P R O G R A M N O T E S

Douglas Dunn + Dancers

at FiveMyles in Crown Heights, NY

May 11, 2025

3:30-6:30pm

Choreography - Douglas Dunn Sound & Video Design - Jacob Burckhardt Poet - Lal Ensari Installation - Gibson + Recoder

Plus/Space installation (front room): FIVE MILES OF VHS TAPE

Sidewalk (in front of gallery): Vain Combat (2010)
Dancers: Jules Bakshi, Alexandra Berger, Tony Bordonaro, Emily Pope, Jin Ju Song-Begin, Timothy Ward

SpaceProgram (back room): Hesperides (Premiere)
Dancers: Janet Charleston, Grazia Della-Terza, Douglas Dunn, Vanessa Knouse, Kieran McBride, Dongri Suh

Collaborators

Douglas Dunn is a New York-based dancer and choreographer working since 1971. He was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1969 to 1973, and a founding member of Grand Union, the non-rehearsing troupe that rollicked from 1970 to 1976. Following his own duet, solo, and film work in the 1970s, he formed Douglas Dunn + Dancers in 1978, and in 1980 set Stravinsky’s Pulcinella on the Paris Opera Ballet. He is Board Member Emeritus of the New York City presenting organization Danspace Project. He likes to collaborate with poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, composers, and playwrights to offer a multifaceted theatrical experience. In 1998 he was awarded a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for Sustained Achievement, and in 2008 was honored by the French government as Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. While continuing to lead Douglas Dunn + Dancers, he teaches Open Structures at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and presents salons at his studio at 541 Broadway in Manhattan. His book of collected writings, Dancer Out of Sight, is available at amazon.com. douglasdunndance.com

All the while making underground movies, Jacob Burckhardt is also a photographer, sound designer and adjunct professor at the Pratt Institute. He has designed sound for several pieces by Douglas Dunn, and they are currently collaborating on a movie entitled Disappearances.

Lal Ensari (Tisch BFA) is a playful poet, performer and director dedicated to deep care and curiosity. Based in Istanbul and New York, her stage credits include Stories Will Not Mend This Broken World, Rager, and Archive, Winter Solstice. She’s grateful to share this experience with you.

DANCER BIOS

Vain Combat

Jules Bakshi has been dancing with Douglas Dunn & Dancers since 2010, and was the managing director of the company until 2018. She is the founder of GOOD MOVE,  a dance and mindful fitness studio for movers of all levels genders shapes and sizes, in Williamsburg, BK.  Her own choreographic works have been performed live at NYC venues including the 92nd St Y, The Brooklyn Museum, The National Academy Museum, and National Sawdust (with madame Gandhi), and she has choreographed music videos for recording artists like the late Mac Miller, Matt and Kim, Muscle Memory, and Chiara Angelicola. She has danced, taught, and toured with Pilobolus, Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, and others. 

As a dancer, Alexandra Berger has worked professionally in New York since completing her BFA at The New School in 2003. She has had the privilege of dancing for and with, among others, Pat Catterson, Ellen Cornfield, Merce Cunningham (RUG 2007), Douglas Dunn, Rachel Monosov (Venice Biennale 2017), Roz Newman, Sally Silvers, Dǔsan Týnek, Vanessa Walters, and Matthew Westerby. Huffington Post named her performance in Týnek’s Logbook as one of the best performances of 2016, and she has had the privilege of touring to myriad venues throughout the U.S. and abroad. She has been a member of the faculty for adult classes at the Mark Morris Dance Center since 2007 and is also an authorized teacher of Cunningham Technique® with the Cunningham Trust. A certified practitioner of the Gyrotonic Expansion System® since 2005, Alexandra earned her MSW from Fordham GSS in 2023 and is licensed in New York State. Her time at Fordham included internships with AHRC/NYC and the United Nations. With interests varying from military and indigenous populations to dancers and elite athletes, as well as the many-layered impacts of climate change, Alexandra is most drawn to our shared human experience. She continues to investigate how the arts can intersect with other fields to improve our systems for a healthier and more inclusive society. With gratitude for Douglas's continued trust in her dancing, www.fullcirclebk.com

Tony Bordonaro is a New York City-based choreographer, director, and performer. As one half of the creative duo behind Welcome to Campfire, alongside his partner Ingrid Kapteyn, Tony merges dance and theatre to craft immersive, sci-fi productions centered on intimate human connections. Tony is a contributing choreographer and an original cast member of Life and Trust, an immersive theatre experience from the producers of Sleep No More, currently running in Manhattan’s Financial District. As a performer, Tony starred in the Off- Broadway sensation Sleep No More from 2011 to 2016 and was part of the original casts of immersive shows The Unbrunch, The Lost Supper, and Sleep No More, Shanghai. His screen credits include appearances in commercials, television (including One Life to Live and American Horror Story: Season 12), and films (Mo, Manhattan Romance). Tony’s company work includes collaborations with HT Chen & Dancers, Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, and Douglas Dunn & Dancers. He is also a founding member of 10HL. His choreographic work for video includes RAT, directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson, the Oscar®-winning student film Opera of Cruelty, as well as music videos and commercials for brands like OPPO (documentary ad “Bring Creativity to Reality”) and WOM. He has been recognized with choreographic residencies and fellowships through the Mare Nostrum Elements Emerging Choreographers Series and the New Steps Emerging Choreographers Series. As an educator, Tony has taught master classes at numerous studios and universities, served as a Part-Time Lecturer at Rutgers University, and was an Adjunct Faculty member at Long Island University. Most recently, he was awarded the New Directions Choreographers Fellowship at The Alley School, where he taught and set work on students in the spring. For more information, visit WelcometoCampfire.com. @tonybordonaro3

Emily Pope (she/they) is a New York based dance performer, choreographer, and videographer. She received a “Bessie” for Outstanding Performer in 2020. They currently work with Yoshiko Chuma, Douglas Dunn, Tamar Rogoff, Hilary Easton, and Tiffany Mills. She created HoverBound Productions in 2006, and their work was nominated for The Yard’s Residency in 2011.

Jin Ju Song-Begin is a choreographer, dancer, and dance teacher from Seoul, South Korea, whose work has been presented internationally in Korea, Japan, Singapore, and the U.S. Since moving to New York in 2010, her work has been shown in many venues in NYC. In 2012, she founded her dance company, Da-On Dance. In 2021, she created the dance film Bubble as part of the StuffedArts residency at Judson Church, and she was recently chosen to participate in the Rauschenberg Residency. She has danced for Tere O’Connor, Keith Thompson, Emily Berry, and Daniel Roberts and she participated in Joan Jonas’s Mirror Piece I & II (1969/2024) at MoMA. Currently she dances in NYC with Douglas Dunn + Dancers, Seán Curran Company, Cornfield Dance, Netta Yerushalmy and Big Dance Theater. Also, she’s starting at The Metropolitan Opera this season.

