Princeton Dance Festival Reimagined
Presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Dance on
December 4, 2020, at 8:00 PM (EST)
Live & Surreal: Lucy Sirrs Presents… (premiere)
Mentor/Facilitator: Dean Moss
Narrative and Audio/Visual Design: Lucy Sirrs ’23
Original Costume Design: Lucy Sirrs ’23
Tutu Design: Patricia Storelli
Editor: Lucy Sirrs ’23
Performer: Lucy Sirrs ’23
Lucy Sirrs presents a video dance project inspired by women’s historic struggle for reproductive rights and the surreal artwork of Martha Rosler. It portrays her exploration of her desires, her pride, and her courage through the lens of her childhood bedroom.
Site Dance Projects (premieres)
Mentor: Rebecca Lazier
Video Consultant and Editor: Daniel Madoff
Music Design and Composition: Vince di Mura
Costume Design: Mary Jo Mecca
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Choreography and Performance: Emily Ryu ’21
Videography: Daniel Madoff
Video Editing: Daniel Madoff and Emily Ryu ’21
Music includes excerpts from J.S. Bach’s Partita #3 for Solo Violin
Site: The Button, by artist Claes Oldenburg, on the University of Pennsylvania Campus
Special Thanks: Princeton’s Program in Dance, for making my first and last Princeton Dance Festival so wonderful!
Develop Meant
Choreography: Annie Leach ’24
Performance: Annie Leach ’24, Reese and Ashby Raher
Videography: Annie Leach ’24, Emily Leach
Video Editing: Daniel Madoff
Audio Content includes recordings from a Lafayette City Council Meeting and the mission statement from Inclusive Lafayette (voiceover by Price Waldman).
Site: The site of a future affordable housing development in Lafayette, California.
Special Thanks: My classmates and Rebecca Lazier, for making my first experience with the Princeton Program in Dance so memorable!
Double Sites
Part of Living Forms, a series of improvisational responses to sculpture
Choreography and Performance: Ysabel Ayala ’21*
Videography: Daniel Madoff
Video Editing: Ysabel Ayala ’21* and Daniel Madoff
Costume Painting: Ysabel Ayala ’21
Site: Scudder Plaza is home to two monumental sculptures erected to revisit the life of Woodrow Wilson: Fountain of Freedom by James FitzGerald and Double Sights by Walter Hood. Though these sculptures were assembled half a century apart, viewers can move between them in a matter of steps. As you tread on this contested territory, I invite you to take a second look.
Special Thanks: Marion Young, Cindy Rosenfeld, Matt Pilsner, Alexandra Geiger, Keating Debelak, Julia Kosanovich
Monon Passage
Choreography and Performance: Sarah Witzman ’22
Videography: Janet Witzman
Video Editing: Daniel Madoff and Sarah Witzman
Site: A trail stretching from downtown through the northernmost suburbs of Indianapolis, Indiana, on the site of a former railroad.
Becoming 人
Choreography, Performance, Poetry and Voice: Zi (Crystal) Liu ’24
Music: Ryan Wolfe
Videography: Daniel Madoff
Video Editing: Zi (Crystal) Liu ’24 and Daniel Madoff
Site: Doyers Street: A 200-feet-long alley that wobbles on a curve down New York City Chinatown’s untamed past.
Special Thanks: Princeton’s Program in Dance
*denotes a certificate student in the Program in Dance
Discussion with the artists to follow performance.
Creative Team Bios
Photo by Bentley Drezner
REBECCA LAZIER (Faculty) is a choreographer and dance educator currently living in Nova Scotia. Her upcoming project, The Understory, is a collaboration with visual artist Janet Echelman and engineer Sigrid Adriaenssens and is being developed with partners Halifax based Live Art Dance, Mocean Dance, and Breaking Circus, with major support from the Princeton Atelier Program. Her past work, There Might be Others, created in collaboration with Dan Trueman, Sō and Mobius Percussion, was commissioned by New York Live Arts and won a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for Outstanding Score. Lazier has been an artist-in-residence at The Joyce Theater Foundation, Movement Research, The Yard, Djerassi, Chulitna Lodge and has received grants from Harkness Foundation for Dance, American Turkish Society, Trust for Mutual Understanding, Polish Cultural Institute, Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts, New Music USA, Puffin Foundation, and the Canada Council for the Arts. She is currently a Senior Lecturer and Associate Director of the Dance Program at Princeton.
DANIEL MADOFF (Video Consultant and Editor) was a dancer with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 2007 to its conclusion in 2012. He then became a film director, cinematographer, editor, and producer. He has created several award-winning films which have screened worldwide, as well as TV commercials airing on national television. He has produced or edited content for The New York Times, BBC America, Grey Goose Vodka, BMW, Dewar’s Whiskey, Michelob Ultra, Dermalogica, People Magazine, Andrew Cuomo, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Trisha Brown Dance Company, among others. Daniel was Director of Media for the Merce Cunningham Trust during Cunningham’s Centennial celebration where he created hundreds of videos about Cunningham’s dances and philosophies which were viewed millions of times. View Madoff’s work
Photo by Tim Trumble
DEAN MOSS (Faculty) is an interdisciplinary choreographer and video artist who makes work investigating perception and the fluidity of self. He directs a project based company called Gametophyte Inc. Its work has been presented internationally and commissioned by New York Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. Moss was awarded a “Bessie” for his work Spooky action at a distance. Dean was the Curator of Dance and Performance at The Kitchen, and he currently lectures in Choreography at Princeton University, Sarah Lawrence College, and The New School. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
Programs for Individual Performances
View the Main Dance Festival Program information »
View the Program for November 23 performance choreographed by Peter Chu »
View the Program for December 3 performance led by Francesca Harper »
View the Program for December 5 performances choreographed by Merce Cunningham staged by Silas Riener + choreographed by Olivier Tarpaga »