"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