Timothy Ward grew up in Abita Springs, Louisiana, graduated high school at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and subsequently earned a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School. Tim was a final member of the Merce Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group from 2008-2011. During and since that time he has danced the work of over 30 different choreographers, working for extended periods with Pat Catterson, Molissa Fenley, Dǔsan Týnek, Tze Chun, Mary Seidman, Young Soon Kim, Alison Cook Beatty, Fadi J Koury, Julia Gleich and Yvonne Rainer. Tim worked on smaller projects with Wendy Osserman, Cori Kresge, Judith Moss, Lucie Baker, Carlye Eckert, Elizabeth Keen, Igal Perry, Sidra Bell, Jules Bakshi, Kira B-Z, Isabella Bruno, Brynt Beitman, Donna Salgado, Bo Pressly, Lily Baldwin, John Zurek, Gallim Dance, Mark Morris Dance Group, The Brooklyn Ballet and New York Theater Ballet. Tim teaches Cunningham Technique intermittently for the Cunningham Trust and at 100 Grand studio. He also teaches ballet at Good Move studio. Photographs of Tim are featured in Remembering a Dance: Parts of Some Sextets, 1965/2019 by Yvonne Rainer, Emily Coates, and Nick Mauss. Tim has danced with Douglas since 2008.

Hesperides

Janet Charleston first joined DD+D in 1993; she works with the company as Dancer, Rehearsal Director, and Company Manager. She also danced with the Lucinda Childs Dance Company for many years and performed in the second world tour of Einstein on the Beach. She currently dances with DD+D, Baye & Asa, and Christopher Williams, and looks forward to performing this year in the works of Hilary Easton, and Megan Williams. She has worked with an array of other artists including Stanley & Alec Knight, Chamecki/Lerner, Kota Yamazaki, David Parker, RoseAnne Spradlin, Stephen Koester, June Finch, Leslie Satin and Beverly Blossom. Invited by Merce Cunningham to teach at his studio in 2001, she currently teaches for the Cunningham Trust, Mark Morris Dance Center and Sarah Lawrence College. She is on faculty for the Cunningham Technique® Teacher Training Program. Other teaching engagements have included Barnard College, SUNY Purchase, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, the University of Illinois, the University of Kansas, the Joffrey Jazz and Contemporary Trainee Program, SEAD (Salzburg, Austria), and El Centro Cultural Los Talleres (Mexico City). Charleston has also enjoyed teaching yoga and movement for children and the elderly. Her choreographic work has been presented at venues in New York City, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Arizona, and South America. A Fulbright Scholar in Santiago, Chile in 2008, she subsequently served as Peer Reviewer in Dance for the Fulbright organization. She holds an MFA from the University of Illinois, C-U.

Grazia Della-Terza first danced with Douglas Dunn + Dancers in 1980. She has also danced in the works of Susan Dibble, Christopher Williams, Yoshiko Chuma, Anneliese Widman, Associated Solo Artists, The Court Dance Company of New York, Renée Wadleigh, Paul Thompson, Jim Self, Ohad Naharin, Philip Grosser, Mel Wong, Kazuko Hirabayashi, Martha Armstrong Gray, and Anna Sokolow and Martha Graham while at SUNY Purchase. Della-Terza has taught and practiced Shiatsu for many years.

Vanessa Knouse is a dance artist based in New York City. Originally from Santa Fe NM, she trained at the School of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet before earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Vanessa has performed work with the Merce Cunningham Trust, Cornfield Dance, Graham Cole Dance, Bill Young/Colleen Thomas & Co., Garnet Henderson, Ian Spencer Bell, Douglas Dunn + Dancers, Susan Marshall Dance and Jody Oberfelder Projects. Vanessa has been a guest teaching artist at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Nightingale Bamford School, New Mexico School for the Arts, Southern Vermont Dance Festival and Dewitt Clinton High School. She worked with Kimberly Bartosik/daela as her rehearsal assistant and has assisted Patricia Lent in staging event versions of Merce Cunningham's work. vanessaknouse.com

Kieran McBride is a dance artist based in New York City. Kieran received her early training in Northern New Jersey under Leath Nunn and later went on to train at The Royal Danish Ballet School, and Gelsey Kirkland’s Academy. Throughout her training she has been fortunate to work under the incredible mentorship and tutelage of legendary teachers such as Gelsey Kirkland, Patricia McBride, Diana Byer, and Magaly Suarez. Kieran has performed a variety of works both classical and contemporary with companies such as American Repertory Ballet, South Carolina Ballet, and New York Theatre Ballet. Thus far in her career she has had the opportunity to perform in works by Merce Cunningham, Douglas Dunn, Antony Tudor, Pam Tanowitz, Agnes DeMille, Kirk Peterson, Gabrielle Lamb, and many more. In addition to her work with classical ballet and contemporary dance, she also performs Mexican Folklorico dance with Ballet Nepantla as a guest artist. 

Dongri Suh is a first year graduate student in NYU Steinhardt’s Dance Education program, pursuing a degree in ABT Pedagogy track. She graduated undergrad in Seoul Korea, Ewha Womens University BFA in contemprary dance. She had the opportunity to join Black Toe, a renowned dance company in Korea, where she actively contributed as a performer.  She looks forward to continuing her journey as both a performer and educator, with the goal of inspiring the next generation of dancers.

* * * * *

Douglas Dunn + Dancers wishes to acknowledge the generous support from

THE HARKNESS FOUNDATION FOR DANCE

* THANK YOU *

L'Embarquement pour Cythère

February 26 - March 1, 2025, 8 PM

Judson Memorial Church, NYC

Choreography by Douglas Dunn

Original Score by Jerome Begin

Poetry by Anne Waldman

Anne Waldman’s escorts - Grazia Della-Terza and Douglas Dunn

Set & Costume Design by Mimi Gross

Costume & Prop Fabrication by David Quinn, Sue Julien, Ava Burckhardt and Mike Levy

Lighting by Miriam Nilofa Crowe

Music by String Noise & Jerome Begin

DANCERS

Jules Bakshi, Alexandra Berger, Dwayne Brown, Janet Charleston, Vanessa Knouse, Kieran McBride, Emily Pope, Deniz Erkan Sancak, Jin Ju Song-Begin, Timothy Ward, Christopher Williams, Mark Willis, and Arthur “Trace” Yeames

