FREE PERFORMANCE
In-person: 7pm EDT at Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Park
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FEATURING:
Battery Dance (new works by Sidra Bell and Jock Soto)
Martha Graham Dance Company
Daystar, Contemporary Dance-Drama of Indian America
Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet
Dancing Earth
DETAILED PROGRAM
Daystar, Contemporary Dance-Drama of Indian America
Wolf: A Transformation
Dances for Joanne and Mother Earth (selections)
Hoop Dance
The mission of the Daystar Dance Company is to teach and encourage Native American youth and adults alike, in the skills of the performing arts (dancing, singing, creative writing and performance) and to advocate to the general public for a deeper understanding of the dance, music, storytelling and cultural values of the people of native North America.
Credits
Choreographer: Daystar/ Rosalie Jones
Performers: Daniel Fetecua, Nancy Hughes, Christina Vega-Westcoff, Laura D’Aimico, Sandra Lamouche
Music: Dik Darnell, Joanne Shenandoah, Oneida singer/songwriter
About the Artist
Daystar/Rosalie Jones (Pembina Chippewa-Cree) was born on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. She holds a Master’s Degree in Dance from the University of Utah and studied with Jose Limon at Juilliard School, NYC. In 1980 she founded the first native modern dance company in the USA, known as Daystar: Contemporary Dance-Drama of Indian America. Choreographic works include Napi Tales of Old Man (Blackfeet), Sacred Woman, Sacred Earth (Lakota), Wolf: A Transformation (Anishinaabe) and No Home but the Heart (a family story). Daystar was the first Native American (USA) to receive an Individual Choreographer’s Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, 1997 and in 2004 UC-Riverside created the Daystar archive for cultural/career related materials. In April, 2016, Jones received the First Annual Lifetime Achievement Award in Performing Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts, “in honor of her lifetime of creativity, inspiring others and service to the field”. A lifetime of learning from tribal Elders and Knowledge Keepers enables Daystar to continue to create unique native-based dance theatre into the 21st century, to be shared broadly with all, both native and non-native.
Alongside contemporary western expressive forms, Daystar/Rosalie Jones has danced and taught Intertribal Dance over many years, to all ages and in many settings, such as schools, convention events and community centers as well as in theatrical performing venues. She performs Women’s Traditional, Shawl Dance, Jingle Dress and Hoop Dance and continues to lecture, present choreographic works and to publish articles on Native American culture and the performing arts.
www.daystardance.com
Dancing Earth
“ Weaving of Worlds …we dream in a multiverse…”
an offering created by Dancing Earth’s constellation of associate artists
Some of us are ancestral to this land, some chosen, some forced here — together we dance a memory longer than 250 years, for a future. Generational migrations are navigated by stars, ancient umbilical cords tracing back to the far corners of the world — roots of a tree of life connecting living lands, waters, and skies. From this layered realm, every being and every relationship between us is world-making. From that collective pulse, diverse individual stories emerge: who we are, how we came to be, why we are here now, what we are dancing for — as an offering to humans and more-than-humans, to ancestors seen and unseen. We give our dance as a gift to this place at this moment, a convergent ritual to embody collaborative ways of being — to gather broken fragments, heal with the breath of compassion, and weave worlds
Credits
Choreography: Rulan Tangen in collaboration with all artists (including excerpts of their own solo work created/presented inJune at Dancing Earth’s Confluence in artistic residence at Santa Fe Art Institute), with additional acknowledgement of Gabriela Sharpfish for her concept in the process of ‘what is my relationship with america’ and call out for community voices for recording, and of Cynthia Paniagua of Kaypacha Dance as coach for some sequences
Performers: Rulan Tangen, Jade Whaanga, Xeric Tlaloc Meraz, Humlåo Evans, Shakaya McFarland, Alekzeta Cantu-Hensley, Tara Bucknor, Raven Bright , Amy Lee, Clarence Brooks
