Presented by Princeton University’s Program in Dance.
dissonance
Senior Dance Thesis Collaborative Concert
Run Time
Approximately 1 hour, 5 minutes with no intermission.
Special Notes
Photography, video, and sound recording are prohibited. Please silence all electronic devices including cellular phones, beepers and watches for the duration of the performance. Please refrain from text messaging during the performance.
Content Warnings
This production uses theatrical haze.
Production Team
Costume Designer: Mary Jo Mecca
Lighting Designer: Carolyn Wong
Music Director: Vince di Mura
Production Stage Manager: Mary-Susan Gregson
Faculty Production Advisor: Tina Fehlandt
Sound Engineer: Neil Jernigan
Light Board Programmer: Dallas Bradford
Light Board Operator: Torrey Drum
Run Crew: Jakob Rosenthal
Student Run Crew: Michael Garcia ’24*, Paige Sherman ’25
Costume Stitcher: Wyatt Kim
Student Costume Stitchers: Anne Xu ’26, Tanaka Ngwara ’24, Gaea Lawton ’23
Wardrobe: Kasey Gillette
Order of Performances
An Essential Point (2020, excerpt)
Choreography: Yin Yue
Stager: Grace Whitworth
Music: Vladimir Martynov & Huun-Huur-Tu; Danny Norbury & Ian Hawgood
Dancers: Heather Samberg ’23*, Emma Wang ’23*
The Crow (premiere)
Choreography: Jonathan Golden ’23*
Music: One of: Work Bitch by Britney Spears, Vroom Vroom by Charli XCX, Rinse & Repeat by Riton and Kay-Lo, No Problem by Chance the Rapper featuring Lil Wayne, or Summer by Innanet James
Soundscape: Lecture by Alan Watts, To the Horizon by Science of Sleeping and Matt Tondut, Reflection of Self – Off Land Recycle by Lauge, Lemon – Edit by N.E.R.D and Rihanna
Dancers: Yukiko Chevray ’24, Makenzie Hymes ’26, Isabel Kingston ’24*, Sophie Main ’25, Clara McNatt ’24, Madison Qualls ’25, Kristen Umbriac ’24
Content warnings: foul language, discussion of depression
LUCY (premiere)
Choreography: Adriana Pierce
Music: Salley Beamish
Dancer: Lucy Sirrs ’23*
in light of (de)construction (premiere)
Choreography: Gianni (Gigi) Pacheco
Music: Singing Winds, Crying Beasts by Santana, Todo Paso by Carla Morrison, Con La Brisa by Foudeqush & Ludwig Göransson
Sound Engineering: Vince di Mura
Dancers: Isabelle Clayton ’25, Gigi Pacheco ’23*, Chris Park ’24*, Heather Samberg ’23*, Kiara Wassoodew ’25
Stitch (premiere)
Choreography: Enver Ramadani
Music: Wave by LEYA
Dancer: Anastasia Poverin ’23*
With Each (a)Part (premiere)
Choreography: Rebecca Lazier in collaboration with the performers
Music: The Dark Side by Laurie Anderson, Buddha and Femenine: No. 1, Prime, by Julius Eastman, Tourbillon by Julia Kent and Bagagad by Pamela Z
Dancers: Becca Berman ’23*, Payton Croskey ’23, Kyle Ikuma ’23*, Gigi Pacheco ’23*, and Lucy Sirrs ’23*
Thank you to the cast and Emma Wang for being part of the creative process. I am grateful for your early morning willingness to construct quilts of movement with humor and dedication.
