The Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Dance at Princeton University presents Timelapse, an evening of two distinctive dance works by Princeton seniors Olivia Buckhorn and Ethan Luk that explore non-linear modes of temporality, the fissures between internal and external landscapes, and the role of the community within the construction of chronology. Performances are February 15, 16 and 17 at 8:30 p.m. at the Hearst Dance Theater in the Lewis Arts complex on the Princeton campus. The event is free and open to the public; advance tickets are encouraged. Reserve tickets through University Ticketing. The Hearst Dance Theater is an accessible venue with wheelchair and companion seating in the front row and mezzanine. An assistive listening system is available. The February 15 performance will be open captioned. Guests in need of other access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at least one week in advance at LewisCenter@princeton.edu.
The cast of Olivia Buckhorn’s new work “Frequencies” in rehearsal as they interact with a rotating structure conceived by Buckhorn for performances on February 15-17. Photo credit: Jon Sweeney
“Frequencies” is a new work choreographed by Buckhorn that utilizes a rotating structure conceived by the choreographer to explore relationships to time and space. The rotational structure gives rise to spatial frequencies and influences the bonding connections between the dancers. The dancers are both the cause and the effect of the structure, guiding their journey through moments of losing control, reclaiming equilibrium, and ultimately discovering freedom within the structural design. Buckhorn’s cast includes seniors Haley Baird-Dibble, Vivian Li, Jon Charette, junior Adam Littman Davis, and sophomore Sally Menaker.
“but me you have forgotten,” choreographed by Luk in collaboration with his cast, takes its title from a fragment by the Greek poet Sappho, translated by Anne Carson. In the work, dancers encounter and inherit a ciphered map of material and immaterial residues, left behind without returning addresses. Dancers probe the space with forensic curiosity and care, utilizing quotidian objects as prostheses to speculate and etch connections across splintered topographies. The work frames corporeal and performative sites as fugitive archives of touch that dissipate the instance they emerge, but nonetheless resonate in spite of their absence. As Luk describes the work, “but me you have forgotten” amplifies the quieter decibels that transpire in the wake of an event: the affect within the afterparty, the ruminative within the ruins, and the echolalia within the elegy. As the dance progresses, a porous boundary between the live and the dead is drawn. It is increasingly unclear whether the dancers are the remembering or the remembered. The new work gazes back at a lineage of texts that trace consonances between the queer body in performance and the queer body in mourning. Inspired by the writing of Joshua Chambers-Letson and Fintan Walsh, the work questions how performance is not only possessed by the past but carries both the potential for momentary resurrection and the blueprints for new ways of being together. The intertextual backbone of “but me you have forgotten” inscribes the performance space and the body as a stanza: not only as in a poetic unit of time and thought, but as in a room, the private interiors that quiver with the wounds and marginalia of past occupants. The work addresses the messy tessellation of memory and epistles scattered across the performance space and pays homage to the scripts within and around us that await our attunement. Luk’s cast includes seniors Julia Chang, Kathy Li, Julia Zhou, and juniors Moses Abrahamson, Wasif Sami, and Faith Wangermann.
Dancers Julia Zhou ’24 and Moses Abrahamson ’25 rehearse Ethan Luk’s new work “but me you have forgotten” for performances on February 15-17. Photo credit: Allison Ha
Buckhorn is a senior in the molecular biology department pursuing a certificate in dance. At Princeton, she is a member of diSiac Dance Company and has performed in works by Mark Morris reimagined by Tina Fehlandt, Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener, and Brian Brooks in annual Princeton Dance Festivals. Upon graduating, she plans to attend medical school and continue dancing.
Luk, born and raised in Hong Kong, is majoring in comparative literature and pursuing certificates in theater, dance, and creative writing. He began dancing his sophomore year of high school. At Princeton, he performed in new work and/or repertory by Merce Cunningham (reimagined by Silas Riener), Kyle Marshall, Susan Marshall in collaboration with Rebecca Lazier, and Bill T. Jones (staged by Catherine Cabeen). He is also a member of diSiac Dance Company. His work in the Program in Theater will culminate with a production of his original play, Flight of a Legless Bird, on April 5-13 at the Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center.
Buckhorn is being advised by faculty member Rebecca Stenn, who is also overall production advisor, and Luk is being advised by faculty member Aynsley Vandenbroucke. Lighting design is by guest artist Madeline Best, original music compositions by Lewis Center Resident Music Director and Composer Vince di Mura, with guest artist Mary Jo Mecca as costume advisor.
The Program in Dance, now in its 53rd year, and has grown to include five full-time and nine adjunct faculty and offers 23 different courses serving more than 400 students each year with a curriculum that includes introductory courses, courses suited for dancers at the pre-professional level, as well as courses in dance studies and interdisciplinary contemporary practices. Seniors earning a certificate in dance (a minor starting with the Class of 2025) undertake a course of study and performance, co-curricular classes, technical hours, and an independent project such as choreographing a new work, performing a new or repertory work by a professional guest choreographer or faculty member, or a work of dance scholarship.
Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about the Program in Dance, the Lewis Center for the Arts, and the more than 100 public performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, lectures, and special events presented by the Lewis Center each year, most of them free.
