Shared Program: Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company / Pat Catterson
Pat Catterson / Nine Lives Dance:
Tremor (New York Premiere) and
Then (World Premiere)
“…both homespun and high-tech, with elements familiar and unsettlingly novel.”
– Brian Seibert, The New York Times
Photo: Julie Lemberger
Daniel Gwirtzman with Saviana Stănescu:
e-Motion (NYC Premiere)
“Provocative, whimsical, and ethereal…”
– Natalie Rine, OnStageBlog.com
Tremor and Then
ABOUT
Pat Catterson will present Tremor for six dancers and Then, a new solo, for a cast combining Boston and New York dancers. Created while a La MaMa Resident Artist, Catterson’s Tremor is concerned with those moments of high alert when we realize something is not right, when what happens next is uncertain, when we worry everything we counted on might be gone. Just a small “tremor” might be the sign. The original score is by Quentin Chiappetta. Then is the opening solo of a new ensemble work in progress, inspired partly by solo cello pieces by Philip Glass. The title, Then, implies both past and future, as does this dance in structure, feel, and movement. Tremor and Then represent Catterson’s 116th and 118th works, respectively.
CREDITS
Choreography: Pat Catterson
Dancers: Brandon Collwes, Mitzi Eppley, Louisa Pancoast, Maia Ramnath, Sarah Slifer Swift and Timothy Ward
Composer for Tremor: Quentin Chiappetta
Costume Consultant: Kyle Artone
BIOS
Pat Catterson has choreographed 118 works and been the recipient of a Solomon R. Guggenheim Choreography Fellowship, a Fulbright Grant, multiple grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the CAPS Program, the Harkness Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. In 2023 she was a La MaMa Resident Artist. She has been on many faculties including Sarah Lawrence College, UCLA, the Juilliard School, and the Merce Cunningham Studio, as well as a guest artist, most recently at Tufts University and at Concordia University. Her writing has been published in Ballet Review, Dance Magazine, the Getty Iris, and Dance Research Journal. For thirty years she has been a dancer, rehearsal assistant, and stager for Yvonne Rainer, touring nationally and internationally.
Photo: Julie Lemberger
e-Motion
ABOUT
e-Motion a dance-theater collaboration between choreographer Daniel Gwirtzman and playwright Saviana Stănescu explores AI, neuroscience and what it means to be human in a digital age. Gwirtzman creates a physical interpretation of Stănescu’s provocative text that brings conceptual ideas deep into the human body. The score is text, augmented by music composed by the late Jeff Story, the Company’s longtime collaborator. The narrative duet, performed by Gwirtzman and dancer Sarah Hillmon, depicts a creator, “Ava,” and a product, “H.” Referencing Frankenstein, this researcher is a neuroscientist and (unlike Shelley’s scientist), a woman. The narrative follows the presentation of the AI creature, for scholarly and public consumption. Ava has worked for decades to arrive at this moment. The big launch.
Demonstrations are given. What could go wrong?
CREDITS
CONCEPT AND STORY Daniel Gwirtzman, Saviana Stănescu
DIRECTION/CHOREOGRAPHY Daniel Gwirtzman
TEXT Saviana Stănescu
DANCERS Daniel Gwirtzman, Sarah Hillmon
MUSIC Jeff Story
COSTUMES Daniel Gwirtzman, Anna-Alisa Belous
PROJECTION DESIGN So-Yeon Yoon
BIOS
Dancer, educator, and filmmaker Daniel Gwirtzman celebrates thirty years as a NYC choreographer and company director in 2025. Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company (DGDC), celebrating its 26th, is known for its optimistic ethos, invention, humor, musicality, stylistic diversity, charisma, and accessibility. “Mr. Gwirtzman does know that in dance less can be more…he can evoke strong feelings with a few gestures.” (The New York Times). The New Yorker describes him as “a choreographer of high spirits and skill.” The Village Voice: “an abundantly inventive artist with a subtle defiance of gender roles.” Dance With Us, a free online resource is designed to demystify concert dance. In 2024, DGDC was in residence at the American Dance Festival and in residence at the Dora Maar Cultural Center in Provence where Daniel produced the film, Framing Ménerbes, premiering this June in France and NYC.
Saviana Stănescu is a cutting-edge Romanian playwright, poet, and ARTivist based in NY, author of Aliens with Extraordinary Skills, For a Barbarian Woman, Don’t / Dream, Bee Trapped Inside the Window, Zebra 2.0, What Happens Next, Ants, Lenin’s Shoe, Hurt, Useless, Toys, and other plays centering “outsiders”. Winner of New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Play (Waxing West) and UNITER Award for Best Romanian Play of the Year (Inflatable Apocalypse), Saviana has published over 15 books of plays/poetry, written in English or Romanian. Other honors: Indie Theatre Hall of Fame, John Golden Award, Fulbright, KulturKontakt, Marulic Prize for Best European Radiodrama, Inaugural Audrey Residency with New Georges, Richard Schechner’s ECA writer-in residence, etc. Founder of Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York (IASNY). www.saviana.com
Sarah Hillmon was born and raised in Rochester, New York. There she trained with Garth Fagan and Timothy M. Draper and was a member of the Rochester City Ballet. She graduated with a B.F.A. in dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she had the privilege of performing works by talented artists including Sidra Bell, Lucinda Childs, Gus Solomons Jr., and Charles Weidman. After college, she became a member of Lucinda Childs Dance Company, where she toured the world performing classic works. While in New York City, she has also had the honor to perform with artists such as Solange Knowles as well as a number of dance companies including Robert Mark Dance, Suzanne Beahrs Dance,
BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance, DanceBoissiere, and the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company. She joined MMDG as an apprentice in 2023 and became a company member in 2024.
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival
20th Anniversary
Click here to see list of shows for La MaMa Moves! 20th Anniversary.
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival continues to support La MaMa’s commitment to presenting diverse performance styles that challenge audience’s perception of dance by featuring performance/installations, experimental film screenings & public symposiums which address dance artists’ engagement with the current political climate, as well as honoring diasporic histories and legacy, ancestral inspirations and inter-generational dialogue.
