New Dance Series Conceived and Curated by Richard Colton
Produced by Churchtown Dairy
Cage & Cunningham @ Churchtown Dairy
SHOWING: COMMUNITY WORKSHOP
Music: John Cage, Ryoanji (1983–1985) [excerpt]
Choreography: Merce Cunningham [excerpts]
Choreography arranged & staged by Brandon Collwes
Musicians: Mike Jones (percussion), Jeffrey Lependorf (shakuhachi), Nick Matheos (trombone), Nozomi Sugimoto (double bass)
Dancers: Margaret Hallisey, Peggy Wallin-Hart, Tara Lorenzen, Thomas McManus, Katiushka Melo, Nancey Rosensweig, KC Wiley
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4’ 33”
Music (1952): John Cage
Arrangement for dancers (1994): Merce Cunningham
Dancers: Sienna Blaw, Margaret Hallisey, Peggy Wallin-Hart, Eve Jacobs, Lindsey Jones, Tara Lorenzen, Justin Lynch, Nyah Maloney, Thomas McManus, Katiushka Melo, Chalvar Monteiro, Nancey Rosensweig, KC Wiley
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ear for EAR (Antiphonies)
Music (1983): John Cage
Garrick Neuner (baritone soloist)
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ROUND BARN MINEVENT
Music: John Cage: Inlets (1977) [excerpt], performed with Mureau (1970) [excerpt]
Choreography: Merce Cunningham
Choreography arranged by: Brandon Collwes
Choreography staged by: Brandon Collwes, Jean Freebury, Patricia Lent, Daniel Madoff, Jamie Scott, and Andrea Weber
Musicians: Mike Jones, Anthony Kirk, Nathaniel Valsania (percussionists, Inlets), Phil Pardi (recitation, Mureau)
Dancers: Sienna Blaw, Eve Jacobs, Lindsey Jones, Justin Lynch, Nyah Malone, Chalvar Monteiro
The Round Barn Dance Series @ Churchtown Dairy is made possible, in part, with the generous support of Lisa and Thomas Blumenthal, Beatrice Bogorad, Mark and Deborah D’Arcy, David H. Hughes Jr., Barbara Kilpatrick and Charles L. Bardes, Cesar Murillo/Emergent Global Investments, Karen and Steve Schutzer, and Hudson Hall @ The Historic Hudson Opera House.
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BIOS
John Cage (1912–1992), one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, created genre-expanding works encompassing music, performance, writing, and visual art, including hi landmark 4’ 33”—a work where performer or performers simply exist without intentionally making any explicit sounds—which alone redefined the very concept of what music might be. His oft-quoted phrase “there is no such thing as silence” is synonymous with his influence. From his work while teaching at Black Mountain College to his decades of collaboration with Merce Cunningham, much of Cage’s output developed and offered concepts and methods of using indeterminacy, non-intention, and experimentation with materials that have significantly expanded the boundaries of music and other forms of art-making. Beginning with his early, rhythmic works for percussion ensemble through to his late, uniquely spacious, time-based “number pieces,” Cage’s output remains actively performed around the globe. His experimental, curious, and generative thinking, not only about music, art, philosophy, and literature, but also about how to live one’s life, continues to influence and invite new ways of art-making and being. His collaborations with Merce Cunningham remain important contributions to the history of dance and how dance might be in dialogue with music, even if performed autonomously. The John Cage Trust, located at Bard College, preserves and serves his legacy as a living archive.