Music: Score mixed by DJ Béeso (@djbeeso) Kino Benally , with voices from the community of Santa Fe’s Andrea Mantell and stanton Carrion Gonzales ( featured in the excerpt for this ritual ) and the University of South Florida as gathered by Gabriela Sharpfish , as well as samples from amazing musical artists including Ehren Kee Natay; Louis Vega’s Elements of Life with Ursula Rucker’s spoken word and vocal intro layer of Tanya Taqac; Olatunji ( Pura Fe’s album Ancestral Waterways; Sugar Vendil’s album May We Know Our Own Strength; QVLN Quetzal Guerrero and the blue violin; Randy L Barton and The Blessingway album; La Sonora Matancera & Celia Cruz; Barrett Martin’s Atmospheric Tremblings; live chant by Humlåo Evans; “We The People… “ edited speech of the Revered and late Angel L.G. Santos; Oya (Lunar Disco); sounds sampled from dancers of Dancing Earth’s Confluence and living beings of the natural world as composed by Kino
Costumes: Artists personal wardrobe and Dancing Earth archives, including pieces by Connie Wind Walker
About the Company
Dancing Earth (DE) is a contemporary ecological dance theater initiative renewing intercultural communities and cosmologies through eco-somatic practice — arts education, workshops, retreats, master classes, pro-training, creation residencies, interdisciplinary collaborations, and paid professional opportunities in performance-making and touring.
Founded in 2004 by director Rulan Tangen ( 2018 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist fellow for Service, Justice, Freedom, Courage and Gratitude ), to serve a need unmet in the U.S., DE gives Native, global Indigenous, and — since 2020 — BIPOC and mixed-heritage artists a platform often closed to them by mainstream performance’s lack of access. DE is a constellation of intercultural dancers, composers, costume designers, filmmakers, spoken word artists, and support staff.
Together, DE artists explore ancestral heritage and contemporary identity through culturally rooted, innovative performance. The work activates awareness of our connection and responsibility to all forms of life, uplifting cultural and biological diversity to build bridges of understanding. DE also expands what it means to be a professional artist, what an audience can be, and what dance and performance can do — rooting its aesthetic entirely in cultural worldview.
DE’s work has been recognized by Dance Magazine as one of its “25 to Watch” as well as for its dance for climate action, and is one of the few companies to receive both the National Dance Project and National Theater Project’s production and touring awards over the years, along with a medallion from the US Ambassador to New Zealand and many other honors. DE has been invited to communities, institutions, and festivals across 20 states and 14 countries, and continues to uplift the power of cross-cultural exchange and collaboration to dissolve borders.
“We gather as individual artists to create experimental yet elemental dances that reflect our richly diverse backgrounds and explore identity as contemporary peoples. Ancient and futuristic, our dances are an elemental language of bone and blood memory in motion.”
— Founding Artistic Director, Rulan Tangen
www.dancingearth.org
Battery Dance | Jock Soto
Heloha | World Premiere
This duet was created during a 10-day residency in New York City. Set to music by Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate, Heloha is named after the composer’s son.
Credits
Choreographer: Jock Soto
Performers: Amy Saunder and Kar’mel Antonyo Wade Small
Music: Rattle Songs by Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate (Chickasaw)
About the Choreographer
Jock Soto is a former principal dancer with New York City Ballet (NYCB) and one of the most distinguished ballet artists of his generation. Of Diné (Navajo) and Puerto Rican heritage, he was born in Gallup, New Mexico, and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. He began studying ballet at age five and, at thirteen, entered the School of American Ballet. At just sixteen, he joined NYCB at the invitation of legendary choreographer George Balanchine.
During his 24-year career, Soto became renowned for his powerful artistry, musicality, and extraordinary partnering. As a principal dancer, he performed many of the company’s most celebrated works by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and other leading choreographers, creating unforgettable partnerships with ballerinas including Heather Watts and Wendy Whelan. His artistry inspired audiences around the world, prompting The New York Times to declare, “Ballet is a man called Jock.”
Since retiring from the stage, Soto has devoted himself to coaching, staging ballets internationally, and mentoring the next generation of artists while championing Indigenous representation in the performing arts. His contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including the 2024 New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts as well as the Navajo Nation proclamation of August 23 as “JOCK SOTO DAY”. He lives in Eagle Nest, New Mexico, with his husband Luis Fuentes and their two dogs Larry and Paco.