* denotes a certificate student in the Program in Dance
Dance Certificate Seniors
- Rebecca Berman is majoring in Philosophy with certificates in Cognitive Science, Linguistics, and Dance
- Jonathan Golden is majoring in Anthropology with a certificate in Dance
- Kyle Ikuma is majoring in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering with a certificate in Dance
- Gigi Pacheco is majoring in Sociology with a certificate in Dance
- Anastasia Poverin is majoring in Economics with certificates in Finance, Russian Language & Culture, and Dance
- Heather Samberg is majoring in Religion with a certificate in Dance
- Lucy Sirrs is majoring in Neuroscience with certificates in Gender & Sexuality Studies and Dance
- Emma Wang is majoring in Neuroscience with a certificate in Dance
Joined by
- Payton Croskey is majoring in African American Studies with a certificate in Applicatons of Computing
Guest Choreographer and Designer Bios
Vince di Mura (Resident Composer/Musical Director) has appeared on concert stages and theaters throughout North America, Canada, Europe and Latin America. He has conducted theater seasons in virtually every region of the United States. He is best known for his arrangements of My Way: A Tribute to the Music of Frank Sinatra, Simply Simone, and I Left My Heart, (with over 900 productions nationally). He is also the author of A Conversation With The Blues, a 14 part web instructional series on improvisation through the Blues produced by Soundfy Inc. He holds fellowships from the William Goldman Foundation, Temple University, Meet the Composer, CEPAC, the Union County Foundation, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Puffin Cul-tural Forum, and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation. He has released six CDs and has just completed a collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa entitled Echoes of the Great Migration, which is currently being workshopped for a New York premiere in 2023. He has also collaborated with Princeton Alumni Philicia Saunders and Roger Q. Mason on their award winning 2020 film, Breathe.
Mary-Susan Gregson (Production Stage Manager) has worked with Princeton Dance Program since 2012. Recent credits include Gabriel Kahane’s 8980: Book of Travelers, Lincoln Center’s Global Exchange: Art for Good, A Proust Sonata for Da Camera Chamber Music, Narcissus Now Festival for the Onassis Cultural Center, Sufjan Steven’s Round Up and Gabriel Kahane’s The Ambassador, both at BAM. At The New Victory Theater she has stage-managed over twenty shows in the last 20 years and spent 20 summers production coordinating for Lincoln Center Festival. She has production managed Divinamente Festival and the New Island Festival on Governor’s Island. New York shows include Dance Africa, Sizwe Banzi is Dead, The Gate, BQE, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Jazz Nativity, Breaking the Code and Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Regional credits include McCarter Theatre, Yale Rep, Williamstown, The Huntington, and the White House. She has toured with Dance Theatre of Harlem, Elisa Monte, Jennifer Muller, Pilobolus and internationally with Forbidden Christmas starring Baryshnikov.
Mary Jo Mecca (Costume Designer) Currently collaborating with Rebecca Lazier and Janet Echelman on Everywhere The Edges premiering in Nova Scotia in 2022. Previous work includes Nicole Wolcotts’ Luggage Lost at Triskelion Arts; Ellen Cornfelds’ Raw Footage; Aaron Landsman’s Empathy School and Love Story at Abrons Art Center; Joanna Kotze’s Find Yourself Here at Baryshnikov Arts Center; Liz Magic Laser’s Like You; Laura Petersons’ Forever at The Kennedy Center; Rashaun Mitchell’s Tesseract, Interface at Baryshnikov Arts Center and Nox at Danspace Project; Rebecca Lazier’s There Might Be Others at New York Live Arts, Coming Together/Attica at the Invisible Dog and I Just Like This Music, Terminal; Zvi Gotheiner’s Bear’s Ear, Detoura, Escher/Bacon/Rothko, Surveillance at New York Live Arts, Sky and Water at the MUSA! Festival; Jody Sperling’s Time Lapse-Fantasy at Danspace Project; Laura Peterson Dance’s Atomic Orbital and traceroute; Barkin/Sellisen Project’s Differential Cohomology. Mecca has designed for the Theater and Dance Programs at Princeton University since 2009. She studied Couture Design with Miss Alice Sapho of Paris and New York.
Adriana Pierce (Choreographer) is a dancer, choreographer, and director based in New York City. After training at School of American Ballet, Pierce began her dancing career with New York City Ballet and Miami City Ballet, continuing onto Broadway, film, and TV (2018 Broadway Revival of Carousel, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, Fosse/Verdon). As a choreographer, Pierce is equally at home creating works for ballet, theater, and film. The lack of lesbian representation in ballet led Pierce to start #QueerTheBallet, an initiative with the mission to widen the scope of classical ballet by producing queer work by queer dance artists.
