American Dance Festival (ADF)

Bob is a manic whirlwind of methodical, rapid-fire movements dictated, performed, and self-enforced by Milka Djordjevich. Set to bold music and silence, Bob eroticizes the labor of the dancing body—the repetition, the discipline, and the fallout. A mid-career taxonomy of sorts, Djordjevich confronts demands to optimize her female body and the market’s expectation to enhance her performance over time. Bob is an alter ego trained to be so skilled as to become other—the perfect kinetic subject in the service of her audience. Algorithmic movement patterns conjure approaches from trance, folk ritual, and rite—they become a means to no end. A reflection rivaling the self, Bob is on a rampage with and against self-consciousness to bask in reverie, delusion, desire, and rage. Show no mercy!

Bob is a manic whirlwind of methodical, rapid-fire movements dictated, performed, and self-enforced by Milka Djordjevich. Set to bold music and silence, Bob eroticizes the labor of the dancing body—the repetition, the discipline, and the fallout. A mid-career taxonomy of sorts, Djordjevich confronts demands to optimize her female body and the market’s expectation to enhance her performance over time. Bob is an alter ego trained to be so skilled as to become other—the perfect kinetic subject in the service of her audience. Algorithmic movement patterns conjure approaches from trance, folk ritual, and rite—they become a means to no end. A reflection rivaling the self, Bob is on a rampage with and against self-consciousness to bask in reverie, delusion, desire, and rage. Show no mercy!

The Footprints program, which bridges ADF’s performance series and education programs, delivers an outstanding presentation of three ADF-commissioned world premieres, choreographed by renowned choreographers and performed with impeccable technique and infectious energy by ADF students. This year’s choreographers are David Dorfman, Dianne McIntyre, and Kate Weare. ADF School alum and former faculty member David Dorfman, who founded David Dorfman Dance in 1987 to create politically and socially relevant work, is known for his movement-based dance theater. Dianne McIntyre, the 2008 recipient of the American Dance Festival Balasaraswati/Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching, is hailed as an artistic pioneer whose individualistic movement style reflects her affinity for cultural histories, personal narratives, and the boldness, nuances, discipline, and freedom in live music and poetic text. Kate Weare, known for her startling combination of formal choreographic value and visceral, emotional interpretation, charts a contemporary view of humanism by placing women at the center of the human story amidst the violence, sensuality, and yearning for intimacy that marks our age.

The Footprints program, which bridges ADF’s performance series and education programs, delivers an outstanding presentation of three ADF-commissioned world premieres, choreographed by renowned choreographers and performed with impeccable technique and infectious energy by ADF students. This year’s choreographers are David Dorfman, Dianne McIntyre, and Kate Weare. ADF School alum and former faculty member David Dorfman, who founded David Dorfman Dance in 1987 to create politically and socially relevant work, is known for his movement-based dance theater. Dianne McIntyre, the 2008 recipient of the American Dance Festival Balasaraswati/Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching, is hailed as an artistic pioneer whose individualistic movement style reflects her affinity for cultural histories, personal narratives, and the boldness, nuances, discipline, and freedom in live music and poetic text. Kate Weare, known for her startling combination of formal choreographic value and visceral, emotional interpretation, charts a contemporary view of humanism by placing women at the center of the human story amidst the violence, sensuality, and yearning for intimacy that marks our age.

Set in a fictional jazz club, SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar is a dance-driven musical that tells the love story of two people making their way during the Great Migration. It is a powerful tale of one family and what happens when dreams encounter the realities of American life in the ‘40s and ‘50s. The work features an original jazz score performed by a live band. Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, who created, choreographed, and directed SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar, says, “It is my story. It is my family’s story. It is a personal and collective story of a family and a people, moving from the Jim Crow South during the Great Migration.”

Set in a fictional jazz club, SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar is a dance-driven musical that tells the love story of two people making their way during the Great Migration. It is a powerful tale of one family and what happens when dreams encounter the realities of American life in the ‘40s and ‘50s. The work features an original jazz score performed by a live band. Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, who created, choreographed, and directed SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar, says, “It is my story. It is my family’s story. It is a personal and collective story of a family and a people, moving from the Jim Crow South during the Great Migration.”

enVISION: The Next Chapter is an immersive interdisciplinary performance that relies not on sight or sound but on the felt sense of sonic experiences and visual perceptions. In a collective creative process, the work has brought together a team of collaborators around two questions: Can we listen to what we see? Can we see what we hear? Conceived explicitly with and for individuals who are low-vision and blind, as well as low-hearing and deaf, the work proposes a new multisensory experience of dance and theater. The work will be presented to a live audience who can choose to experience the show blindfolded or with earbuds, and six audience members will be invited to join the experience onstage. This ADF commission builds on enVISION: Sensory Beyond Sight, which premiered at ADF in 2022.

enVISION: The Next Chapter is an immersive interdisciplinary performance that relies not on sight or sound but on the felt sense of sonic experiences and visual perceptions. In a collective creative process, the work has brought together a team of collaborators around two questions: Can we listen to what we see? Can we see what we hear? Conceived explicitly with and for individuals who are low-vision and blind, as well as low-hearing and deaf, the work proposes a new multisensory experience of dance and theater. The work will be presented to a live audience who can choose to experience the show blindfolded or with earbuds, and six audience members will be invited to join the experience onstage. This ADF commission builds on enVISION: Sensory Beyond Sight, which premiered at ADF in 2022.

enVISION: The Next Chapter is an immersive interdisciplinary performance that relies not on sight or sound but on the felt sense of sonic experiences and visual perceptions. In a collective creative process, the work has brought together a team of collaborators around two questions: Can we listen to what we see? Can we see what we hear? Conceived explicitly with and for individuals who are low-vision and blind, as well as low-hearing and deaf, the work proposes a new multisensory experience of dance and theater. The work will be presented to a live audience who can choose to experience the show blindfolded or with earbuds, and six audience members will be invited to join the experience onstage. This ADF commission builds on enVISION: Sensory Beyond Sight, which premiered at ADF in 2022.