Collaborators

Douglas Dunn is a New York-based dancer and choreographer working since 1971. He was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1969 to 1973, and a founding member of Grand Union, the non-rehearsing troupe that rollicked from 1970 to 1976. Following his own duet, solo, and film work in the 1970s, he formed Douglas Dunn + Dancers in 1978, and in 1980 set Stravinsky’s Pulcinella on the Paris Opera Ballet. He is Board Member Emeritus of the New York City presenting organization Danspace Project. He likes to collaborate with poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, composers, and playwrights to offer a multifaceted theatrical experience. In 1998 he was awarded a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for Sustained Achievement, and in 2008 was honored by the French government as Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. While continuing to lead Douglas Dunn + Dancers, he teaches Open Structures at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and presents salons at his studio at 541 Broadway in Manhattan. His book of collected writings, Dancer Out of Sight, is available at amazon.com. douglasdunndance.com

Called a “fabulous composer-pianist” and an “unimpeachable” choice of collaborator by The New York Times, Jerome Begin has composed many scores for dance, theater, concert works, installation, and film. Equally at home in the classical, experimental, theatrical, and pop worlds, he has always been drawn to collaboration. Begin’s recent works have incorporated extensive use of electronics to process and augment the sound of acoustic instruments. His vast experience composing in the dance and theater realms has lent to his music a deep understanding of the dynamics of live performance. He writes with a keen consciousness of the inherent theater present in the making of music. Begin’s works have been performed throughout the USA, Europe, and Asia. Commissions include Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Abraham in Motion, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Brian Brooks Moving Company, and many others. He is currently on the faculty of The Juilliard School. jeromebegin.com

Miriam Nilofa Crowe (Lighting Designer). Recent work includes Where Shall I Send My Joys? (Fly-by-Night Dance Theater), Earths to Come (BAC), playtem tsuzamen (Josh Waletzky), All of Me (Barrington Stage), Kennedy (film version and Off-Broadway),Teenage Dick (Ma Yi +The Public), Trial by Jury (Bronx Opera), Sanctuary (Lindsey Hanson Dance), Stop-Motion, Mirrors and Charlie’s Waiting (Parity Productions), Hurricane Party (The Collective NY), SeagullMachine and home/sick (The Assembly),This is Modern Art and Platonov (Blessed Unrest), Anna (Dǔsan Týnek), PS 160 (Gabrielle Mertz), 6 Characters… (Theodora Skipitares), 2Hymnvb (Anneke Hansen),The Penalty (The Apothetae), Medea (Bryan Davidson Blue), and Symphony for the Dance Floor (BAM). She recently produced a short film, Bigby’s Dead Bunny (Brown Brick Manifestations). She has an MFA from Yale School of Drama and is an Adjunct at Lehman College CUNY and NYU Tisch Drama.  www.wingspace.com/miriam

Mimi Gross is a painter, set and costume designer, and teacher. Working in a variety of media, she has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work is in numerous significant public and private collections, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Brooklyn Museum, the Jewish Museum, le Musée des Art Decoratifs in Paris, the Nagoya Museum of Art, the Onasch Collection in Berlin, the Lannan Foundation, and the Minneapolis Museum of Art, as well as the Fukuoko Bank in Japan, and New York’s Bellevue Hospital. Gross is the recipient of countless awards and grants including from the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for Visual Arts, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award for sets and costumes. Recent exhibitions include North Norwegian Art Centre, Solvaer, Lofoten Islands, Norway, late spring/summer 2023. Gross gratefully received the Emily Harvey Foundation residence in Venice, 2024. Her teaching engagements include the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), the Art Institute of Chicago, RISD, and SUNY Purchase. She has collaborated with Douglas Dunn + Dancers since 1979, making sets and/or costumes for more than 25 of Dunn’s dances. Currently she is non-exclusively represented by Eric Firestone Gallery in New York.

String Noise, New York’s most daring violin duo, is composed of violinists Conrad Harris and Pauline Kim Harris. Recognized for their distinct blend of disparate genres, from arrangements of songs by punk legends to conceptual minimalist treatises by Alvin Lucier, they have expanded their repertoire with over 50 new works since their debut at Ostrava New Music Days in 2011. Nearly a decade later, they continue to break down the boundaries of traditional expectations and inspire innovative compositions, displaying formidable virtuosity, integrating multimedia art, electronics, improvisation, video projections, opera, and dance. Premieres by String Noise include works by George Lewis, Christian Wolff, Michael Byron, David Behrman, Alvin Lucier, John King, Phill Niblock, Caleb Burhans, Catherine Lamb, David Lang, Petr Kotik, Du Yun, Annie Gosfield, Bernhard Lang, John Zorn, Greg Saunier, Alex Mincek, Tyondai Braxton, James Ilgenfritz, Richard Carrick, and others. String Noise has recorded for Northern Spy Records, Dymaxion Groove, Black Truffle Records, Cold Blue Records, New Focus Recordings, Infrequent Seams, and Nouveau Electric Records and has been featured on WNYC, WKCR, WFMU and BBC Radio.

Poet, professor, performer, librettist, curator, and cultural activist Anne Waldman is the author of over 70 volumes of poetry, poetics and anthologies including The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in The Mechanism of Concealment (Coffee House Press) which won the Pen Center Literary Prize. Penguin has published her books over many years, including Trickster Feminism, among five others. Her album SCIAMACHY was released in 2020 by Fast Speaking Music and has been described by Patti Smith as “exquisitely potent, a psychic shield for our times.” Waldman was arrested at Rocky Flats with Daniel Ellsberg and Allen Ginsberg in the 1970s, reading poems that challenged deliveries of plutonium for the manufacturing of pits for nuclear warheads. She was part of protests during the Vietnam War and at the Chicago Seven trial, and has participated in current doings of counter-cultural/political intervention in subsequent times, such as Occupy Wall Street. She works with the Rizoma collective in Mexico City. Waldman co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics program at Naropa University with Allen Ginsberg and Diane di Prima which will have its 50th Anniversary celebration at the Summer Writing Program session in Boulder in June 2025. Waldman was the keynote speaker for the Bob Dylan and the Beats Conference in Tulsa in the Spring of 2022, and wrote the libretto for the critically acclaimed Grammy nominated (2024) opera/movie Black Lodge with music by composer David T. Little that premiered at Opera Philadelphia. Publishers Weekly has called Anne Waldman a “counter-cultural giant.” Waldman is most recently the author of The Velvet Wire with No Land (Granary Press), Bard, Kinetic (Coffee House Press), and Rues du monde / Streets of the World, (Apic Press in Algeria, with translations into French by Pierre Joris & Nicole Peyrafitte), and co-editor with Emma Gomis of New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archive (Nightboat). She has worked with Douglas Dunn on many projects, performative and literary, for many years, including The Secret Of The Waterfall, Tanks Under Trees, and the book Quantum’s Wing, forthcoming from Grenfull Press, 2025. She recently co-curated The Video Work of Ed Bowes: Language and Light, for Anthology Film Archives. OUTRIDER, a film on and about Anne Waldman by Alystyre Julian, will be premiered in 2025, produced by Sarah Riggs and Executive Producer Martin Scorcese. Also forthcoming are Archivist Scissors (from Staircase) and a new epic volume, Mesopotopia, (from Penguin) in 2025. From the Poetry Foundation (Chicago) review of Waldman’s Bard, Kinetic: “Waldman is one of the most important and irreducible living American poets.”- Nick Sturm. http://www.annewaldman.org/ 