Merce Cunningham (1919-2009) was a celebrated dancer and choreographer renowned for his groundbreaking work and his profound influence on generations of dancemakers and artists. Born in Centralia, Washington, he attended the Cornish School in Seattle where he was introduced to the work of Martha Graham and met the composer John Cage who would become his closest collaborator and life partner. In 1939, Cunningham began a six-year tenure as a soloist in the Graham company, and soon began presenting his own choreography. In the summer of 1953, during a teaching residency at Black Mountain College, Cunningham formed a dance company to explore his innovative ideas. Over the course of his seventy-year career he choreographed 180 dances and over 700 Events, premiering his final work at age ninety. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company remained in continuous operation until its closure in 2011, giving nearly three thousand performances in over forty countries. In collaboration with John Cage, Cunningham proposed a series of radical ideas including the separation of music and dance, the use of chance operations, and novel ways to utilize film and technology. He collaborated with such renowned artists and composers as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, and Takehisa Kosugi. Cunningham earned some of the highest honors bestowed in the arts including a MacArthur Fellowship (1985), a Kennedy Center Honor (1985), a Laurence Olivier Award (1985), the National Medal of Arts (1990), and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale (2005). In 2004, he was named Officier of the Legion d’Honneur. Today Cunningham’s work continues to be performed by professional and student dancers worldwide.
Sienna Blaw is a queer dance artist from Austin, TX. Since graduating from SUNY Purchase in 2017 Sienna has performed the works of Pam Tanowitz, Merce Cunningham, Doug Varone, and Hannah Garner, and they have performed Contact Improvisation scores at MoMa, and Park Avenue Armory. Sienna is a collaborator with Julia Antinozzi, Indah Walsh, and Christopher Williams. They are an authorized teacher of Cunningham Technique®, and they also lead Dance Church classes. They most recently performed at the Shed in Luna Luna: A Forgotten Fantasy, and in Punchdrunk’s NYC production of Sleep No More.
Brandon Collwes joined the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in January 2006, where he danced until the close of the Company in 2011 with the final Legacy World Tour. He has been a member of the Liz Gerring Dance Company since 2012 and is currently rehearsal director. He also has performed with Sally Silvers Dance and the Stephen Petronio Company, and currently teaches Cunningham Technique at DeWitt Clinton High School. He stages Cunningham’s work for the Merce Cunningham Trust and choreographs his own pieces which have been presented at numerous venues in NYC and abroad. He is also an abstract painter.
Eve Jacobs is a dance artist based in NYC. She toured internationally with Jessica Lang Dance (2015-2019), and is currently a member of Cornfield Dance and the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. Additional performing credits include Douglas Dunn + Dancers, Washington National Opera, and the Merce Cunningham Trust. Eve’s choreography has been featured at the La Mama Moves! Festival and Tribeca Film Festival among others. She holds a BFA from Juilliard, where she received the Hector Zaraspe Award for Choreography, and an MFA from Hunter College, receiving the 2024 Dean’s Award for Graduate Research. Eve serves on the dance faculty of Hunter College and Marymount Manhattan College.
Lindsey Jones is a New York City–based dancer. A graduate of SUNY Purchase, she has been a longtime member of Pam Tanowitz Dance and Dance Heginbotham. She has also performed with the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Kimberly Bartosik, Sally Silvers, Bill Young, Caleb Teicher, among others. Since 2012, Lindsey has participated in many Merce Cunningham Trust activities including Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event and Alla Kovgan’s 3D film CUNNINGHAM, and is certified to teach Cunningham Technique®. Lindsey is a Teaching Fellow and pursuing her MFA in Dance at Smith College.
Michael Jones (he/they) is a percussionist, scholar, and conductor based in the Hudson Valley, New York. His creative work focuses on touch, resonance, and the enchanted currents of percussion objects. Their research focuses on percussion seen through the lenses of modernity, continental philosophy, and feminist theory. They can be heard on the New World, Cold Blue, Chen Li, Sawyer Editions, New Focus and Wandelweiser Editions labels. They regularly perform as a member of the contemporary music projects Offscreen (with Sasha Ishov) and Duo Refracta (with Shaoai Ashley Zhang). His publications can be read in Twentieth-Century Music and Percussive Notes. They currently serve as Percussion Teaching Fellow at Bard College.
