"The Cave," by Nicholas Goodly

Recitation: Nicholas Goodly

          after James Wright

I do my best work in the dark, the roof

of a mouth shimmering nightly, I wish

my body had no gravity. My skin

is a map I’m dancing my way out of.

I want to be full. I want to dissolve

my emptiness, to be at the mercy

of my own pleasure. If I am the first

drip or the echo, I can make a hole

out of just about anything. This is

where darkness remembers itself. My name

starts with a capital letter. Something

casts a spell on my clicking spine. I sleep

with a wild thorn balancing on my tongue.

I dream of the man who first put it there.

[Followed by]

"They came from the woods."

Choreographer: Anna Paterson

Dancers: Autumn Batie, Zoe Brown, Anna Paterson

Music: I Want to Be Full, composed by Luke Waddell; performed by Dawson Huynh, Ryder Kaya, Sarah Ward, Brenna Wiinanen

 

"Ode on Dance" by Olivia Sokolowski

Recitation: Olivia Sokolowski

You forget that you danced before

you could read just simple steps

like a raindrop in reverse while

it started growing in you: a nervy

purple root that says go higher

faster down to the glittery floor

in a backwards somersault all

the thrilling tricks that pearled you

star-jump fouetté right angle

of the arabesque what is physics

 

compared to the recital stage its x

x x x x marking fluorescent chips

in the horde of snowflakes party lasses

bursting into fits of waltz sipping flutes

of faux champagne whatever was rooted

in you became pot-bound uncoiled in each

role whipping the tour jeté flipping the calypso

 

and when you fell for dance it fell for your life too:

setting the stage wherever you went gardenias

tattooing wet asphalt et cetera you don’t need

a corps or time signature now you just dance

like a loose-sewn button like a prince on a wire

above snakes in this kingdom where you are

sovereign the bloomed one the only person

in the world alive moving as you are now.

[Followed by]

"Gardenias"

Choreographer: Anjali Austin Dancers: Shea Boeker, Emily Gumal

Music: Um Saudade pra Bailar, composed by Kyle McDonald; performed by Dawson Huynh, Kyle McDonald, Brenna Wiinanen

 

"A dance manual for the resurrected" by Olga Mexina-Bykova

Recitation: Olga Mexina-Bykova

           Here most pretend there is no death—as if

a handful of sand can harness a symbol—

fill the hourglass and open the buttons

of self—lemniscate through the country

that is just like all other countries, meaning—

there’s no country like it.

          God of lowercase letters and bloody roots,

I hate countries—it’s the overview effect—

when Gagarin whirled through space, he dreamt

Malvina with harlequin hair flowing

down to her Achilles’ heels—he said, open

the door, let me in, she answered, come back

          later, I am dead right now.

It’s the overview effect—when the planet

whirls through the page, the body inside

the body leaves a print—dead love better,

Anubis embalms the sex before sex

is no more—even flesh that’s not flesh parts

           at birth—two circles entwined

look less lonely than the zero of the ouroboros—

by the way, have I told you how lovely

you are—wrapped in this Möbius dream?

[Followed by]

"Ouroboros"

Choreographer: Stephanie Battle Dancer: Stephanie Battle

Music: It’s the Overview Effect, composed by Oliver Schoonover; performed by Dawson Huynh, Jake Reisinger, Brenna Wiinanen

 

"KING HUNT: A VERSE DRAMA" by Natalie Tombasco

Recitation: Natalie Tombasco

[III.II]

it is the hour the moon waxes us hairless as sphynx, as girls (a moss

curtain opens to cottagegore: thorn bushes, cavernous plants—the coven emerges

like emerald-draped isabella rossellinis, smelling like old, leather-bound books,

palo santo wood; they assume the royal “we”) we dance around the hearth,

feeling our 70-year-old skin tighten like a bodice for dissipation. we write

names into our bestiary, our burn book: napoleon, freud, nabokov. behold!

our king sleeps off the struggle, tied-up dried lavender. would it be poetic

justice to burn him at the stake? a fatal, ice-fishing trip? a de quincey bloodbath?

(enter alma, the apothecary, with poison mushrooms: destroying angels to slow him a little) hecate

rises from hyper-dormancy into choreography with plantocene kinfolk,

contorting, rewilding—all herb, verb. what does it mean to be belladonna? a deed

without a name? let us do for what we came, hurry, before we wane, shrivel:

double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble. toad song, owl pellet, mother-

in-law’s tongue, scale of mullet: sweetie, take two, and call me in the morning

[Followed by]

"The Coven Emerges"

Choreographer: Cassie Eron Dancers: Cassie Eron, Paulina Salas

Music: call me in the morning, composed by Charlie Carroll; performed by Dawson Huynh, Ryder Kaya, Param Mehta, Sarah Ward, Brenna Wiinanen