DANCERS

Jules Bakshi has been dancing with Douglas Dunn & Dancers since 2010, and was the managing director of the company until 2018. She is the founder of GOOD MOVE,  a dance and mindful fitness studio for movers of all levels genders shapes and sizes, in Williamsburg, BK.  Her own choreographic works have been performed live at NYC venues including the 92nd St Y, The Brooklyn Museum, The National Academy Museum, and National Sawdust (with madame Gandhi), and she has choreographed music videos for recording artists like the late Mac Miller, Matt and Kim, Muscle Memory, and Chiara Angelicola. She has danced, taught, and toured with Pilobolus, Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, and others. 

As a dancer, Alexandra Berger has worked professionally in New York since completing her BFA at The New School in 2003. She has had the privilege of dancing for and with, among others, Pat Catterson, Ellen Cornfield, Merce Cunningham (RUG 2007), Douglas Dunn, Rachel Monosov (Venice Biennale 2017), Roz Newman, Sally Silvers, Dǔsan Týnek, Vanessa Walters, and Matthew Westerby. Huffington Post named her performance in Týnek’s Logbook as one of the best performances of 2016, and she has had the privilege of touring to myriad venues throughout the U.S. and abroad. She has been a member of the faculty for adult classes at the Mark Morris Dance Center since 2007 and is also an authorized teacher of Cunningham Technique® with the Cunningham Trust. A certified practitioner of the Gyrotonic Expansion System® since 2005, Alexandra earned her MSW from Fordham GSS in 2023 and is licensed in New York State. Her time at Fordham included internships with AHRC/NYC and the United Nations. With interests varying from military and indigenous populations to dancers and elite athletes, as well as the many-layered impacts of climate change, Alexandra is most drawn to our shared human experience. She continues to investigate how the arts can intersect with other fields to improve our systems for a healthier and more inclusive society. With gratitude for Douglas's continued trust in her dancing, www.fullcirclebk.com

Dwayne Brown is a native New Yorker. He trained at The Ailey School, The School of American Ballet, and received a B.A. in Psychology from Vassar College. As a professional dancer and performer his credits include: (Theatre/Stage) The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, The Kennedy Center, Lyric Opera Chicago (Soloist), Carnegie Hall (Principal); (TV/ Film) She Came To Me (Round Films), At Home With Amy Sedaris (TruTV), The Get Down (Netflix), NYC Summer (FX), Great Performances at The Met (PBS); (Commercial) NYFW, Mount Gay Rum, Stadium Goods, The Consistency Project; (Modern Dance) Bill T. Jones/AZ Co., Ralph Lemon, Kevin Beasley, Sean Curran, Reggie Wilson, and Douglas Dunn. Recent credits include: Le Prophète at The Fisher Center and MoMA PS1. Upcoming: Aida at The Metropolitan Opera and Skirball with Sean Curran Company. He is represented by Clear Talent Group. In addition to work as a performing artist, Dwayne is a Teaching Artist for New Victory and DreamYard Project, Inc. He is also the Stage Manager for ArtBath NYC, an immersive performance salon series at the historic Blue Building.

Janet Charleston first joined DD+D in 1993; she works with the company as Dancer, Rehearsal Director, and Company Manager. She also danced with the Lucinda Childs Dance Company for many years and performed in the second world tour of Einstein on the Beach. She currently dances with DD+D, Baye & Asa, and Christopher Williams, and looks forward to performing this year in the works of Hilary Easton, and Megan Williams. She has worked with an array of other artists including Stanley & Alec Knight, Chamecki/Lerner, Kota Yamazaki, David Parker, RoseAnne Spradlin, Stephen Koester, June Finch, Leslie Satin and Beverly Blossom. Invited by Merce Cunningham to teach at his studio in 2001, she currently teaches for the Cunningham Trust, Mark Morris Dance Center and Sarah Lawrence College. She is on faculty for the Cunningham Technique® Teacher Training Program. Other teaching engagements have included Barnard College, SUNY Purchase, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, the University of Illinois, the University of Kansas, the Joffrey Jazz and Contemporary Trainee Program, SEAD (Salzburg, Austria), and El Centro Cultural Los Talleres (Mexico City). Charleston has also enjoyed teaching yoga and movement for children and the elderly. Her choreographic work has been presented at venues in New York City, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Arizona, and South America. A Fulbright Scholar in Santiago, Chile in 2008, she subsequently served as Peer Reviewer in Dance for the Fulbright organization. She holds an MFA from the University of Illinois, C-U.

Vanessa Knouse is a dance artist based in New York City. Originally from Santa Fe NM, she trained at the School of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet before earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Vanessa has performed work with the Merce Cunningham Trust, Cornfield Dance, Graham Cole Dance, Bill Young/Colleen Thomas & Co., Garnet Henderson, Ian Spencer Bell, Douglas Dunn + Dancers, Susan Marshall Dance and Jody Oberfelder Projects. Vanessa has been a guest teaching artist at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Nightingale Bamford School, New Mexico School for the Arts, Southern Vermont Dance Festival and Dewitt Clinton High School. She worked with Kimberly Bartosik/daela as her rehearsal assistant and has assisted Patricia Lent in staging event versions of Merce Cunningham's work. vanessaknouse.com

Kieran McBride (understudy) is a dance artist based in New York City. Kieran received her early training in Northern New Jersey under Leath Nunn and later went on to train at The Royal Danish Ballet School, and Gelsey Kirkland’s Academy. Throughout her training she has been fortunate to work under the incredible mentorship and tutelage of legendary teachers such as Gelsey Kirkland, Patricia McBride, Diana Byer, and Magaly Suarez. Kieran has performed a variety of works both classical and contemporary with companies such as American Repertory Ballet, South Carolina Ballet, and New York Theatre Ballet. Thus far in her career she has had the opportunity to perform in works by Merce Cunningham, Douglas Dunn, Antony Tudor, Pam Tanowitz, Agnes DeMille, Kirk Peterson, Gabrielle Lamb, and many more. In addition to her work with classical ballet and contemporary dance, she also performs Mexican Folklorico dance with Ballet Nepantla as a guest artist. 

Emily Pope (she/they) is a New York based dance performer, choreographer, and videographer. She received a “Bessie” for Outstanding Performer in 2020. They currently work with Yoshiko Chuma, Douglas Dunn, Tamar Rogoff, Hilary Easton, and Tiffany Mills. She created HoverBound Productions in 2006, and their work was nominated for The Yard’s Residency in 2011.

