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PROGRAM 2
Friday, February 6 @ 7 pm
• Alison Cook Beatty Dance, NY
• TheCo, Mexico
• McKoy Dance Project (MDP), NY
• Cara Marguerite Collective, NY
• The People Dance Theater Company, Israel
• Julia Weber, NY
• Violet Danse, TX
• P2, PA
• Jin-Wen Yu Dance, WI
• Kat Reese Dance, NJ
• Joel K. Lineback & Bird Thurman, OH
• Eric Mullis Projects, NC
Alison Cook Beatty Dance © Russ Haydn
Founded in 2012 and anchored in New York City, Alison Cook Beatty Dance is a 501(c)(3) artist-led modern dance company dedicated to creating powerful work that bridges classical technique and contemporary vision. Under the artistic leadership of choreographer Alison Cook Beatty, the Company explores the universal human condition through movement—investigating themes of identity, connection, and transformation with emotional urgency and technical clarity. Many of the Company’s works have received national and international recognition, through commissioned performances, collaborations, and festival presentations.
In Spring 2026, the Company will present Bist du bei Mir, Through the Panes, a striking new duet which bridges the sacred and the visceral. Set to J.S. Bach’s “Bist du bei Mir,” this piece delicately examines threshold moments of pain, companionship, and transcendence, inviting audiences into a space where vulnerability becomes art. Through this work and beyond, Alison Cook Beatty Dance affirms the power of movement to speak to our shared resilience and hope.
TheCo is based at Tec de Monterrey, one of Latin America’s most prestigious institutions. Founded in 1980, the company has continually evolved, developing a high-level dance program and offering competitive dance scholarships. Many of our alumni have gone on to establish successful careers as professional performers. Recently we presented our latest production, Frida, at Festival Internacional Santa Lucía.
"Interstice“ is a piece from our winter season. Interstice is the space between. The interstice between fear and love is indifference. The interstice between birth and death is life. The interstice between knowing and believing is uncertainty. An interstice between two decisions, two worlds, or two different lives is a threshold space—a pause or suspension where both possibilities coexist but neither has yet taken form. It is the in-between, a place of ambiguity and potential, where uncertainty holds weight but also opens the possibility for transformation.
TheCo ©
McKoy Dance Project (MDP) © Nir Arieli
McKoy Dance Project (MDP) is a Brooklyn-based contemporary dance company and service organization committed to breaking barriers in the arts through bold storytelling and equity-driven programming. Founded in 2019 by Artistic Director Derick McKoy, Jr., MDP centers BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ voices through performances, educational residencies, and cultural events. With original works, dance films, and programs like the Collective Voices Dance Festival and Community Grooves, MDP has served over 2,000 individuals across NYC.
For SoloDuo, MDP presents SKETCHED, a stirring duet choreographed by McKoy to an original classical score by George Bokaris. Inspired by the question “Is it better to speak or die?”, the work explores the ache of vulnerability in queer love—of wanting to trust, to grow within someone else, and fearing heartbreak. Equal parts tender and raw, SKETCHED is a love story traced through breath, silence, and the stars.
Cara Marguerite (she/her) is originally from Los Angeles, CA. She holds a Bachelors in Dance from Cal State Fullerton. Most notably she has performed with Sokolow Dance Theatre Ensemble, as a trainee with Jose Limon Institute at the Joyce and 92nd Y, at Judson Church with Natalia Fernandez’s company, and Kanopy Dance in Madison, WI. While choreographing, Cara is interested in dwelling on the beauty of life, keeping childlike curiosities, investigating religious structures, and using dance for social justice.
“Am I my brother's keeper / I see six crows” is a personal practice of processing a series of nightmares. The title draws from two stories. The first, is from the biblical story of Cain and Abel. The second, from Rome's origin story of Romulus and Remus.
Cara Marguerite Collective © Joelle Martinez
The People Dance Theater © Dan Ben Ari
The People Dance Theater Company, directed by choreographer Lior Lazarof, is a Tel Aviv– based collective creating original stage and site-specific works rooted in human connection, emotional endurance, and shared experience. The company leads artistic research, mentorship, and production for emerging and established artists, fostering collaboration and experimentation. Through The Ensemble by The People program, Lazarof cultivates a space for trained dancers to engage in research, creation, and performance - a platform for dialogue, risk-taking, and artistic growth. The company has presented work in festivals and theaters across Israel, Hungary, Poland, New York, Montreal, Portugal, Korea, Spain, Bulgaria, Canada, and the Czech Republic. Recent creations include Oh, Great Sun, commissioned for the “Curtain Up” Festival by the Israeli Ministry of Culture.
The People DTC presents Love-Love, a duet transforming the tension between tennis and war into a visceral exploration of rivalry, resilience, and love when victory is impossible.
Polish native, Julia Weber, is a graduate of the Juilliard School in New York where she received the Hector Zaraspe Prize for Choreographic Promise. At Juilliard, she choreographed for Choreographers and Composers 2022, Senior Production 2025, and was selected for Juilliard Choreographic Honors in 2023 and 2024. In 2025, Julia choreographed a 3-movement piece forthe Traverse City Dance Project and her piece Everlasting Memory was selected for the 24thAnnual DUMBO Dance Festival. In 2023 and 2024, she received the first place award in the Polish Choreographic Competition, ZAiKS. Julia has been named Young Dancer of the Year, Artistic Hope, and Young Talent and was honored with several awards from the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage. In October 2025, she choreographed on New York City Ballet for the New York Choreographic Institute.
In her piece, Ballade, she I aims to express one’s journey of love and human connection. She envisions that the wide range of colors in the music combined with the beauty of dance would touch the hearts of others and provide them with new perspectives on art.
Julia Weber ©
Violet Danse © Lynn Lane
“French sex” and “American sadness.” Both stereotypes flatten, fetishize, and script the body to trace the seams between: where desire becomes performance and melancholy becomes currency. It moves through the complicated seduction of being seen and the quiet violence of being misread. It asks what becomes of us when we are only a mirror for someone else’s longing. Violet Moon (they/them) is a polymathic performance artist, feminist choreographer, and working mental health professional whose work is recognized for its visceral intimacy, emotional precision, and technical rigor. With a decade of professional performance and touring across the U.S. and Europe, Violet has been invited to develop research and movement inquiry at renowned institutions, including P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels), Hubbard Street Dance (Chicago), and Le Centre National de la Danse (Paris) with their practice intertwining post-disciplinary dance, relational performance, and experiential trauma healing.
Eduardo Hernandez is a Los Angeles based dancer and choreographer. His work is heavily influenced by absurdism and iconoclasm themes that constantly bring delusions or challenges as an acknowledgement for self being. As a result, his movement practice centralizes in improvisation or set choreography based on error-chance choices in order to bring authenticity or purposeless experiences.
His work DAESEIN from the German philosophical word “Dasein,” translates to presence or existence, yet it is a piece about the absurdism of living while it manifests a hopeful outcome. In addition, DAESEIN is an exploration work based on the Humphrey principles and the somatic principles of release.
Constance Nicolas Vellozzi © Athena Azzevedo
Gianna and Paula (P2) are both senior Dance majors with concentrations in Performance and Choreography at Slippery Rock University. They became inseparable at the beginning of their college journey and have since created multiple works together. Over the past few years, they have deepened their understanding of various dance genres at SRU. Coincidentally, this duet was created in their Laban Movement Analysis course. It stems from Paula’s experience as a woman in Latin America and Gianna’s desire to uplift the movement by utilizing research and collaborating with Paula’s perspicacity. Ni Una Menos (Not One (Woman) Less) is a feminist movement born in Argentina, now present in most Latin American countries, out of the frustration of gender-based violence and murder.
This duet displays a journey of sisterhood, grief, and resistance by two women fighting for those who no longer have a voice of their own.
P2© Ben Viatori
Jin-Wen Yu Dance©
JIN-WEN YU, EDD & MFA, has created, performed, directed, and produced over 100 works in the Americas and Asia. Before his study in the USA, he was a soloist for the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. Dr. Yu is a six-time gala concert winner of the American College Dance Association Conference. As the President of World Dance Alliance-Americas 2009-2013, he directed dance festivals in Madison, New York City, and Vancouver/Canada. In 1999, he founded the Madison-based Jin- Wen Yu Dance and has presented an annual concert at Madison since. The company has performed in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Paris/France, Edinburg/Scotland, Tokyo/Japan, Guatemala City/Guatemala, Rio de Janeiro/Brazil, Taipei/Taiwan, Seoul/Korea, Hong Kong/China, among others.
“Still Demanding" is an excerpted duet from the 40-minute work, Resonate, a piece that examines our collective search for harmony and connection in a post-COVID world. This duet embodies the insistence for change.
Kat Reese is a dancer, choreographer, and teaching artist originally from New Jersey. In her work, Kat often explores themes of connection and community through a wide spectrum of movement from subtle to explosive, and incorporates elements of improvisational scoring and real-time decision making. In her work, Torrent, Kat utilizes the imagery of a rainstorm to trace a path toward resilience, starting from a defeated state to find the willingness to stand, fight, release, and become stronger for it. Kat has danced with numerous companies and choreographers including The Equus Projects, Brit Falcon, Monteleone Dance, Salvatore LaRussa, and The Kennedy Dancers Repertory Company, and has experience as a dancer, rehearsal director, and guest choreographer. She has also performed her own work in venues including Art House Productions, Dixon Place, Alchemical Theater Lab, and Triskelion Arts. Kat has her BFA in dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
Kat Reese Dance © Zoltan Suhay
Joel K. Linebach & Bird Thurman © Kiersten Conway
Bird Thurman and Joel K. Linebach are emerging artists based in Northeast Ohio, graduating from Purdue Univeristy with degrees in aerospace engineering and dance and from Case Western Reserve University with degrees in plastic engineering and dance, respectively. While also navigating their career’s as independent artists, they also perform with Inlet Dance Theatre, a Cleveland-based contemporary dance company, as company members.
“Cairn” is a duet inspired by human-made stacks of stones often used for navigation, helping travelers through landscapes where paths are unclear. Linebach and Thurman create and dismantle their own visceral cairn-like sculptures to embody their journey at this time in life as young, emerging artists. They explore the interplay of precariousness and stability - fragility and durability. Aligning with their physics-based backgrounds, Linebach and Thurman utilize the mechanical fundamentals of non-traditional partnering to take the audience on a new journey - traveling forward into the unexpected.
Eric Mullis projects Virginia Dunn © Virginia Dunn
Eric Mullis Projects is a project-based company based in Charlotte, North Carolina that explores the intersection of contemporary dance and emerging technology. The group's work has been presented at the North Carolina Dance Festival, the Breaking Ground Festival, the touring Dance City Festival, and elsewhere. In 2026, the group will present at the international ArtsinTank Festival in Seoul, Korea. For more see ericmullis8.com