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.
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
---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
Douglas Dunn + Dancers
Douglas Dunn Studio | 541 Broadway, New York, NY, 10012