Deniz Erkan Sancak began dancing with the National Team of Turkiye for Latin American Dance sports and went on to receive full scholarships to study dance at Purchase College, SUNY. Deniz has worked with companies including Tatbikat Theatre, Opera Ballet Ankara, Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, Wonderbound (Ballet Nouveau Colorado) and Mark Morris Dance Group. Currently, he works with The Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Stephen Petronio Company, Liz Gerring, Douglas Dunn, Yoshiko Chuma, Christopher Williams, Ellen Cornfield and Emily Pope.

Jin Ju Song-Begin is a choreographer, dancer, and dance teacher from Seoul, South Korea, whose work has been presented internationally in Korea, Japan, Singapore, and the U.S. Since moving to New York in 2010, her work has been shown in many venues in NYC. In 2012, she founded her dance company, Da-On Dance. In 2021, she created the dance film Bubble as part of the StuffedArts residency at Judson Church, and she was recently chosen to participate in the Rauschenberg Residency. She has danced for Tere O’Connor, Keith Thompson, Emily Berry, and Daniel Roberts and she participated in Joan Jonas’s Mirror Piece I & II (1969/2024) at MoMA. Currently she dances in NYC with Douglas Dunn + Dancers, Seán Curran Company, Cornfield Dance, Netta Yerushalmy and Big Dance Theater. Also, she’s starting at The Metropolitan Opera this season.

Timothy Ward grew up in Abita Springs, Louisiana, graduated high school at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and subsequently earned a BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School. Tim was a final member of the Merce Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group from 2008-2011. During and since that time he has danced the work of over 30 different choreographers, working for extended periods with Pat Catterson, Molissa Fenley, Dǔsan Týnek, Tze Chun, Mary Seidman, Young Soon Kim, Alison Cook Beatty, Fadi J Koury, Julia Gleich and Yvonne Rainer. Tim worked on smaller projects with Wendy Osserman, Cori Kresge, Judith Moss, Lucie Baker, Carlye Eckert, Elizabeth Keen, Igal Perry, Sidra Bell, Jules Bakshi, Kira B-Z, Isabella Bruno, Brynt Beitman, Donna Salgado, Bo Pressly, Lily Baldwin, John Zurek, Gallim Dance, Mark Morris Dance Group, The Brooklyn Ballet and New York Theater Ballet. Tim teaches Cunningham Technique intermittently for the Cunningham Trust and at 100 Grand studio. He also teaches ballet at Good Move studio. Photographs of Tim are featured in Remembering a Dance: Parts of Some Sextets, 1965/2019 by Yvonne Rainer, Emily Coates, and Nick Mauss. Tim has danced with Douglas since 2008.

Named a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in choreography, Christopher Williams is a critically acclaimed NY Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award-winning choreographer, dancer, and puppet artist working in New York City and abroad since 1999. He holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, and has performed for Tere O’Connor, Rebecca Lazier, Yoshiko Chuma, John Kelly, Dan Hurlin, Basil Twist, and Peter Sellars, among many others. He has had the honor of dancing for Douglas Dunn + Dancers since 2000.

Mark Willis is a NYC-based dance artist, educator, choreographer and musician. He has graced both national and international stages as a principal dancer with the José Limón Dance Company and White Wave Dance Company, performing at prestigious venues such as Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Jacob's Pillow and Asia Cultural Center (South Korea). A graduate of Montclair State University with a B.F.A. in Dance, Mark’s influence extends globally with teaching and performance credits across five continents. He has taught for institutions such as The José Limón Dance Foundation, Montclair State University, Seoul Tanz Studio, Broadway Dance Center and more. In addition to dance, Mark is a certified personal trainer (NASM) and currently teaches at NYC’s premier barre studio, Physique 57. 

Arthur “Trace” Yeames is honored to be returning to work with Douglas Dunn + Dancers. He recently worked with Petra Zanki in her piece, Till it Tear Us Apart. Trace spent two years in London earning his MFA from The London Contemporary Dance School/University of Kent, while performing with EDGE Dance Company. He received his BFA in Contemporary Dance from University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) and previously graduated from UNCSA High School, studying classical ballet. Trace was a trainee at Charlotte Ballet and performed with Ballet Hawaii. The artist in Trace believes in connection, storytelling, community, exploration, and healing. 

 + + +

DOUGLAS DUNN + DANCERS

Douglas Dunn: Artistic Director

Janet Charleston: Company Manager & Rehearsal Director

Sandra Gibson: Company Archivist

Grazia Della-Terza: Company Historian

Jacob Burckhardt: Videographer

Janet Stapleton: Press Representative

Douglas Dunn + Dancers Board Members

Elizabeth Powers, Elena Alexander, Isabel Roberts

Douglas, and the members of the Douglas Dunn + Dancers, are altogether grateful to all the donors for their generous finanical support and sustained interest in the work. A full list of donors can be found HERE.

Basic text or performance unedited not for publication and parts of AW performance/vocalizing are also improvised.

Copyright AW 2025

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COLLABORATORS

Douglas Dunn is a New York-based dancer and choreographer working since 1971. He was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1969 to 1973, and a founding member of Grand Union, the non-rehearsing troupe that rollicked from 1970 to 1976. Following his own duet, solo, and film work in the 1970s, he formed Douglas Dunn + Dancers in 1978, and in 1980 set Stravinsky’s Pulcinella on the Paris Opera Ballet. He is Board Member Emeritus of the New York City presenting organization Danspace Project. He likes to collaborate with poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, composers and playwrights to offer a multifaceted theatrical experience. In 1998 he was awarded a NY Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for Sustained Achievement, and in 2008 was honored by the French government as Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. While continuing to lead Douglas Dunn + Dancers, he teaches Open Structures at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and presents salons at his studio at 541 Broadway in Manhattan. His book of collected writings, Dancer Out of Sight, is available at amazon.com.

Mimi Gross is a painter, set and costume designer, and teacher. Working in a variety of media, she has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her work is in numerous significant public and private collections, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Brooklyn Museum, the Jewish Museum, le Musée des Art Decoratifs in Paris, the Nagoya Museum of Art, the Onasch Collection in Berlin, and the Lannan Foundation, as well as the Fukuoko Bank in Japan, and New York’s Bellevue Hospital. The Minneapolis Museum of Art recently acquired several works. Gross is the recipient of countless awards and grants including from the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for Visual Arts, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a “Bessie” for sets and costumes. She has collaborated with Douglas Dunn + Dancers since 1979, making sets and/or costumes for more than 25 of Dunn's dances. Currently she is non-exclusively represented by Eric Firestone Gallery in New York. Summer exhibition: North Norwegian Art Centre, Svolvaer, Lofoten Islands, Norway, late spring/summer 2023. Gross will be represented at The Armory Show at the Javits Center September 8-10, 2023, at the Eric Firestone Gallery booth.