Dr. Tony Kirk is an avid performer of contemporary solo and chamber music. Tony is currently a teaching fellow at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson where he coaches chamber music, teaches lessons, and handles many administrative duties. As an active chamber musician, Tony traveled with his percussion quartet BANYAN to Bogotá, Colombia for a teaching and performing residency as part of the festival Encuentro Internacional de Percusión Resonancias: Contempo 30 años. As an educator and researcher, Tony is interested in the application of research-based learning strategies to musical practice.
Jeffrey Lependorf, a composer, musician, and visual artist, is also a certified master of the shakuhachi, a traditional Japanese bamboo flute. His “Masterpieces of Western Music” audio-course is available through Barnes & Noble’s “Portable Professor” series, as well as for download through audible.com. Music recordings can be found on Ayler, Albany, Sachimay, and other labels. A nationally recognized arts leader, he currently serves as the Executive Director of the John Cage Trust, and also directs the Art Omi: Music international musicians residency program, a collaborative music-making residency he created in 2000.
Justin Lynch is from Kingston, Jamaica. He has worked with the Merce Cunningham Trust, Molissa Fenley, the Metropolitan Opera, Elisa Monte, Christopher Williams, and others. He has also collaborated regularly with Third Rail Projects, performing as a dancer, actor and/or pianist in several of its productions. Justin studied piano at the Royal College of Music in London and Boston University before earning a law degree at Columbia University. When not dancing, he is an immigration attorney for artists, and a collaborative pianist at Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.
Nyah Malone (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. They received a BFA in Dance from LINES Ballet at Dominican University of California. Upon graduating, they were a recipient of the 2023 Merce Cunningham Trust Barbara Ensley Award. They have had the pleasure of working with The Limón Institute as a member of Limón2 and as a guest artist with the Limón Dance Company, the Merce Cunningham Trust, Jody Oberfelder Projects, Ballez/Katy Pyle, among other freelance projects.
Nicholas Matheos, a masters bass trombone performance student at Bard Conservatory of Music, has performed as a principal bass trombonist in a great many orchestras and various ensembles. He is currently the principal bass trombonist of the Cleveland Repertory Orchestra and has also been a founding member and principal bass trombonist for two professional orchestras: Video Game Symphony and Cinematic Symphony Orchestra. He also subs in a handful of major and regional orchestras throughout the east coast and Ohio, and is seeking new opportunities and challenges.
Chalvar Monteiro is a NY-based performer, educator and choreographer. He holds a BFA in Dance from the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase. He's had the pleasure of performing with Sidra Bell Dance NY, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, GALLIM, Ailey II, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Chalvar was part of the Merce Cunningham Trust's Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event and has since taken part in several virtual and in-person Cunningham offerings. He's currently a Visiting Arts Professor at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
Garrick Neuner is a multidisciplinary vocalist, composer, and designer in the inaugural class of Bard Conservatory’s undergraduate vocal program. Their practice spans early music to frequent world premieres, crossing genres from chant and art song to gospel and jazz. Their upcoming senior project and recital, We Are Not in the Anechoic Chamber, merges architectural research and representation with the performance of works by composers including John Cage, Alvin Lucier, and Pauline Oliveros to explore the architectural design of acoustic ambience.
Philip Pardi is the author of Meditations on Rising and Falling, which won the Brittingham Prize and the Writers' League of Texas Poetry Award. Recent work appears in Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review. He teaches at Bard College and in the Clemente Course in the Humanities.
Nozomi Sugimoto began studying violin in childhood and switched to double bass at 17. She studied with Hiroshi Ikematsu, Masanori Ichikawa, the late Naofumi Nishida, Shigeru Ishikawa, and Satoshi Okamoto, participated in the Pacific Music Festival (PMF) 2022 Orchestra Academy, and is currently a first-year master’s student at the Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Nathaniel Valsania is a percussionist and multi-instrumentalist pursuing graduate studies at Bard Conservatory, studying with members of So Percussion and Metropolitan Opera timpanist Jason Haaheim. Raised between New York City and Milan, Italy, he previously trained at Juilliard Pre-College before completing a five-year dual degree at Oberlin College and Conservatory, specializing in percussion performance, Latin language, and comparative literature.