Pierce created her first ballet works for the School of American Ballet’s Student Choreography Workshop, and she was twice selected to participate in New York Choreographic Institute’s Choreographic Sessions. Pierce’s choreographic work features movement and partnering that allows dancers of all genders equal agency, dismantling the traditional gender dynamics of dance. Today, Pierce’s choreography has been performed by American Ballet Theatre, Carolina Ballet, Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Ashley Bouder Project, and it has been featured in festivals and galas such as Hamptons Dance Project, Kaatsbaan Fall Dance Festival, Fire Island Dance Festival, Mainly Mozart Festival, and Adrienne Arsht Center’s Annual Gala. She has completed residencies with Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU and Bridge Street Theatre. Pierce was recognized by Dance Magazine as one of “25 to Watch” in 2022. Pierce’s work with #QueerTheBallet has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Fjord Review and more. In 2021, the Joyce Theater presented #QueerTheBallet’s film Animals and Angels, and The New Yorker deemed Pierce’s choreography in the film a “velvet revolution.” In April 2022, The Joyce produced #QueerTheBallet’s first full evening of work at The Chelsea Factory, which featured works by Pierce and other queer artists.
Enver Ramadani (Choreographer) Originally from Brooklyn, New York, Enver Ramadani graduated from Princeton in 2021. He studied counterterrorism policy at the School of Public and International Affairs and received a dance certificate. While at Princeton, he was involved with BodyHype Dance Company, serving as Vice President and later Artistic Director. He currently works at Neo — a startup accelerator, venture fund, and mentorship community for young engineers — as the Content and Program Operations Manager. In his free time, Enver is either trying out a new recipe or working on a fun side project.
Carolyn Wong (Lighting Designer) is a lighting designer whose work includes Come Through (a collaboration between TU Dance and Bon Iver), Bullets Over Broadway (US Tour), Rockin’ Road to Dublin (US Tour), Une Autre Passion (Le Ballet du Grande Théâtre de Genève), Summer’s Winter Shadow (Ballet of Monte Carlo). History includes touring with TU Dance, Jessica Lang Dance, Rosy Simas Danse, Morphoses/The Wheeldon Project, Shen Wei Dance Arts, the Parsons Dance Company, Roxane Butterfly, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, and Forces of Nature Dance Theater. In addition, she has served as the Associate/Assistant Lighting Designer for the Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular, the Broadway productions of Promises, Promises, Bullets over Broadway, You Can’t Take It With You, Oleanna, The Glass Menagerie, among others. She currently works as the world-wide Associate Lighting Designer for Disney’s The Lion King. She is an alumna of Oberlin College, and a native of San Francisco, California.
Yin Yue (Choreographer) is an internationally recognized performer, choreographer and the founder and artistic director of YY Dance Company (YYDC). Yin studied at the prestigious Shanghai Dance Academy and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where she received her MFA in 2008. In 2018, Yin founded YYDC, a NYC-based, non-profit contemporary dance company dedicated to the teaching, production and performance of original choreographic works by Yin. The company incorporates Yin’s signature FoCo Technique™ which represents a dynamic fusion of Chinese dance, folk and contemporary movement language into live performances and choreographic commissions as well as educational endeavors. Yin was the recipient of the 2021 Harkness Promise Award and winner of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago 2015 International Commissioning Project, the 2015 BalletX Choreographic Fellowship, and Northwest Dance Project’s 5th Annual Pretty Creatives International Choreographic Competition in 2013.
Land Acknowledgement
We invite you to learn more about:
- The Native and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton
- The lesser-known history of Princeton
- Review a map of native lands to discover the Indigenous history of the lands to which you are connected
Lewis Center for the Arts
Chair: Judith Hamera
Executive Director: Marion Friedman Young
Director of Program in Dance: Susan Marshall
Associate Director of Program in Dance: Rebecca Lazier
View a full list of the Program in Dance Faculty & Guest Artists
For a look at all the people working behind the scenes to bring you this event, view a full list of LCA staff members »