Lauren Parrish is a lighting and projection designer who has created designs for companies such as Ailey II, American Repertory Ballet, Flux Theater Ensemble, Keigwin + Company, Loni Landon Dance, Megan Williams Dance Project, The New York Neo-Futurists, TAKE Dance, and Teatro SEA. Finding flexibility and inspiration in the limitations of space and time, Parrish!s work is founded on the concept that collaboration that respects everyone in the room and the audience is key to making the best art possible. She is currently the associate director of production at Abrons Arts Center and lives in the Bronx.

All the while making underground movies, Jacob Burckhardt has worked at a variety of jobs: Blueberry picker, Steel Mill laborer, grape harvester, Fuller Brush man, Truck driver, Taxi driver, camera repairman, adjunct professor and sound engineer. He did sound recording and mixing from North Africa to the porn industry. After making two features, he went back to making shorts, in film and video, where it is possible to preserve a direct relationship between the film and the film maker. He enjoys collaborating with Douglas, and they are currently shooting a movie called "Disappearances.”

Tosh Sheridan is a guitarist and composer working and living in New York since 1998. Tosh earned his Bachelors of Arts degree in Jazz Composition from Berklee College of Music in 1998. In 2004, he went on to earn his Masters in Jazz Performance from City College of New York. While at City College, Tosh studied with the world-renowned solo jazz guitarist Gene Bertoncini. Tosh has been performing throughout the tri-state area since the age of 16 when he first started playing guitar. Tosh has released three CDs under his own name ranging in styles from solo jazz guitar to roots rock. He also has been working as a producer and engineer at One Soul Studio since 2013.

Sue Julien is a visual artist and costumer. She has created costumes for Esmé Boyce Dance, choreographer Yara Travieso, Douglas Dunn + Dancers, Catherine Tharin Dance, Satellite Collective, Janis Brenner & Dancers and the singer Grace Weber. Ms. Julien received a BFA in Painting from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA in Painting from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her artwork has been exhibited in galleries in Brooklyn and Chicago as well as Brown University, The Art Institute of Chicago and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for an Individual Artist, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for an Individual Artist. www.suejulien.com

David Quinn is a fashion and costume designer working in a variety of mediums from theater and dance to burlesque and red carpet gowns. Quinn has designed dance costumes in collaboration with countless NYC based choreographers and soloists including, The Martha Graham Company, Merce Cunningham, and Stanley Love. These collaborations have been presented at The Kitchen, New York Live Arts, Judson Church, The Whitney, The Guggenheim, and many other notable venues and art spaces. Dance View Times said,”Quinn is cutting and draping and coloring the most beautiful dance costumes to be found in New York.” Quinn!s theater work has appeared in numerous traditional and non- traditional venues across America and internationally. One of Quinns longest collaborations is with dancer and burlesque star Dirty Martini. Quinns work has appeared in many publications including The New York Times and Art Forum and has been immortalized in several books and films.Follow on Instagram @quinndustry

DANCERS

After many years studying classical ballet, Alexandra Berger finally found herself within modern dance vocabulary. Working professionally in New York since 2003, Berger has had the privilege of dancing for, among others, Pat Catterson, Merce Cunningham (RUG 2007), Douglas Dunn, Matthew Mohr, Roz Newman, Sally Silvers, Dǔsan Týnek, and Matthew Westerby. In addition to dancing, Berger ascribes to the Gyrotonic Expansion System® through the lineage of Juergen Bamberger and Hilary Cartwright, teaching at Fluid Fitness in Manhattan and privately in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Berger holds a BFA from The New School and is currently pursuing an MSW through Fordham University, interning this year with the United Nations. She has had the honor of dancing with Douglas Dunn + Dancers since the fall 2013.

Janet Charleston joined DD+D in 1993; she continues to work with the Company as dancer, rehearsal director and company manager. She danced with the Lucinda Childs Dance Company for many years and performed in the 1992 world tour of Einstein on the Beach. Other artists she has worked with include Christopher Williams (currently), Chamecki/Lerner, Kota Yamazaki, David Parker, RoseAnne Spradlin, Stephen Koester, June Finch, Leslie Satin and Beverly Blossom. Invited to teach by Merce Cunningham at his studio in 2001, she is currently on faculty for the Merce Cunningham Trust, teaching open classes and in the Trust’s Teacher Trainee program. Other teaching engagements have included Sarah Lawrence College, Barnard College, SUNY Purchase, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, University of Illinois, the Joffrey Jazz and Contemporary Trainee Program, SEAD (Salzburg, Austria), and El Centro Cultural Los Talleres (Mexico City). Charleston has also enjoyed teaching yoga and movement for children and the elderly. Her choreography has been presented at venues in New York City, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Arizona, and South America. A Fulbright Scholar in Santiago, Chile in 2008, she subsequently served as Peer Reviewer in Dance for the Fulbright organization. She holds an MFA from the University of Illinois, C-U.

Grazia Della-Terza first danced with Douglas Dunn + Dancers in 1980. She has also danced in the works of Susan Dibble, Christopher Williams, Yoshiko Chuma, Anneliese Widman, Associated Solo Artists, The Court Dance Company of New York, Renée Wadleigh, Paul Thompson, Jim Self, Ohad Naharin, Philip Grosser, Mel Wong, Kazuko Hirabayashi, Martha Armstrong Gray, and Anna Sokolow and Martha Graham while at SUNY Purchase. Della-Terza has taught and practiced Shiatsu for many years.

Originally from the Chicago area, Eve Jacobs is a dance artist based in NYC. Training early on at Dance Center Evanston, she completed high school at North Carolina School of the Arts. Eve earned her BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School, where she held a Gluck Community Service Fellowship and was awarded upon graduation the Hector Zaraspe Prize for Choreography. She was a member of Jessica Lang Dance from 2015-2019, performing in over 75 cities across six countries and in productions at The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. Recently, Eve made her Metropolitan Opera debut as a dancer in Wagner’s Lohengrin and Der Fliegende Holländer. She has also appeared in productions with Washington National Opera, The Merce Cunningham Trust, and Cornfield Dance. Jacobs has choreographed for dance, theater, and film, including commissions for Columbia Ballet Collaborative and Shakespeare’s Richard III at Fourth Street Theater. In 2022, her choreography was featured at the Tribeca Film Festival in a 3D-animation short for JuVee Productions & Verizon. Eve’s work as a teaching artist for New York City Ballet has led her to public schools in Brooklyn, The Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens, bringing dance education programs to young people. In addition, she has served on the faculty of both DeSales University and Hunter College, where she is completing her MFA in Dance.

