S-SD LAUNCH

SITE-SPECIFIC DANCES

April 6 - 8, 2023

Paul Taylor Dance Studios

New York City

WELCOME

When the Covid pandemic brought an end to Michael’s 20-year career as a dancer in a company, we bought a drone and began to experiment with location-based movement in the vast open spaces of Michigan, where we were isolating during the pandemic. Since then, we have collaborated with local casts, participants in locations across the US and in Europe, to make a series of site-specific performance pieces.

Site-Specific Dances was born as an investigation in the synthesis of performance and place - a new type of a ‘realist gesamtkunstwerk’ where the narrative is the site itself. In each location, we collaborate with a local cast of dancers, community leaders, and experts in their field to create a unique project. The process and performances are filmed and edited into a series of multichannel performance installations.

Somehow, all the stars have aligned to allow us to launch the project at the Paul Taylor Dance studios in New York this weekend, April 6-8, 2023. The show includes a 16-musician distributed chamber orchestra, live dance, and immersive video that shows our location-based work - a “performanceexhibition” created in collaboration with an amazing local crew of musicians and dancers.

The young composers we have had the privilege to work with (Darian Donovan Thomas, Polina Nazaykinskaya, Emma O’Halloran, Dmitry Selipanov and Konstantin Soukhovetski) are all rising stars, in their own right.

This program is a ‘proof of concept’ presentation, and showcases the types of projects we are interested in, the methodologies we have developed over the last three years, and a hint at what the future might hold. Thank you for being here to take this first step with us as we launch.

Sincerely

Michael Spencer Phillips + Dino Kiratzidis Co-founders and Directors

PROGRAM

ACT ONE INTERMISSION

To/From (11 min)

Multi-channel Video Installation

Solo: Darian Donovan Thomas

Music: Darian Donovan Thomas

Megaflora Requiem (10 min)

Multi-channel Immersive Video Installation

S-SD Immersive Orchestra

Immersive Dance

Music: Polina Nazaykinskaya

Conductor: David Hattner

Color Orange (5 mins)

A movement of the “Pride Suite” commissioned by the Protostar Group.

Music: Konstantin Soukhovetski

Piano Solo: Konstantin Soukhovetski

Fenix (15 mins)

Multi-channel Immersive Video Installation

S-SD Immersive Orchestra

Music: Polina Nazaykinskaya

Conductor: David Hattner

ACT TWO

Duet for Posthumans (Safe Space) (6 min)

Two live dancers (Tracy Dunbar, Charles Scheland )

Two pre-recorded dancer-cinematographers.

Multi-channel projection, Darian Donovan Thomas live.

Music (live): “Safe Space” Darian Donovan Thomas

Movement Bridge (12 mins)

Multi-channel projections

Recorded interviews

Community Dance

Music (recording): Emma O’Halloran

Causeway (13 min)

New Dance Work with Immersive Video

Four live dancers: Tracy Dunbar, Ashley LaRosa, Jenny Hegarty, Charles Scheland

Music (recording): “Motto” and “Continuo” Dmitry Selipanov

CREATIVE TEAM

Music Director SS-D Immersive Orchestra Composer Fenix, Megaflora Requieum.

Polina Nazaykinskaya

Michael Spencer Phillips Co-Founder, Director, Choreographer

Dino Kiratzidis Co-Founder, Director, Site Analysis, Performance Design

Emma Kazaryan Videography and Editing

Darian Donovan Thomas

Composer

To/From, Duet for Posthumans (Safe Space)

Emma O’Halloran

Composer

Movement Bridge Northern Ireland

Dmitry Selipanov

Composer

Causeway (Motto, Continuo)

Konstantin Soukhovetski

Composer

The Color Orange

S-SD CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

CONDUCTOR

David Hattner

VIOLIN

Eiko Kano (concertmaster)