Instagram: @jocksoto
Martha Graham Dance Company
Appalachian Spring (Excerpts)
One of Martha Graham’s most beloved dances, Appalachian Spring was created during some of the darkest days of World War II. Graham and the composer Aaron Copland, set out to create a work about American optimism, determination and hope for the future. They considered it to be their contribution to the war effort. They settled on the story of a young frontier couple on their wedding day. For this program we are presenting highlights from the original choreography for the characters of the Bride and Husbandman, originally danced by Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins.
Graham’s choreography is filled with natural gesture and references to American folk dance, while Copland’s music captures the unique rhythms and space of this country and beautifully borrows the melody from a Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts. The wonderfully integrated collaboration of these new American artists created a masterpiece of 20th Century American Art that still resonates with our national character and the American dream. As Graham first described it to Copland, “This is a legend of American living. It is like the bone structure, the inner frame that holds a people together.”
Copland was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for the score, and Appalachian Spring has continually been part of the Graham Company repertory since its creation. With its simple tale of new life in a new land, Appalachian Spring embodies hope – A testimony to the simple fineness of the human spirit.
Credits
Choreographer: Martha Graham
Performers: Laurel Dalley Smith and Ethan Palma
Music: Aaron Copland
Costumes: Martha Graham
About the Company
The Martha Graham Dance Company has been a leader in the evolving art form of modern dance since its founding in 1926. It is both the oldest dance company in the United States and the oldest integrated dance company.
Today, the Company is embracing a new programming vision that showcases masterpieces by Graham alongside newly commissioned works by contemporary artists. With programs that unite the work of choreographers across time within a rich historical and thematic narrative, the Company is actively working to create new platforms for contemporary dance and multiple points of access for audiences.
Since its inception, the Martha Graham Dance Company has received international acclaim from audiences in more than 50 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The Company has performed at the Metropolitan Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the Paris Opera House, Covent Garden, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt and in the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus theater on the Acropolis in Athens. In addition, the Company has also produced several award-winning films broadcast on PBS and around the world.
Though Martha Graham herself is the best-known alumna of her company, the Company has provided a training ground for some of modern dance’s most celebrated performers and choreographers. Former members of the Company include Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins, Paul Taylor, John Butler and Glen Tetley. Among celebrities who have joined the Company in performance are Mikhail Baryshnikov, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Maya Plisetskaya, Tiler Peck, Misty Copeland, Herman Cornejo and Aurelie Dupont.
In recent years, the Company has challenged expectations and experimented with a wide range of offerings beyond its mainstage performances. It has created a series of intimate in-studio events, forged unusual creative partnerships with the likes of SITI Company, Performa, the New Museum, Barney’s, and Siracusa’s Greek Theater Festival (to name a few); created substantial digital offerings with Google Arts and Culture, YouTube, and Cennarium; and created a model for reaching new audiences through social media. The astonishing list of artists who have created works for the Graham dancers in the last decade reads like a catalog of must-see choreographers:
Kyle Abraham, Aszure Barton, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Lucinda Childs, Marie Chouinard, Michelle Dorrance, Nacho Duato, Mats Ek, Andonis Foniadakis, Liz Gerring, Larry Keigwin, Michael Kliën, Pontus Lidberg, Lil Buck, Lar Lubovitch, Josie Moseley, Richard Move, Bulareyaung Pagarlava, Annie-B Parson, Yvonne Rainer, Sonya Tayeh, Doug Varone, Luca Vegetti, Gwen Welliver and Robert Wilson.