Vanessa Knouse is a dance artist based in New York City. Originally from Santa Fe NM, she trained at the School of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet before earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Vanessa has performed work with the Merce Cunningham Trust, Cornfield Dance, Graham Cole Dance, Bill Young/Colleen Thomas & Co., Garnet Henderson, Ian Spencer Bell, Douglas Dunn + Dancers, Susan Marshall Dance and Jody Oberfelder Projects. Vanessa has been a guest teaching artist at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Nightingale Bamford School, New Mexico School for the Arts, Southern Vermont Dance Festival and Dewitt Clinton Highschool. She worked with Kimberly Bartosik/daela as her rehearsal assistant and has assisted Patricia Lent in staging event versions of Merce Cunningham's work.

Emily Pope (she/they) is a performing artist, teacher, choreographer, dancer, and video artist. They are an alumna of UNCSA (1991), received their BFA in performance/choreography from OSU Dance (summa cum laude, 1997), and their MFA in dance/choreography from NYU!s Tisch School of the Arts (2007). They currently perform with Tamar Rogoff Performance Projects, Tiffany Mills Dance Company, Yoshiko Chuma, and Douglas Dunn + Dancers. They are a recipient of the 2020 Bessie Honoree Award for Outstanding Performance.

Paul Singh (he/him) is a dance artist, choreographer, and educator living in New York City. He earned his BFA in dance from the University of Illinois. He has danced for Gerald Casel, Risa Jaroslow, Will Rawls, Phantom Limb Company, Stephanie Batten Bland, Peter Pleyer, Douglas Dunn, Christopher Williams, Kathy Westwater, Faye Driscoll, and was featured in the inaugural cast of Punchdrunk!s NYC debut of Sleep No More. Singh has had his own work shown at multiple venues in NYC, Berlin, and in 2004 his solo piece Stutter was presented at the Kennedy Center. He has taught Contact Improvisation (CI) around the world, and currently teaches varied technique class- es for Movement Research and The Juilliard School. In 2021, he began his role as artistic associate at Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Jin Ju Song-Begin is a choreographer, dancer, and dance teacher from Seoul, South Korea, whose work has been presented internationally in Korea, Japan, Singapore, and the U.S. Since moving to New York in 2010, her work has been shown in many venues in NYC. In 2012, she founded her dance company, Da-On Dance. In 2021, she created the dance film Bubble as part of the StuffedArts residency at Judson Church, and she was recently chosen to participate in the Rauschenberg Residency. She has danced for Tere O’Connor, Keith Thomson, Emily Berry, and Daniel Roberts. Currently she dances in NYC with Douglas Dunn + Dancers, Sean Curran Company, Cornfield Dance, and Netta Yerushalmy. In 2023 she will be starting a new project with Big Dance Theater.

Timothy Ward grew up in Abita Springs, LA. After graduating from the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and earning a BFA in dance from the Juilliard School, he was a final member of the Merce Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group. Ward has worked for dozens of choreographers over the years. He continues to dance with Molissa Fenley, Julia Gleich, Fadi J Koury, Pat Catterson, Yvonne Rainer, and Douglas Dunn. He currently teaches Cunningham Technique® at Rutgers University.

Named a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in choreography, Christopher Williams is a critically acclaimed NY Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award-winning choreographer, dancer, and puppet artist working in New York City and abroad since 1999. He holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, and has performed for Tere O’Connor, Rebecca Lazier, Yoshiko Chuma, John Kelly, Dan Hurlin, Basil Twist, and Peter Sellars, among many others. He has had the honor of dancing for Douglas Dunn + Dancers since 2000. 

TEXTS

1

Is there no way I might

Open my heart with a knife

I could slip you in

And close the cut again

Till the end of time

Till the resurrection

You'd be inside

No heart but mine

In the webbing of my heart

You'd live my lifetime

In the tomb's twilight

You'd die when I die

---Ibn Hazm. (Cordova, 994-1063), Andalusian Poems [Stephanie Jacco]

2

The landscape is something alien for us and we are terribly alone among the trees that blossom and the streams that pass. Alone with someone who has died we are nowhere near as exposed as we are alone with trees. For however mysterious death is, life is all the more so, a life that is not our life, a life that takes no part in ours, that celebrates its festivals without seeing us, and which we look upon with a certain discomfort, like guests who have turned up by  accident and speak a different language.

---Rilke [Grazia Della-Terza]

3

Ecco mormorar l'onde,

E tremolar le fronde

A l'aura mattutina e gli arboscelli,

E sovra i verdi rami i vaghi augelli

Cantar soavamente,

E rider l'Oriente;

Ecco già l'alba appare,

E si specchia nel mare

E rasserena il cielo,

E le campagne imperla il dolce gelo

E gli alti monti indora:

O bella e vaga Aurora,

L'aura è tua messaggera, e tu de l'aura

Ch'ogni arso cor ristaura.

Now the waves murmur

And the boughs and the shrubs tremble

in the morning breeze,

And on the green branches the pleasant birds

Sing softly

And the east smiles;

Now dawn already appears

And mirrors herself in the sea,

And makes the sky serene,

And the gentle frost impearls the fields

And gilds the high mountains:

O beautiful and gracious Aurora,

The breeze is your messenger, and you the breeze's

Which revives each burnt-out heart.
---Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) [Grazia Della-Terza]

4

O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray

Warbl'st at eve, when all the woods are still,

Thou with fresh hope the Lovers heart dost fill

While the jolly hours lead on propitious May,

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day,

First heard before the shallow Cuccoos' bill

Portend success in love; O if Jove's will

Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay,

Now timely sing, ere the rude Bird of Hate

Foretell my hopeless doom in some Grove ny:

As thou from yeer to yeer hast sung too late

For my relief; yet hadst no reason why,

Whether the Muse, or Love call thee his mate,

Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

---John Milton [Douglas Dunn]

5

The Owl listened for what felt an age,

then flew into a rage.

"You're called a Nightingale," she spat,

"but blabbermouth's more accurate.

Your monologues are all-consuming,

rest your tongue & stop assuming

that you've won the day & own

the argument. Give me my turn

& keep your trap shut while I speak

& listen closely while I seek

a rational & sincere revenge

without recourse to verbiage.

You say by day I hibernate,

a fact I won't repudiate,

but hear me while I clarify

the wherefore & the reasons why.

My beak is powerful & strong,

my claws are sharp and very long,

& rightfully I share these traits

with others of the owlish trade.

No man can criticize my pride

in feeling kinship with my tribe.

Look at my features & you'll find

ferocity personified,

so all the tiny birds abhor me,

flitting through the understory,

slighting me with squeaks and squawks

& flying at me in their flocks

when all I want to do is rest

in peaceful silence in my nest.