Alexandra Andreeva

Vartan Mailianitz

Zina Cole

Nikita Yermak

Nathaniel Strothkamp

Sam Wiseman

Stanichka Dimitrova

VIOLA

Jameel Martin

Jesus Rodolfo

CELLO

Eduard Teregulov

Ani Kalayjian

Kira Wang

Paloma Ferrante

Titilayo Ayangade

DOUBLE BASS

Kyle Colina

FLUTE

Ginevra Petrucci

PIANO

Konstantin Soukhovetski

OBOE

Ben Price

BASSOON

Alexander Davis

CLARINET

Harrison Copp

DANCERS

Tracy Dunbar

Ashley LaRosa

Jenny Hegarty

Charles Scheland

PERFORMANCE DESIGN

PERFORMANCE DESIGN

Dino Kiratzidis

LIGHTING DESIGN , TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, STAGE MANAGER

Clyde Sheets

PROJECTION DESIGN

Brian Beasley

PROGRAM NOTES

TO/FROM

Music by Darian Donovan Thomas

TO/FROM is Site-Specific Dances’ first site-specific video performance, set in the Old Mission and Leelanau peninsulas of northwestern Michigan in August of 2020, at the peak of the Covid pandemic which brought an end to his 20-year long dance career.

Highly personal, the performance sees its two protagonists coming ‘home’ to Michigan at two very different moments in their careers: Phillips is returning to rural Michigan after a long city career as a professional dancer, while his former student, Falconer, is returning to Michigan after college.The performance is a reflection on ‘coming from’ and ‘going to’, and moments of great transition in life - much like the metamorphosis of dancers into the myriad of vocations they take on after a life devoted to performance.

The movement studies for TO/FROM were developed in settings as diverse as dunes, water, groves of trees, and fields and attempt to juxtapose the movement of human body with the vastness of wilderness landscapes, while also inviting landscapes, and the special effects of the natural world, to participate in the experiment.

To/From was commissioned by the Traverse City Dance Project.

Original Score by Darian Donovan Thomas

Year of Completion: 2022

CONCEPT: Michael Spencer Phillips + Dino Kiratzidis

DIRECTOR: Michael Spencer Phillips

DANCERS: MIchael Spencer Phillips, Madison Falconer

MUSIC AND LIVE PERFORMANCE: Darian Donovan Thomas

CAMERA AND DRONE: Michael Spencer Phillips

EDITING: Emma Kazaryan

PRODUCERS: Michael Spencer Phillips and Dino Kiratzidis

MEGAFLORA REQUIEM

Music by Polina Nazaykinskaya

Megaflora Requiem is one of the environmental dance acts within our larger MEGAFLORA project.

MEGAFLORA is an immersive multi-channel performance installation that explores the plight of the enigmatic redwood and sequoia forests in California that are threatened by deadly wildfires that have grown in intensity, frequency, and duration. Expanding on earlier experiments in site-specificity in moder n dance, Site-Specific Dances animated these forests with local Bay-area based dancers, and captured these performances on film.

Partnering with The Sempervirens Fund, the team is currently conducting a series of video interviews with environmental experts including scientists, park rangers and Indigenous community leaders on the causes and potential solutions to this crisis - a realist “libretto”. While the arts and the sciences are traditionally separated from one another, Site-Specific Dances will interweave these two components to create a hybrid ‘art-science’ immersive media performance work - and a new model of performance-based environmental advocacy.

Polina Nazaykinskaya will compose and arrange the music for all of the environmental ballet sequences of MEGAFLORA. Darian Donovan Thomas will create immersive soundscapes that accompany the interviews; integrating the spoken voice into his sonic environments.

Year of Completion: On-going (expected 2024)

CONCEPT: Michael Spencer Phillips + Dino Kiratzidis

DIRECTOR / CHOREOGRAPHER: Michael Spencer Phillips

ORIGINAL SCORE: “Megaflora Requiem” by Polina Nazaykinskaya

EDITING AND VIDEOGRAPHY: Emma Kazaryan

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Michael Spencer Phillips + Dino Kiratzidis

PERFORMANCE DESIGN: Dino Kiratzidis

S-SD IMMERSIVE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA, CONDUCTOR: David Hattner

COLOR ORANGE

Music and Piano Solo by Konstantin Soukhovetski

A movement of the “Pride Suite” commissioned by the Protostar Group. A palate-cleanser.

Year of Completion: 2023

COMPOSER AND PIANO SOLO: Konstantin Soukhovetski

FENIX

Music by Polina Nazaykinskaya

The geological forces that produced the landscapes of Sedona over thousands of years (including the erosion by wind, rain and snow-melt), have created a dazzling array of site conditions. These include caves, sculptural buttes, stratified layering, extremely uneven surfaces, towering outlooks, and a primary site material that is covered in iron oxide, giving it a distinctive red glow. Fenix showcases the dramatic landscapes of Sedona, while hoping to impart a sense of great reverence for our precious natural world, its epic scale, and its dynamic geological processes.

Phillips worked with a local cast of dancers from Sedona Chamber Ballet, Ballet Theater of Phoenix, and Convergence Ballet. After a series of studio workshops in Phoenix, the performances were staged during a period of intense site immersion, which included braving the weather and extreme rock-climbing.

Polina Nazaykinskaya’s orchestral score FENIX unlocks the theatrical potential of this environment.

Fenix was filmed in December 2020 and was made possible with the generous support of Tauck Ritzau Innovative Philanthropy and ArtBridge.

Year of Completion: 2022

CONCEPT: Michael Spencer Phillips + Dino Kiratzidis

DIRECTOR / CHOREOGRAPHER: Michael Spencer Phillips

ORIGINAL SCORE: “Fenix” by Polina Nazaykinskaya

EDITING AND VDEOGRAPHY: Emma Kazaryan

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Michael Spencer Phillips + Dino Kiratzidis

MUSIC DIRECTOR: Polina Nazaykinskaya

S-SD IMMERSIVE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA ( see orchestra page)

CONDUCTOR: David Hattner

PERFORMANCE DESIGN: Dino Kiratzidis

DUET FOR POSTHUMANS (SAFE SPACE)

Music and Vocal by Darian Donovan Thomas

Two technology-augmented humans, reveal their environmentand each other: dancer-cinematographers.

Two queer bodies interact without touching.

Two bodies find safety in being alone together.

The sadness of self-destructive love: human-nature.

Collapsing geography and time, the pre-recorded and the live dance.

Year of Completion: 2023

CONCEPT: Dino Kiratzidis + Michael Spencer Phillips

DIRECTOR / CHOREOGRAPHER: Michael Spencer Phillips

ORIGINAL SCORE AND VOCAL: “Safe Space” by Darian Donovan Thomas

EDITING AND STILL CAMERA: Emma Kazaryan

SCREEN DANCER-CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Michael Spencer Phillips and Jaime Garcia-Castilla

LIVE DANCERS: Tracy Dunbar, Charles Scheland

PRODUCERS: Michael Spencer Phillips + Dino Kiratzidis

PERFORMANCE DESIGN: Dino Kiratzidis

MOVEMENT BRIDGE

NORTHERN IRELAND

Music by Emma O’Halloran

Movement Bridge is a multi-channel video installation that documents and shows the process and culminating performance of the community engagement performance project outlines below:

In 2022 Site-Specific Dances was invited to create a community dance piece In Derry Northern Ireland. Against a backdrop of age-old animosity and generational trauma that goes back to The Troubles, the idea for the piece was to use dance, a medium heavily reliant on trust and teamwork, to bridge social and political divides. Michael Spencer Phillips organized and led a series of inter-generational community workshops that included both Catholic and Protestant participants over a six month period in Derry. Eschewing dance’s predilection for the young and and highly trained body, the project included community participants between the ages of 5 and 85 with varying levels of dance experience.

This community-based work culminated in an urban performance that took place in June of 2022 and activated key sites in the city in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

Movement Bridge was commissioned by the Museum of Free Derry, The Bloody Sunday Trust, ArtsEverywhere, and the Musagetes Foundation.

Year of Completion: 2023

CONCEPT: Michael Spencer Phillips + Dino Kiratzidis

COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS: Michael Spencer Phillips

DIRECTOR / CHOREOGRAPHER: Michael Spencer Phillips

ORIGINAL SCORE: Emma O’Halloran

EDITING AND VIDEOGRAPHY: Emma Kazaryan

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Michael Spencer Phillips

PERFORMANCE DESIGN: Dino Kiratzidis

CAUSEWAY

Music by Dmitry Selipanov

NEW DANCE WORK

With Immersive Video

DANCERS:

Tracy Dunbar

Ashley LaRosa

Jenny Hegarty

Charles Scheland

Year of Completion: 2023

DIRECTOR / CHOREOGRAPHER: Michael Spencer Phillips

VIDEOGRAPHY: Michael Spencer Phillips

EDITING: Emma Kazaryan

ORIGINAL SCORE: “Motto, Continuo” by Dmitry Selipanov

PRODUCER: Michael Spencer Phillips

SUPPORT

CONDUCTOR'S CIRCLE ($20,000 +)

Bryan L. McCalister

LEADERS’ CIRCLE ( $8,000 +)

The Van Wyck Estate

PARTNERS’ CIRCLE ($5,000 +)

ArtBridge, Rodney Durso

Steve Dawson

PRODUCERS’ CIRCLE ($1,000 +)

Paul Beirne

Betsy & Kyle Carr

Frank Godchaux

Hope Greenfield

Jay Jeffers

O’Brien Kelley

Maxime Leroy-Tullie

Harsha Murthy

Matthew Olson

Lincoln Palsgrove IV

Matthew Pisanelli

James Turk

Brent Barton & Nikolay Zdravkov

PATRONS ($500 +)

Dimitri Jobert & Frank Bostelmann

Piergiorgio Del Moro

Randy Fields

Stephen Lee

Charles Renfro

Shubhani Sarkar

Susan Seidel

Edsel Williams

FRIENDS ($150 +)

Robert Albert

Christian Bindel

Manuel Bagorro

Luca Baraldo

Jarrod Baumann

Luke Brown

Juan Carretero

Francois Conradie

Tom Cooper

Raffy Dakessian

Nic Di Venuto

Nikolaj Dinevski

Frank Dix

Andrew Fage

Pino Fortunato

Amy Gold

Guy Griggs

Dake Gonzalez

Mamiko Hongo

Brooks Huston

Nathaniel John-Grose

Clyde Johnson

Grace & Paul Kampfer

David Koren

Deirdre Latour

Christopher Lawrie

Jeremy Lentz

Frank Liberto

Nana Manjgaladze

Richard Marson

Colin Martin

Paul Milana

Shawna Miller

Ben Mothershead

Mark Murashige

William Myers

Matias Navarro

Guillaume Pech

Michael Robitz

Andrew Saavedra

Paulo Senra

Bradley Siembieda

George Sotelo

Michael Stachura

Dave Suchanek

Nonna Titulauri

Toby Usnik

SPECIAL THANKS

Paul Taylor Dance Company

Bryan McCalister

Nick Vogelson

Ben Rodriguez

Justin Andolina

Noah Aberlin

Kat Bishop

Betsy Carr

Sidd Joag

Jane Kavanaugh

O’Brien Kelley

Colin Knapp

Catherine and Daryl Phillips

Job Piston

Colin Raybin

Colleen Ritzau Leth

Susan Seidel

Clyde Sheets

Brian Beasley

ArtsEverywhere

ATD Audio Visual

Hudson Valley Distillers

Matthew Olson

Zeterre Landscape Architecture

Sempervirens Fund

Sedona Chamber Ballet

Lezah Yeoh

Anthony Madonna

Jenny Thompson

Annie Phaosawasdi

Dmitry Selipanov

Lucy

SITE-SPECIFIC DANCES HAS RECEIVED GENEROUS SUPPORT FROM:

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Tauck Ritzau Innovative Philanthropy

ArtBridge

ArtsEverywhere Canada

Musagetes Foundation

Arts Council of Northern Ireland

Swedish Arts Council

Museum of Free Derry

Stonewall Community Foundation

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

It is with gratitude that we acknowledge that we have gathered on the ancestral lands of the Lenape, Anasazi, Hohokan, Sinagua, Tonto Apache, Yavapai, Potawatomi, Ottawa and Ojibwa, Mono (Monache), Yokuts, Tubatulabal, Paiute, Western Shoshone, Cotoni, Quiroste, Ohlone, Sayante, and the Northern Pomo Indigenous peoples.

We respect the enduring relationships that exists between these peoples and the the land and the waterways. Our previous planet is in need of this reverence for the natural world, now more than ever.