The Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Dance presents
Princeton Dance Festival 2023
Run Time
Approximately 30 minutes
Content Advisory
This performance uses theatrical haze.
Special Notes
Please silence all electronic devices including cellular phones and watches for the duration of the performance. Please refrain from text messaging during the performance. Thank you.
Creative Team
Costume Designer: Mary Jo Mecca
Lighting Designer: Aaron Copp
Production Stage Manager: Mary-Susan Gregson
Faculty Co-Directors: Tina Fehlandt, Rebecca Lazier, Susan Marshall
In order of performance:
Run to the Edge (Premiere)
Choreography: Amy Hall Garner
Assisted by: Abdur-Rahim Jackson
Music: Alanis Morissette, You Oughta Know, arranged by Tomás Peire-Serrate performed by Duomo; Chiel Meijering, Candy Box, performed by Ahn Trio
Dancers: Ethan Arrington ’25*, Christine Blackshaw G3, Yuki Chevray ’24, Isabelle Clayton ’25*, Laura Haubold ’24*, Makenzie Hymes ’26, Olivia Kasule ’26, Pippa LaMacchia ’26, Helena Richardson ’26, Seiya Saneyoshi ’27, Somiya Schirokauer ’27, Paige Sherman ’25*, Gisele Sonnier ’27, Clara Toujas ’25*, Kristen Umbriac ’24*, Charlotte Young ’27
Closing Distance (excerpts, 2020)
Choreography: Brian Brooks
Music: Caroline Shaw, Partita for 8 Voices, recorded by Roomful of Teeth
Original Costume Design: Karen Young
Original Lighting Design: Nicole Pearce
Dancers: Haley Baird ’24*, Olivia Buckhorn ’24*, Mei Geller ’24*, Olivia Kasule ’26, Madalyn Mejia ’26, Madeline Rohde ’27, Maya Sessions ’26, Blaise Stone ’26
Closing Distance was originally commissioned by the University of Washington’s Meany Center for the Performing Arts supported by a Mellon Creative Artist Fellowship, and premiered January 30, 2020. Risa Steinberg served as Choreographic Advisor and Rehearsal Coach during the creation of the original work.
Generous support was provided by the SHS Foundation, Virginia and Timothy Millhiser, the Dianne and Daniel Vapnek Family Fund, and the Tucker Family Foundation.
State of Heads (excerpts, 1999)
Choreography: Donna Uchizono
Music: James Lo
Sound Operator: Ryan Wolfe
Original Costume Design: Wendy Winters, Levi Gonzalez, and Donna Uchizono
Original Lighting Design: Stan Pressner
Dancers: Jenna Kim ’27, Karolina Rokka ’27, Braeh Simon ’26, Xinyi Zhou G1
Commissioned by the “First Light” Commissioning Funds from the Jerome Foundation and Dance Theater Workshop with additional support from the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.
Through the Dunes (Premiere)
Choreography: Ishita Mili
Music: The Kayla Project, One Hundred Lights
Video: Ishita Mili
Dancers: Suhani Balachandran ’25, Meghana Bhupati ’26, Aditi Desai ’24, Ananya Grover ’24, Tierra Lewis ’25*, Ayushi Vig G1, Jessica Waters ’26
— Intermission (15 minutes) —
Bubbles (Premiere)
Choreography: Shamel Pitts
Assisted by: Tushrik Fredericks & Ashley Pierre-Louis
Music: Rival Consoles, Memory Arc; death’s dynamic shroud, DO U LIKE ME; Demdike Stare, Airborne Latency; William Basinski, dlp 1.1; Aïsha Devi, Mazdâ
Set Design: Alexandra Geiger Khanna
Dancers: Sophie Feinblatt ’27, Azariah Jones ’25*, Sophie Main ’25*, Madison Qualls ’25*, Helena Richardson ’26, Storm Stokes ’24*
D-Man in the Waters (1989)
“In a dream you saw a way to survive, and you were full of joy.”
– Jenny Holzer
Choreography: Bill T. Jones
Music: Felix Mendelssohn, Octet for Strings in E-flat major, Op. 20 (1825), performed by the Orion String Quartet
Original Lighting Design: Robert Wierzel
Original Costumes: Liz Prince
Staged by: Catherine Cabeen
Dancers: Ella Colby ’26, Laura Haubold ’24*, Ethan Luk ’24*, Pippa LaMacchia ’26, Sally Menaker ’26, Tasman Moskowitz ’26, Paige Sherman ’25*, Faith Wangermann ’25*
D-Man in the Waters is dedicated to Demian Acquavella.
Presented under license from New York Live Arts, Inc.