---Anon. The Owl and the Nightingale, translated by Simon Armitage [Grazia Della-Terza]

6

Shall I speak plainly, Madam?

I confess

Your conduct gives me infinite distress,

And my resentment's grown too hot to smother,

Soon, I foresee, we'll break with one another.

If I said otherwise, I should deceive you;

Sooner or later, I shall be force to leave you,

And if I swore that we shall never part,

I should misread the omens of my heart.

---Molière, The Misanthrope. Translated by Richard Wilbur. [Grazia Della-Terza]

7

In former days we'd both agree

That you were me, and I was you.

What has now happened to us two,

That you are you, and I am me?

---Bhartrhari - 5th Century - Translator, John Brough. Love Poems, Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, Alfred Knopf, p. 112. [Stephanie Jacco]

8

If I were

a seabird, and you

a barn swallow,

we could

find some way of

relating.

Perhaps in the small feathers

that sit atop our bellies

we share a common ancestor

exchange our favorite

recipes. We are not

so unalike.

Our wings cut into the breeze

coasting like a ship.

---Stephani Jacco, "Relating." [Stephanie Jacco]

9

Now you must go out into your heart

as onto a vast plain.

---Rilke. [Stephanie Jacco]

10

he understands he cannot understand

he does not know how but he animates

then he moves he cannot move

he stumbles he won't stumble

he speaks he cannot speak

he remains he cannot remain

he dreams he cannot remain, he remains

he understands he cannot understand

waiting for people to appear, some sign?

he moves, he moves

others move around him

carries years of waiting on his back, moving and not

implacable nature denuded, who denudes nature?

he departs he cannot depart

others move around him

he weeps he cannot weep

he loves he cannot

---Anne Waldman. Aubaderrying, excerpt, p.26 [Anne Waldman]

11

I'm a shouting woman

I'm a speech woman

I'm an atmosphere woman

I'm an air tight woman

I'm a flesh woman

I'm flexible woman

I'm a high heeled woman

I'm a high style woman

I'm an automobile woman

I'm a mobile woman

I'm an elastic woman

I'm a necklace woman

I'm a silk scarf woman

I'm a know nothing woman

---Anne Waldman. Fast Speaking Woman, excerpt [Anne Waldman]

12

The eagle lives under the sky far above us

In his talons he holds the world

He wears a gay garment, a vibrant moist coat of colors

He waits there for the words of the Moon Goddess

Bright-eyed he looks down upon the waters of life

The sun is bright & magnificent in his eyes

His feet are red

He spreads his wings wide over the earth

& beneath his wings the gods grant rain the gods grant rain

Dew comes forth on the planet

His voice rises above us

Lovely are the words

Even the Moon Goddess hears them

She who lives in the underworld

She hears them there & responds

The words of the Moon Goddess mingle with the words of the eagle

The words of the eagle fade & drift above the waters

The words of the Goddess drift

underneath the sky dome

Far away their words vanish

---Cora Indian Song, via Anne Waldman. Kill or Cure, p. 67f.

[Anne Waldman]

13

Green rushes with red shoots,

Long leaves bending to the wind--

You and I in the same boat

Plucking rushes at the Five Lakes.

We started at dawn from the orchard-island:

We rested under elms till noon.

You and I plucking rushes

Had not plucked a handful when night came!

---Chinese 4th Century Anon., Translator Arthur Waley. Love Poems, Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, Alfred Knopf, p. 125.

[Stephanie Jacco]

14

Hoist sail, little bark of my wit!

Little Captain gazing round---

How can I speed without you?

The light of the moon rising in Ares

makes me set a face to the hillside

Nor was our parting over

at the foot of the mountain.

---Anne Waldman. Helping the Dreamer, p.72. [Stephanie Jacco]

15

Suddenly she said to him with extraordinary beauty: "I engage myself to you forever." The beauty was in everything, and he could have separated nothing---couldn't have thought of her face as distinct from the whole joy. Yet her face had a new light. "And I pledge to you---I call God to witness!---every spark of my faith; I give you every drop of my life." That was all, for the moment, but it was enough, and it was almost as quiet as if it were nothing. They were in the open air, in an alley of the Gardens; the great space, which seemed to arch just then higher and spread wider for them, threw them back into deep concentration.

---Henry James. The Wings of the Dove. Modern Library, p. 106 [Douglas Dunn, Grazia Della-Terza]

16

Woman: "Maybe your wife doesn't understand you."

Man: "The trouble is, she does."

Woman: "You should lead your own life,

make all the decisions in your house."

Man: "For forty years I keep saying that

to myself. But only to myself."

---Movie The Time, The Place, and the Girl, excerpt

[Stephanie Jacco & Douglas Dunn]

17

You think I don't love you, oh but I do
How can I show that I do?
You think I don't get blue, oh but I do
Though I get light-hearted, too
First I'm singing then I'm sighing
Then I'm flying high above
You think I don't know why, oh but I do
I know that it's you I love

First I'm singing then I'm sighing
Then I'm flying so high above
You think I don't know why, oh but I do
I know that it's you I love

---Movie The Time, The Place, and the Girl, excerpt

18

Oh my love for the first time in my life
My eyes are wide open
Oh my lover for the first time in my life
My eyes can see

I see the wind, oh I see the trees
Everything is clear in my heart
I see the clouds, oh I see the sky
Everything is clear in our world

Oh my love for the first time in my life
My mind is wide open
Oh my lover for the first time in my life
My mind can feel

I feel the sorrow, oh I feel the dreams
Everything is clear in my heart
I feel life, oh I feel love
Everything is clear in our world

---John Lennon & Yoko Ono

19

Herr, unser Herrscher, dessen Ruhm
In allen Landen herrlich ist!
Zeig uns durch deine Passion,
Dass du, der wahre Gottessohn,
Zu aller Zeit,
Verherrlicht worden bist!

MUSIC

1) Robert de Visée, "Chaconne en sol majeur" - played by Francisco López.

2) Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris, "If This Is Goodbye"

3) Jacques Offenbach, "Barcarolle" - Barbara Hannigan, Fleur Barron and LSO

4) Domenico Scarlatti, K 208 in A Major - played on the harp by Victoria Drake

5) Extreme, "More Than Words"

6) Domenico Scarlatti, K 348 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ysTE7f5NR0&t=94s

7) Guillaume Dufay, "Ave Maris Stella"

8) Johann Sebastian Bach, "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," BWV 565 - played by organist Hans-André Stamm on the Trost-Organ of the Stadtkirche in Waltershausen, Germany.

9) David Ireland, score for Stucco Moon, a collaborative evening with Douglas Dunn, 1992

10) "The Time, the Place and the Girl" - 1946 - Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan.

11) John Lennon & Yoko Ono, "Oh My Love"

12) Johann Sebastian Bach, "St John Passion" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyFqFpSjIDs