The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Theater Arts will present the world premiere of CLOSE UP, an intimate, evening-length performance by choreographer/dancer Stefanie Batten Bland and composer/violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain on Friday and Saturday, March 13-14, at 7:30pm, as part of The Gus Solomons Jr. Visiting Artist Series. The Friday evening performance will include a post-show conversation with the artists.

CLOSE UP brings together three-time Bessie-nominated artist Stefanie Batten Bland and Emmy Award-winning composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain in an intimate new concert of music and dance, where sound and movement entwine to reveal the stories our bodies carry. Conceived as a musical and physical lullaby, the work recreates the immediacy of a speakeasy where the danger and thrill of proximity and truth can cut like a dagger or cradle us with love and acceptance. Blending classical, jazz, créole, and postmodern influences into one expression, CLOSE UP explores deeply rooted cultural narratives shaped by ancestry and memory. Together, Batten Bland and Roumain celebrate the resilience of the human spirit, holding the beauty, humor, horror, and care within each body, and emphasizing the necessity of tenderness in turbulent times. Through this dialogue of bow and body, rhythm and resistance, they build a world both familiar and newly imagined: a sanctuary of sound, sweat, and grace.

CLOSE UP features dramaturgy by Daniel Safer, costumes by Shane Ballard, and lighting design by Jessica Drayton.

CLOSE UP has been developed in part with support from MIT’s 2025-26 Gus Solomons, Jr. Visiting Artist program which is supported by the generous donors to the 2022 McDermott Award Gala, hosted by the Council for the Arts at MIT. Additional support has been provided by New Music USA 2025, MIT Theater Arts, Arizona State University, and Montclair State University.

Stefanie Batten Bland (SBB) global maker, 2025 NYSCA artist, 2023 Dance Magazine cover artist, 2022 BAM Next Wave Commissioned artist, straddles the artistic scenes of New York City and France. Born to a jazz composer father and a writer mother, she was raised in SoHo when it was led by artists. Batten Bland’s work profoundly explores contemporary and historical cultural symbolism, the body as a political statement, cultural identifiers, and their influence on our global relationships. SBB creates proscenium, cinematic, and immersive worlds that answer the quest for belonging. As the Artistic Director of The Atelier SBB, and Creative Casting and Movement Director for Life & Trust, she pioneered the methods which became the performance-identity liaison for Sleep No More. She is artistic director of the first immersive theatre summer intensive in the US, CONCRETE, and is constantly pushing the boundaries of mixed reality art. SBB creates for fashion and lifestyle partners Louis Vuitton, Van Cleef & Arpels, Hermès, and Guerlain. She has produced 14 dance cinema films shown in international festivals in South Africa, Argentina, Greece, and Germany, and was nominated for three Bessie Awards. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Dance Magazine, Marie Claire, and Dance Europe. SBB’s work has recently been presented at Danse Lille (France), Spoleto Festival (Italy), Lincoln Center (NYC), and Bates Dance Festival (Maine). SBB is the recipient of grants from Creative Capital, Harkness Foundation, the Dance Advancement Fund, and New England Foundation for the Arts. She is an associate professor at Montclair State University. IG: @sbb_land

Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is a Black, Haitian-American composer who sees composing as collaboration with artists, organizations, and communities within the farming and framing of ideas. He is a prolific and endlessly collaborative composer, performer, educator, and social entrepreneur. “About as omnivorous as a contemporary artist gets” (The New York Times), DBR has worked with artists from Philip Glass to Bill T. Jones to Lady Gaga, as well as institutions including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Kennedy Center, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Sydney Opera House. An acclaimed violinist and activist, DBR’s career spans more than two decades. He has earned commissions from venerable artists and institutions worldwide.

Known for his signature violin sounds infused with myriad electronic, urban, and African-American music influences, DBR is a composer of solo, chamber, orchestral, and operatic works, and has composed an array of film, theater, and dance scores. He has composed music for the acclaimed film Ailey (Sundance official selection); won Emmy awards for The New Look of Classical Music and Art is Essential; released and appeared on 30 album recordings; and has published over 300 works.

An avid arts industry leader, DBR was the first Artistic Ambassador with FirstWorks; the first Artist Activist-in-Residence at Longy School of Music; and the first Resident Artistic Catalyst with the New Jersey Symphony. He serves as a board member for the League of American Orchestras, and is a voting member for the GRAMMY Awards. DBR earned his doctorate in music composition from the University of Michigan, and is currently a tenured Institute Professor at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. @danielroumain

About The Gus Solomons Jr. Visiting Artist Series
The Gus Solomons Jr. Visiting Artist Series is a new initiative that brings a contemporary dance artist to the MIT Theater Arts program in order to share and create their work with students and MIT’s broader community. Selected artists will, in the spirit of both Gus and MIT Theater, exemplify openness, embody empathy, expand the contemporary performance world on a national and/or international scale, and bring their unique individuality to their work—inspiring others to do the same.

About MIT Theater Arts
MIT Theater students engage in rigorous, interdisciplinary study across disciplines in performance, directing, design, movement, dramaturgy, and dramatic writing. Discovery drives our process—from exploring foundational craft to inventing new forms, or coaxing emerging technologies into play. Theater faculty, creative leaders in their fields, collaborate with students on campus and around the world, to create transformative works in the studio, on stage, and on screen that investigate self, society, and the ways in which we connect with one another.