* denotes a certificate/minor student in the Program in Dance
Production Team
Sound Operator: Jake Rosenthal
Assistant Stage Manager: Alisa Rabin
Light Board Programmer: Jeff Englender
Light Board Operator: Torrey Drum
Run Crew: Amanda McGuinnis, Patrick Shultz
Student Run Crew: Ayla-Rose Naehu-Ramos ’24*, Jasmine Rivers ’24*
Costume Stitchers: Denise Carr, Wyatt Kim, Lisa Luu
Student Costume Stitchers: Sabina Jafri ’24, Tanaka Ngwara ’24
Wardrobe Supervisor: Emily Marcus
Guest Choreographer and Designer Bios
Brian Brooks (Choreographer), a Guggenheim Fellow in Choreography, recently completed a Mellon Foundation Creative Artist Fellowship at the University of Washington, and three years as first-ever Choreographer in Residence at Chicago’s Harris Theater for Music and Dance, creating dances for Hubbard Street Dance, Miami City Ballet, and others. His New York City-based group, the Moving Company, has been presented by venues including The Joyce Theater, New York City Center, Jacob’s Pillow, the American Dance Festival, and BAM’s Next Wave Festival. From 2012-2019, Brooks created multiple duet productions in which he performed alongside New York City Ballet Associate Artistic Director and former principal dancer Wendy Whelan, and he has choreographed several off-Broadway productions including A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013), directed by Julie Taymor, and Pericles (2016), directed by Trevor Nunn. In conjunction with his extensive teaching, he has created dances for schools including Princeton University, Rutgers University, The Juilliard School, Boston Conservatory, and Ballet Tech. For five of his 12 years as a Teaching Artist at the Lincoln Center Institute, he served as the elected Chapter Leader of the Teaching Artist Union, represented by the United Federation of Teachers. He was a founder and managing director of WAX from 1999-2004, an organization that provided services to over 750 emerging performing and visual artists through subsidized rental packages and hands-on production assistance at its flexible theater space and gallery in Brooklyn.
Catherine Cabeen (Stager) is an artist and teacher based in New York City and a former dancer with the Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Company (BTJ/AZ), the Martha Graham Dance Company, and Richard Move’s MoveOpolis!, among others. She directed Hyphen, an interdisciplinary performance company from 2009-2019; in 2011, The New York Times called Hyphen, “highly kinetic, complex… visually exquisite,” and “beautifully performed.” As a choreographer, Catherine has received commissions from On the Boards, Donald Byrd’s Spectrum Dance Theater, Seattle Art Museum, Gallery Galleon in Vieques PR, the Visa2Dance Festival in Dar Es Salaam, Alsarab Dance Company in Byblos Lebanon, The American LGBTQ Museum, and The New York Historical Society, among others. She currently performs with Kristina Berger in an ever-evolving, two-woman comedy show, Glitter in the Gutter, and in her own solo work. Catherine is a repetiteur for BTJ/AZ and the estate of Joseph Gifford. She is an Associate Professor of Dance at Marymount Manhattan College where she teaches Graham technique, experiential anatomy, somatic practices, and a range of courses that explore 20th and 21st century dance history through the lens of race, gender, and social justice movements. She also teaches at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility through MMC’s prison education program. She has been on the faculties of the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, Cornish College, University of Washington, Middlebury College, University of Wyoming, Taiwan University of the Arts, and Yale University. She is a certified yoga instructor, Dynamic Embodiment Practitioner, and Mindfulness Meditation Teacher.
Aaron Copp ‘s (Lighting Design) recent projects include the Broadway productions of The Old Man and the Pool at the Beaumont and The New One at the Cort (now the James Earl Jones), Bernstein’s Mass at the Kennedy Center, Falling Out Of Time at Carnegie Hall, Red State Blue State for Colin Quinn at the Minetta Lane, Candide at Tanglewood Music Center, One Line Drawn by Brian Brooks for Miami City Ballet, and Shahrazad for The Royal Ballet of Flanders. Music projects include designs for The Silk Road Ensemble, Natalie Merchant, Diamanda Galas, Maya Beiser and the Bang On A Can All-Stars. He has worked extensively in the dance world and in 2008 received his second Bessie Award for Jonah Bokaer’s The Invention Of Minus One. He had a long association with Merce Cunningham, designing such pieces as Ground Level Overlay, Windows, and Biped, for which he also won a Bessie.
Mary Susan-Gregson (Stage Manager) has worked with the Princeton University Dance Program since 2012. 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 20 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 City 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.
