About the Works

BODYTRAFFIC presents: An exploration of identity through dance

A Million Voices (18 minutes)

Choreographer: Matthew Neenan

Music: Performed by Peggy Lee; composed by Robert Sour & Una Mae Carlisle, Johnny Mercer & Harold Arlen, C. Farrow, Irving Berlin, Mike Stoller & Jerry Leiber, Adrian Zing & Benny Goodman, Arthur Hamilton

Lighting Design: Burke Wilmore

Costumes: BODYTRAFFIC

Performers: Katie Garcia, Pedro Garcia, Alana Jones, Tiare Keeno, Ty Morrison, Joan Rodriguez, Guzmán Rosado, Jordyn

Santiago

Premiere: The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Beverly Hills, CA, 2018

A Million Voices is inspired by the inimitable Peggy Lee, who was a pioneer in the art of “persona.” Her legendary music, which was created in response to the political climate of her time, spurs us to embrace the passion of living even in the darkest of times.

This work was made possible in part by the Made in Wickenburg Residency Program at Del E. Webb Center for the Performing Arts with funding from the RH Johnson Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wellik Foundation, WESTAF, and Benner-Nawman.

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SNAP (20 minutes)

Choreographer: Micaela Taylor

Lighting Design: Burke Wilmore

Costume Design: Kristina Marie Garnett - KAART KAART

GALLERY

Music: James Brown

Original Music and Sound Editing: SHOCKEY

Performers: Katie Garcia, Pedro Garcia, Alana Jones, Tiare Keeno, Ty Morrison, Joan Rodriguez, Jordyn Santiago

Premiere: The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Beverly Hills, CA, 2019

SNAP is inspired by the ethnically diverse, yet isolating crowds of Los Angeles. It urges audiences to “snap out of” social pressures to conform, and to connect with their individuality as well as with people around them.

SNAP was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

General Operating Support was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

SNAP was made possible with lead support by: Renae

Williams Niles & Greg Niles, Allen and Anita Kohl Charitable Foundation, The Norris and Debra Bishton Foundation, Pat & Carol Kinsella, and Catharine & Jeffrey Soros.

SNAP’s costumes were generously underwritten by Harold I. Huttas & Scott A. McPhail in honor of Renae Williams Niles’ birthday.

- IntermissionThe One to Stay With (22 minutes)

Choreography: Baye & Asa

Music: On the Hills of Manchuria [Na Sopkah Manchzhurii] by Russian Brass Band; Romanian Folk Dances, Sz. 56: III. Pê-loc. Andante, Composed by Bèla Bartók, Performed by Andrew Rangell; The Snowstorm: II. Waltz & VII. Echo of Waltz, Composed by Georgy Sviridov

Sound Design: Jack Grabow

Lighting Design: Michael Jarett

Set Design: Baye & Asa and Michael Jarett

Costume Design: Oana Botez

Costume Alterations: Angela Manke

Performers: Katie Garcia, Pedro Garcia, Tiare Keeno, Ty Morrison, Joan Rodriguez, Guzmán Rosado, Jordyn Santiago, Whitney Schmanski

Premiere: The Joyce Theater, New York City, NY, 2022

Choreographers’ Notes: The Company is incentivized towards perpetual growth. The Company develops relationships with politicians and regulatory agencies, lobbying for legislative language that protects their constant growth. The Company language is parroted until fabrication becomes fact. The Company’s profit margins are built on theft: of natural resources, human labour, and life.

You don’t make a billion dollars, you steal a billion dollars. The One to Stay With was created in response to Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain. His book chronicles the Sackler family’s rise to power and their central role in the opioid crisis.

Thank you to Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek, CO for a technical residency in support of the creation of this work.

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PACOPEPEPLUTO (8 minutes)

Choreographer: Alejandro Cerrudo

Music: Memories Are Made of This by Joe Scalisi; In The Chapel In The Moonlight by Dean Martin; That’s Amore by Dean Martin

Lighting Design: Matthew Miller

Performers: First solo: Joan Rodriguez

Second solo: Pedro Garcia or Ty Morrison

Third solo: Guzmán Rosado

Premiere: Inside/Out Choreographic Workshop, UIC Theatre, University of Illinois by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, 2011.