Presented by Princeton University’s Program in Dance.
2022 Princeton Dance Festival
Run Time
This evening of contemporary dance features 7 dance works, each approximately 10 minutes long. There is one 15-minute intermission.
Special Notes
Please turn off all phones and refrain from text messaging during the performance.
Creative Team
Costume Designer: Mary Jo Mecca
Lighting Designer: Aaron Copp
Music Director: Vince di Mura
Production Stage Manager: Mary-Susan Gregson
Faculty Co-Directors: Tina Fehlandt, Susan Marshall
In order of Performance:
Pop (2019)
Choreography: Caili Quan
Staged by: Zachary Kapeluck
Music: Baião Destemperado by Fernando Barba, Check out Room by Arto Tunçboyaciyan, and My Door Is Open for Everybody by Arto Tunçboyaciyan
Original Costume Design: Caili Quan
Original Lighting Design: Sarah Lackner
Dancers: Christine Blackshaw G1, Mary Burdick ’26, Adam Littman Davis ’25, Leah Emanuel ’23*, Laura Haubold ’24*, Annika Hsi ’23, Pippa LaMacchia ’26, Vivian Li ’24*, Sally Menaker ’26, Helena Richardson ’26, Paige Sherman ’25
Why Dance (Premiere)
Choreography: Sun Kim
Music: Why Dance by Alice Castro, Saturday Nights Out by The New Fools
Text: Sun Kim
Dancers: Zi Han Liu ’24*, Seyi Oderinde ’25, Rachel Qing Pang ’23, Alex Sanchez
Dangerous Rooms (Premiere)
Choreography: Susan Marshall in collaboration with Rebecca Lazier and the cast
Music: David Lang
Music Edited by: Vince di Mura
Original Set Design: Douglas Stein/ Zhanna Gurvich
Set Design: Timothy Godin for this production
Original Costume Design: Kasia Walicka-Maimone
Original Lighting Design: Mark Stanley
Dancers: Ella Colby ’26, Charlotte Kingston ’26, Ethan Luk ’24*, Gigi Pacheco ’23*, Anastasia Poverin ’23*
Dangerous Rooms is based on excerpts from The Most Dangerous Room in the House (1998) which was created in collaboration with the dancers of Susan Marshall & Company with text by Christopher Renino. It was originally commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dartmouth College and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.
Tesseract• (excerpt, 2017)
Choreography: Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener
Music: Mas Ysa
Video: Charles Atlas
Original Costume Design: Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, with Yvette Helin
Original Lighting Design: Davison Scandrett
Dancers: Naomi Benenson ’23*, Olivia Buckhorn ’24*, Allison Chen G1, Adam Littman Davis ’25, Sally Menaker ’26, Emilia Santianni ’25, Storm Stokes ’24*
— Intermission (15 minutes) —
Four Corners (2014)
Choreography: Ronald K. Brown
Staged by: Arcell Cabuag, Ronald K. Brown, Joyce Edwards & Demetrius Burns
Music: Da Na Ma by Yacoub
Text: Carl Hancock Rux
Original Costume Design: Keiko Voltaire
Original Lighting Design: Tsubasa Kamei
Dancers: Ethan Arrington ’25, Payton Croskey ’23, Seppe De Pauw ’24*, Kyle Ikuma ’23*, Azi Jones ’25, Sophie Main ’25, Rachel Qing Pang ’23, Madison Qualls ’25, Jasmine Rivers ’24*, Camryn Stafford ’23*, Clara Toujas-Bernate ’25, Emma Wang ’23*
I Don’t Give A (Premiere)
Choreography: Davalois Fearon with the assistance of the dancers
Music: I Don’t Give A and Live My Best Life performed live by dancers with lead vocals by Kate Stewart; Lift Up instrumental recording by Mike McGinnis, Clock Ticking by Stanley R. Fields
Music Edited by: Vincent Sirico
Composer: I Don’t Give A and Live My Best Life by Davalois Fearon, and Lift Up by Mike McGinnis
Text: Davalois Fearon
Dancers: Moses Abrahamson ’25, Pippa LaMacchia ’26, Chris Park ’24*, Martina Qua ’25, Kate Stewart ’25, Vyette Tiya G2, Jessica Waters ’26
The present is a sustained attempt at finding one’s own pleasure. (Premiere)
Choreography: Michael J. Love
Music: Mississippi Goddam by Nina Simone (1964), Take Care of Business by Nina Simone (1965)
Text: One of Four Women Walking Down Peachtree Street Licking Herself, after Nina Simone by Ra Malika Imhotep from the collection gossypiin (Red Hen Press 2022), performed by Deja Morgan and recorded by Kay Richardson Dancers: Emeline Blohm ’25, Jake Cedar ’24*, Kyle Ikuma ’23*, Charlotte Kingston ’26, Isabel Kingston ’24*, Julia Kingston ’25, Marissa Michaels ’22, Corazón Nunez ’23, Beatrice Owusu-Daaku ’24, Mandy Qua ’23*, Jessica Waters ’26 *
* denotes a certificate student in the Program in Dance
Production Team
Sound Engineer: Kay Richardson
Assistant Stage Manager: Shana Ferguson
Light Board Programmer: Jeff Englender
Light Board Operator: Torrey Drum
Run Crew: Lana Holgado, Amanda McGuinnis, Jakob Rosenthal
Student Run Crew: Faith Wangermann ’26