Amy Hall-Garner (Choreographer) is an internationally-known choreographer based in New York City creating works in the ballet, modern, and theatrical genres. Her work has been commissioned by numerous dance companies and organizations including New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Miami City Ballet, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, BalletX, Ailey II, ABT Studio Company, Collage Dance Collective, Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, and The Juilliard School, of which she is a graduate. Garner created a new children’s ballet titled Rita Finds Home for The Joffrey Ballet and reimagined Baltimore School for the Arts’ new production of The Nutcracker. Currently, Garner is the resident choreographer at Carolina Ballet. She personally coached Grammy Award winner Beyoncé, providing additional choreography for The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour. Her theatrical choreography credits include The Color Purple (Milwaukee Repertory Theater), Choir Boy (Yale Repertory Theatre), and Dreamgirls (Paramount Theatre). Her numerous awards and fellowships include participating in Alvin Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab supported by the Ford Foundation, one of the first recipients of the Joffrey Ballet’s Choreography of Color Award (now titled Winning Works), and a Virginia B. Toulmin Fellow through the Center for Ballet and the Arts–National Sawdust Partnership. As a teaching artist, Garner is an adjunct professor at New York University’s New School on Broadway at Tisch School of the Arts.
Abdur-Rahim Jackson (Guest Rehearsal Assistant) was born in Philadelphia. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The Juilliard School and performed around the world as a principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for a decade. Abdur-Rahim choreographed Witness Uganda (an American musical) in Los Angeles and Soul Doctor, a Broadway musical tour in Jerusalem. He has created ballets for Kansas City Ballet, Orlando Ballet, Complexions Contemporary Ballet and (as co-choreographer) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Abdur-Rahim choreographed sections of the Beyoncé Crazy in Love Super Bowl XLVII Halftime performance on CBS and co-choreographed the Beyoncé Halo music video. He’s also choreographed for Taylor Dayne and the STAUD New York Fashion Week Show.
Bill T. Jones (Choreographer) is Artistic Director/Co-Founder/Choreographer of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and Artistic Director of New York Live Arts, an organization that strives to create a robust framework in support of the nation’s dance and movement-based artists through new approaches to producing, presenting, and educating. He is recipient of the 2014 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award; 2013 National Medal of Arts; 2010 Kennedy Center Honors; a 2010 Tony Award for Best Choreography of the critically acclaimed Fela!; a 2007 Tony Award, 2007 Obie Award, and 2006 Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation Callaway Award for his choreography for Spring Awakening; the 2010 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award; 2007 USA Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship; 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven; 2005 Wexner Prize; the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement; 2005 Harlem Renaissance Award; 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize; and a 1994 MacArthur “Genius” Award. In 2010, Jones was recognized as Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, and in 2000, The Dance Heritage Coalition named Jones “An Irreplaceable Dance Treasure.” Jones choreographed and performed worldwide with his late partner, Arnie Zane, before forming the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982. He has created more than 140 works for his company.
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company History — Over the past 38 years the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company has shaped the evolution of contemporary dance through the creation and performance of over 140 works. Founded as a multicultural dance company in 1982, the company was born of an 11-year artistic collaboration between Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane. Today, the company is recognized as one of the most innovative and powerful forces in the modern dance world. The company has performed its ever-enlarging repertoire worldwide in over 200 cities in 30 countries on every major continent. In 2011, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company merged with Dance Theater Workshop to form New York Live Arts of which Bill T. Jones is the Artistic Director. The repertory of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company is widely varied in its subject matter, visual imagery and stylistic approach to movement, voice and stagecraft and includes musically driven works, as well as works using a variety of texts. Some of its most celebrated creations are evening length works including Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land (1990, Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music); Still/Here (1994, Biennale de la Danse in Lyon, France); We Set Out Early… Visibility Was Poor (1996, Hancher Auditorium, Iowa City, IA); You Walk? (2000, European Capital of Culture 2000,Bolgna, Italy); Blind Date (2006, Peak Performances at Montclair State University); Chapel/Chapter (2006, Harlem Stage Gatehouse); Fondly Do We Hope… Fervently Do We Pray (2009, Ravinia Festival, Highland Park, IL); Another Evening: Venice/Arsenale (2010, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy); Story/Time (2012, Peak Performances); and A Rite (2013, Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill).
Mary Jo Mecca (Costume Design) This marks Ms. Mecca’s 14th season as the Costume Designer for the Program in Dance at Princetons’ Lewis Center for the Arts, having designed for the program since 2009. Credits include 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, ComingTogether/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. Ms. Mecca also sculpts avant-garde hair designs with Edisa Weeks of Delirious Dances & Hair. She studied Couture Design with Miss Alice Sapho of Paris and New York.
Ishita Mili (Choreographer) is a Bengali American director, choreographer, and educator based in New York and New Jersey. From a young age, she began formal training in bharatanatyam under Smt. Sudha Devulapalli and Indian contemporary fusion under Kolkata-based Sukalyann Bhattacharya. She won various awards throughout her childhood as a bharatanatyam soloist and performed internationally for movies, music videos, and shows through Sukalyann Dance Entourage. After becoming established in Indian dance forms, she broke out of the boundaries of traditional dance and auditioned for UFP Hip Hop Dance Co., performing and choreographing from 2014-2018. In 2021, she was awarded a Folk Arts Apprenticeship grant from NJ State Council of the Arts to study Mayurbhanj chhau under Sri Rakesh Sai Babu, a descendent of a royal lineage of chhau artists. In 2017, Ishita founded IMGE Dance as an American company using elements of Indian classical, folk, hip hop and street styles to challenge social and cultural narratives with artists of different perspectives. IMGE has worked across concert, commercial, and musical theater industries, performing at New Victory Theater, Lincoln Center, Battery Dance Festival, Seattle International Dance Festival, and more. The group premiered its first evening-length show, (no)man, in spring 2023. Ishita co-choreographed Hair, The Musical (Asolo Rep in Florida), choreographed for IndoWarehouse (Avant Gardener, NYC), movement directed The Sitayana (The Tank, NYC), associate choreographed Broadway Bares: Pleasure Park (Hammerstein Ballroom, NYC), and was awarded Artist of Exceptional Merit by the Asian American Arts Alliance.
Gina Nagy-Burns (Textile Artist) is an artist based in New England. Using multiple mediums she explores the connective patterns shared between the natural world and the body. From 2009 to 2016 Gina hand-painted textiles and fashion accessories for clients under the name The Painted Sole®. In 2011 she partnered with a company called After School Products to develop Design Your Line, a creativity course for K-12 after-school programs. Gina has collaborated on projects for dance with costume designer Mary Jo Mecca, Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance, Zvi Gotheiner/Zvi Dance, and Rebecca Lazier. Gina is delighted to be working with Shamel Pitts and the Lewis Center design team at Princeton.
Shamel Pitts (Choreographer) is a performance artist, choreographer, conceptual artist, dancer, spoken word artist, and teacher. Pitts began his dance training at LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and the Performing Arts and, simultaneously, at The Ailey School and then earned his B.F.A. in Dance from The Juilliard School. He began his dance career in Mikhail Baryshnikov’s Hell’s Kitchen Dance and BJM Danse Montreal. He danced with Batsheva Dance Company for seven years under the artistic direction of Ohad Naharin and is a certified teacher of Gaga movement language. Pitts has created a triptych of award-winning multidisciplinary performance art works known as his “BLACK series” which has been performed and toured extensively to many festivals around the world. He is an adjunct faculty member at The Juilliard School and has been an artist in residence at Harvard University and New York University. Pitts is the choreographer of the play Help by acclaimed poet and playwright Claudia Rankine, directed by Taibi Magar, and commissioned at The Shed in New York. He is the recipient of a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2018 Princess Grace Award in Choreography, a 2019 New York State Council on the Arts Artist Fellowship Award in Choreography, and a 2020 Jacob’s Pillow artist in residence. Pitts is the founding artistic director of Tribe, a New York City-based multidisciplinary arts collective.
Donna Uchizono (Choreographer) is artistic director of Donna Uchizono Dance Company, which has performed throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Australia, and Asia. She has received public and critical recognition for her innovative movement language and distinct wit, recognized by notable commissions for Mikhail Baryshnikov, Paula Vogel, David Hammons, and Oliver Sacks. In 2011, after decades of critically acclaimed dance works that toured nationally and internationally, Uchizono was identified by the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and Dance Heritage Coalition as a master choreographer whose works require preservation. In addition to being a Guggenheim Fellow, United States Artists Fellow, and New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award-winner, she has been recognized by many awards, including an Alpert Award in Dance and grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, New York State Council on the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, Arts International, Foundation for Contemporary Performance, National Performance Network, Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Greenwall Foundation, and New Music USA, among many others. Uchizono is one of three choreographers creating the tri-section piece The March to premiere in the opening season at the Perelman Performing Art Center at the World Trade Center in December 2023.
Ryan Wolfe (Sound Operator) is a songwriter, singer, composer, and instrumentalist from Portland, Oregon. Since graduating from the University of Michigan, he has lived in New York City where he plays for dance for Hofstra University, Princeton University, Mark Morris Dance Group, Limon Company, and Cunningham Trust, among other places. He has performed and collaborated with choreographers and dance companies such as Rebecca Lazier, Jordan Lloyd, Alice Liddell and Dancers, Grounded View, CNDC/Angers, The Lovelies, and Colin Stilwell, and Chloe London.
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
Acting Director of Program in Dance (Spring 2024): Professor of the Practice Rebecca Lazier
Acting Associate Director of Program in Dance (Spring 2024): Professor Susan Marshall
View a 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 list of LCA staff members