The current company dancers hail from around the world and, while grounded in their Graham core training, can also slip into the style of contemporary choreographers like a second skin, bringing technical brilliance and artistic nuance to all they do — from brand new works to Graham classics and those from early pioneers such as Isadora Duncan, Jane Dudley, Anna Sokolow, and Mary Wigman. “Some of the most skilled and powerful dancers you can ever hope to see,” according to the Washington Post last year. “One of the great companies of the world,” says The New York Times, while Los Angeles Times notes, “They seem able to do anything, and to make it look easy as well as poetic.”
www.marthagraham.org
Instagram: @marthagrahamdance
Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet
Mothers of War
Mothers of War is a contemporary and balletic work set to music by Hans Zimmer and Gavin Greenaway that lives in the emotional space left behind when men go to fight. It centers the mothers and partners who carry fear, longing, and responsibility in silence. Through tender, suspended movement and moments of shared weight, the dancers move between hope and grief, strength and vulnerability. Mothers of War is a tribute to the resilience of women holding life together while the world around them is at war.
Credits
Choreographer: Christopher Huggins
Performers: Rayan Lecurieux Durival, Rose Barbantan, Kevin Hunte, Raquelle Koonkoon, Lia Lewis, Toni Owens, Ryan Rankine, Wade Watson, George Bone, Genesis Castillo, Wayne Moses
Music: “Light” and “Stone in My Heart” by Hans Zimmer and Gavin Greenaway
Costumes: Hopie Lynn Burrows
About the Company
Jamel Gaines, the visionary Founder and Artistic Director of Creative Outlet, has devoted his career to delivering powerful, emotionally resonant performances while nurturing the next generation of artists. His journey began under the guidance of Diane and Adrienne Brown and James Grant, followed by a full scholarship at Purchase University, awarded by Harry Belafonte. Gaines launched his professional career under the mentorship of Kevin Iega Jeff, founder of Jubilation Dance Company. With over 25 years of teaching and choreographic experience, Gaines leads Creative Outlet with a mission to inspire, motivate, and empower dancers and artists to achieve their full potential.
www.creativeoutlet.org
Instagram: @jamelgainescreativeoutlet
Battery Dance | Sidra Bell
Grounds | World Premiere
I. athena’s suggestion
II. sediment
III. steel folk
IV. soft valor
Credits
Choreographer/Director: Sidra Bell
Performers: Jillian Linkowski, Sarah Housepian, Amy Saunder, Kar’mel Antonyo Wade Small, Razvan Stoian
Composer: Score Composed and Performed by Dennis Bell © July 2026 Dennis Bell/Mark of Aries Music (BMI)
About the Choreographer
Sidra Bell is an award-winning choreographer, dancer, and educator who has shaped the contemporary dance landscape for over two decades. She made history as the first Black female choreographer commissioned to create works for the New York City Ballet. As the artistic director of Sidra Bell Dance New York (SBDNY), she has produced over 100 progressive dance theater works worldwide. Her choreography spans prominent international venues across Europe, Canada, Asia, and the Americas, earning prestigious honors including First Prize for Choreography at the Solo Tanz Theater Festival in Stuttgart, Germany, a Creative Capital Award, National Dance Project Award, and a Yaddo Artist Medal. Bell was featured on The Today Show and in Essence Magazine for her stewardship of progressive dance creation and educational methods. Bell is also the founder of MODULE Laboratory, an immersive NYC-based movement and theater workshop. An influential educator, she has served as a Master Lecturer at the University of the Arts, an artist-in-residence at Harvard University, and an adjunct professor at Barnard College. Her commissions include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Derek Fordjour Studio, Museum of African Diaspora San Francisco, The Juilliard School, ODC Dance Company, Uppercut Dance Theatre Denmark, St. Louis Dance Theatre, Ailey II, Sacramento Ballet, Boulder Ballet, and Ballet Austin among many others. Her signature educational pedagogy, Contemporary Systems, emphasizes an interior and material approach to movement, blending visceral physical demonstration with deep intellectual curiosity. It has been taught during her guest artist residencies at universities across the country including NYU Tisch, University of Oklahoma (distinguished visiting artist), Marymount Manhattan College, and University of North Carolina School of the Arts among many others. Bell holds a BA in History from Yale University and an MFA in Choreography from the Purchase College Conservatory of Dance.
www.sidrabelldanceny.org
Instagram: @sidrabelldancenewyork
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