Costume Stitchers: Denise Carr, Wyatt Kim
Student Costume Stitchers: Gaea Lawton ’23, Anne Xu ’26
Wardrobe: Kasey Gillette
Guest Choreographer and Designer Bios
Ronald K. Brown (Faculty) founded EVIDENCE Dance Company in 1985, the mission of which is “to promote understanding of the human experience in the African Diaspora through dance and storytelling and to provide sensory connections to history and tradition through music, movement, and spoken word, leading deeper into issues of spirituality, community responsibility and liberation.” He has worked with Mary Anthony Dance Theater, Jennifer Muller/The Works, as well as other choreographers and artists. Brown has set works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Jeune Ballet d’Afrique Noire, Ko-Thi Dance Company, Philadanco, Muntu Dance Theater of Chicago, Ballet Hispánico, TU Dance, and Malpaso Dance Company.
Arcell Cabuag (Stager) is the Associate Artistic Director and Senior Dancer of the Ronald K. Brown EVIDENCE Dance Company and a recipient of the 2004 New York Dance and Performance “BESSIE” Awards. In 1996, Arcell attended the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center where he was first introduced to Ronald K. Brown. Soon after he joined EVIDENCE as its first apprentice and became a company member one year later. Performance credits include: dancing with Camille A. Brown, Mekeda Thomas; Rock the House for Paramount Pictures; The Shoji Tabuchi Show (Branson, MO); the Richard Rodgers Centennial Production of The King and I; and dance festivals worldwide.
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 he 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.
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 Cultural 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 Echos 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.
Davalois Fearon‘s (Faculty) choreography aims to confront difficult issues and prompt contemplation by the audience. She creates visual imagery that is fluid yet meticulous, assertive yet thoughtful, and critics have remarked that her choreography “holds audiences in the moment, promising to deliver a bold engagement,” communicating “tenacious virtuosity” through a movement vocabulary that is “both gymnastic and natural.” Fearon is an accomplished choreographer, dancer, and educator. She received a Bessie Award for her performance in the skeleton architecture, or the future of our worlds in 2017, and was named among “7 Up-and-Coming Black Dance Artists Who Should Be On Your Radar” by Dance Magazine in 2018.
Tina Fehlandt (Faculty) was a founding member and integral part of the Mark Morris Dance Group for twenty years, from 1980-2000. She is a full-time Lecturer in Dance at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts.
Mary-Susan Gregson (Stage Manager) has worked with Princeton’s Program in Dance 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 also 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.
Zachary Kapeluck (Stager) hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he received his early training at Southwest Ballet and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. He trained at The Juilliard School and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Summer Intensives, and in the summer of 2011, he worked as a guest artist with Mary Miller Dance in Pittsburgh in a project titled Confluence. He graduated with a BFA in Dance from Point Park University in 2013 and subsequently joined BalletX in Philadelphia that summer. He spent 9 years there, partaking in over 60 world premiere creations by choreographers including Matthew Neenan, Cayetano Soto, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Nicolo Fonte, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and many more. Zachary left BalletX in 2022 to pursue a new chapter in choreography and teaching.
Sun Kim (Guest Choreographer) is a founder/artistic director of Sun Kim Dance Theatre and a dance educator at Broadway Dance Center and Peridance Center. She has presented her works at New York Public Library for Performing Arts presented by Works and Process/Guggenheim and LayeRhythm, Jacob’s Pillow, Burning Man at Sotheby’s, New Victory Theater, San Francisco International Hip Hop Dance Festival, and Breakin’ Convention. Recently, she received The Emerging Artist Award from Harlem Stage Gala 2022 and was nominated for Outstanding Breakout Choreographer at 2022 New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards.
