is the 17th Danspace Project Platform to date.

MAJOR was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. MAJOR is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council.

RSVP HERE

Before you visit:

Accessibility at Danspace Project
Covid Safety at Danspace Project

Ogemdi Ude is a dance and interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Her performance work focuses on Black femme legacies and futures, grief, and memory. Her work has been presented at New York Live Arts, Kampnagel, The Kitchen, Gibney, Harlem Stage, Danspace Project, Abrons Arts Center, BRIC, ISSUE Project Room, Recess Art, and for BAM’s DanceAfrica festival. She is a 2026 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists recipient, 2025 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography, 2025 Princess Grace Honoraria in Choreography, 2025-2028 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, and a 2024 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant recipient. In January 2022 she appeared on the cover of Dance Magazine for their annual “25 to Watch” issue. She has published a book Watch Me in a collection edited by Thomas F. DeFrantz and Annie-B Parson: Dance History(s): Imagination as a Form of Study published by Dancing Foxes Press and Wesleyan University Press.

Photo by Matthew Murphy

Dorrance Dance: SOUNDspace

July 2 – 11 | 8PM

Dorrance Dance, in partnership with Danspace Project, is proud to present SOUNDspace in honor of Dorrance Dance’s 15th Anniversary season. One of Michelle Dorrance’s most celebrated works—SOUNDspace—will return to Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church for the first time since its premiere in 2011, with performances from July 2–11.

Performers will include Elizabeth Burke, Brittany DeStefano, Michelle Dorrance, Zakhele “Bboy Swazi” Grabowski, Asha DaHomey Griffith, Karida Griffith Walker, Sterling Harris, Luke Hickey, Addi Loving, John Manzari, Emiko Nakagawa, Claudia Rahardjanoto, Gregory Richardson, Leonardo Sandoval, Dylan Szuch, Byron Tittle, Tommy Wasiuta, and Nicholas Van Young, with more special guests to be announced!

Casting Per Night:

Thursday, July 2nd
Christopher Broughton, Elizabeth Burke, Michelle Dorrance, Zakhele “Bboy Swazi” Grabowski, Sterling Harris, Luke Hickey, Addi Loving, Claudia Rahardjanoto, Gregory Richardson, Byron Tittle, Nicholas Van Young

Friday, July 3rd & Saturday, July 4th
Elizabeth Burke, Michelle Dorrance, Zakhele “Bboy Swazi” Grabowski, Luke Hickey, Emiko Nakagawa, Claudia Rahardjanoto, Gregory Richardson, Leonardo Sandoval, Byron Tittle, Tommy Wasiuta, Nicholas Van Young

Tuesday, July 7th & Thursday, July 9th
Elizabeth Burke, Brittany Destefano, Michelle Dorrance, Zakhele “Bboy Swazi” Grabowski, Asha Dahomey Griffith, Luke Hickey, John Manzari, Gregory Richardson, Leonardo Sandoval, Dylan Szuch, Byron Tittle

Friday, July 10th & Saturday, July 11th
Elizabeth Burke, Michelle Dorrance, Zakhele “Bboy Swazi” Grabowski, Sterling Harris, Luke Hickey, Addi Loving, Claudia Rahardjanoto, Gregory Richardson, Leonardo Sandoval, Byron Tittle, Nicholas Van Young

“SOUNDspace (2013) was created as an exploration of—and percussive love letter to—the sonic sanctum that is the theater/sanctuary of St. Mark’s Church. When this piece was created, I was asked by Danspace’s Executive Director/Chief Curator Judy Hussie-Taylor to consider my influences, lineage, and legacy—’the web of connections that new generations of artists trace with the past through their work.’ I would argue that no dancers call upon such a wealth of individual influences of their elders and innovators more directly and more prodigiously than tap dancers. Their personalities, music, movement, style, invention, generosity, and care live deeply within us. And their lessons and invitations live deeply within this work. In honor of Dorrance Dance’s 15th Anniversary season, I am remounting one of my favorite works in one of my favorite places to experience movement as music—and I cannot think of a better way to celebrate than through the rich and myriad sounds and textures of the feet.” –Michelle Dorrance

Choreography: Michelle Dorrance with solo improvisation by the dancers
Original Music: Gregory Richardson
Lighting Design: Kathy Kaufmann

The creation of SOUNDspace was made possible, in part, by the Danspace Project 2012-2013 Commissioning Initiative, with support from the New York State Council on the Arts. As part of Danspace Project’s Choreographic Center Without Walls, Dorrance received a production residency supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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Before you visit:

Accessibility at Danspace Project
Covid Safety at Danspace Project

Dorrance Dance was founded in 2011 as a tap dance company, passionately committed to sharing the complex history, powerful legacy, and infinite possibilities of tap dance on a musical, conceptual, and emotional level. After 15 years of being the world’s preeminent tap dance company, Dorrance Dance’s mission has expanded. As a producing entity, the organization seeks after creating new work that continues to contextualize tap dance’s history and its diaspora in a culturally significant way. The company aspires to support the development and touring of new works and artists that continue to deepen the relationship between tap dance and the forms that have a direct relationship to its lineage.