Douglas Dunn + Dancers will present a two-week season at Judson Memorial Church February 19-March 1, 2025. The first week features the experimental opera BODY / SHADOW, a collaborative project with choreography by Douglas Dunn, music by Paul J. Botelho, libretto, video, and set design by Brice Brown, and visual media design by Steve Gibson. The second week brings a World Premiere by Dunn with visual design by Mimi Gross, poetry by Anne Waldman, a commissioned score by Jerome Begin, played live by Begin and String Noise, and lighting design by Miriam Crowe.

The first week, Dunn and his collaborators will reprise BODY / SHADOW (2023), a layered multimedia opera that calls into question the coherence of the human body, highlighting its vulnerability and doubleness. The work asks: What is more real, a body or its shadow? The work features 17 dancers and Paul J. Botelho, who performs vocal improvisations and the libretto to a set score. The dancers perform a series of nonlinear, one-minute acts, at times stretching screens—or skins—as they move throughout the space activating different sections of a five-channel video. Two of the dancers act as fifth column free agents, invading the other dancers’ organized space, as well as Botelho’s actions, mischievously disturbing the logic of the performance. The video is a hallucinatory collage of shadows, still and moving images, and colors. BODY / SHADOW is presented in the round. Audience members are encouraged to quietly circulate during the performance to experience different view points.

BODY / SHADOW will be performed by dancers Jules Bakshi, Cemiyon Barber, Alexandra Berger, Dwayne Brown, Janet Charleston, Savannah Jade Dobbs, Steph Jacco, Eve Jacobs, Vanessa Knouse, Corinne Lohner, Emily Pope, Deniz Erkan Sancak, Jin Ju Song-Begin, Dongri Suh, Timothy Ward, and Arthur “Trace” Yeames.

This performance-based opera is accompanied by a limited edition hard-bound publication featuring text, images, and CD.

The second week, the Company will present L’Embarqement pour Cythère, a new evening-length work for 12 dancers. It centers on Dunn’s fascination with the construction of trios and the ambiguities when threes relate. The work features an original score by Jerome Begin, played live by Begin and the violin duo String Noise. Set and costume design is by Dunn’s longtime collaborator Mimi Gross. Anne Waldman, another longtime collaborator, will contribute a series of poems performed live by her as she moves about the space with the dancers. Lighting design is by Miriam Crowe.

The new work is performed by dancers Jules Bakshi, Alexandra Berger, Dwayne Brown, Janet Charleston, Vanessa Knouse, Emily Pope, Deniz Erkan Sancak, Jin Ju Song-Begin, Timothy Ward, Christopher Williams, Mark Willis, and Arthur “Trace” Yeames.