Rebecca Lazier (Faculty) is a choreographer and educator. Her upcoming project, Everywhere the Edges, a collaboration with visual artist Janet Echelman, was recently awarded Canada’s National Art Centre’s National Creation Fund Investment. The work began with major support from the Princeton Atelier Program and is in development with Halifax partners Live Art Dance, Mocean Dance, and Breaking Circus. 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. Rebecca 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 Program in Dance at Princeton.
Michael J. Love (Guest Choreographer/Princeton Arts Fellow) is an interdisciplinary tap dance artist, scholar, and educator whose embodied research intermixes Black queer feminist theory and aesthetics with a rigorous practice that critically engages the Black cultural past as it imagines Black futurity. His work has been supported and presented by Fusebox Festival and ARCOS Dance and his writing has been published in Choreographic Practices. Love has collaborated with film-based artist Ariel “Aryel” René Jackson on numerous video and performance projects, including We are the [Hackers], Baby, [Hackers] are we, their 2021 Tito’s Vodka Prize exhibition. Love’s performance credits include the Broadway laboratory for Savion Glover and George C. Wolfe’s Shuffle Along… and roles in works by Baakari Wilder. Love holds an M.F.A. in Performance as Public Practice from The University of Texas at Austin and is an alumnus of Emerson College. Visit Michael J. Love’s artist website
Susan Marshall (Faculty) is a choreographer whose dance group Susan Marshall & Company has performed extensively in theaters throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. She has collaborated with visual artists, scientists and composers, on large theater productions, gallery installations, films, and direction for opera, marching band and percussion ensemble. Her current project, Rhythm Bath, will be a suite of dance performance-installations created in collaboration with set designer Mimi Lien that investigates together with neurodiverse audience members what makes performance environments welcoming to them. Traditional performance-viewing rules often demand that audiences are seated, quiet and still—requirements that exclude many neurodiverse people as well as others. What if these rules were reimagined? It recently received funding from NEFA’s National Dance Project and The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Marshall is the recipient of three New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards and a MacArthur Fellowship. Marshall’s work has entered the repertory of major dance companies, including Nederlands Dans Theatre, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and Pacific Northwest Ballet. Commissions include dances for Lyon Opera Ballet, Ballet Frankfurt, Ballet Hispanico and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Mary Jo Mecca (Costume Design) is 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 Programs in Theater and Dance at Princeton University since 2009. She studied Couture Design with Miss Alice Sapho of Paris and New York.
Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener (Faculty) are New York-based dance artists. Their work involves the building of collaborative worlds through improvisational techniques, digital technologies, and material construction. They met as dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance company and since 2010 they have created over 25 multidisciplinary dance works including site-responsive installations, concert dances, gallery performances and dances for film. Riener is an alumnus of Princeton’s Program in Dance, Class of 2006. View Rashaun Silas Dance artist website
Caili Quan (Guest Choreographer) is a New York-based choreographer who danced with BalletX from 2013 to 2020. She has created works for BalletX, The Juilliard School, Vail Dance Festival, American Repertory Ballet, Flight Path Dance Project, Stars of American Ballet, Asbury Park Dance Festival, Oakland Ballet, Columbia Ballet Collaborative, and Ballet Academy East. She served as an Artistic Partnership Initiative Fellow and a Toulmin Creator at The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU. With BalletX she performed new works by Matthew Neenan, Nicolo Fonte, Gabrielle Lamb, Penny Saunders, Trey McIntyre, and danced at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Belgrade Dance Festival, and DEMO by Damian Woetzel at the Kennedy Center. Mahålang, a short documentary that wove familial conversations of her Chamorro Filipino upbringing on Guam with scenes from BalletX’s Love Letter, was shown at the Hawai’i International Film Festival, CAAMFest, and the Dance on Camera Festival at Lincoln Center. She also participated in New York Choreographic Institute’s 2022 Fall Session under the direction of Adrian Danchig-Waring, creating a work on dancers from New York City Ballet. Caili was one of the 2022 Artists-in-Residence at the Vail Dance Festival and is a Creative Associate at The Juilliard School. Learn more about Caili Quan
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 »
