Shared Program: Alexis Chartrand & Nic Gareiss / Megumi Eda – Apr 25-27
Alexis Chartrand and Nick Gareiss
Untitled
“Gareiss’ dexterous melding of Irish and Appalachian dance…”
– New York Times
Megumi Eda
Please Cry
“Her presence isn’t just physical: as she stretches and wilts, she’s the most peaceful,
elusive being on the stage.”
– Gia Kourlas, The New York Times
Alexis Chartrand & Nic Gareiss
ABOUT
Percussive dancer Nic Gareiss and fiddler Alexis Chartrand meld unparalleled virtuosity with an introspective sensibility. The two artists trace, with disarming spontaneity, their path across French Canadian, Appalachian, and Irish traditions. Propelled by traditional fiddle tunes and percussive steps, Gareiss and Chartrand explore, with palpable pleasure, the sharing of sounds and gestures, blurring the lines between music and dance, melody and movement. Their concerts are a privileged opportunity to witness the contemporaneity of fiddle and dance traditions through the singular creativity of Nic Gareiss’ step dancing, and Alexis Chartrand’s anomalous fiddling on the baroque violin.
CREDITS
Movement and sound by Alexis Chartrand & Nic Gareiss
All tunes traditional except:
Gigue à Pierre Chartrand (Pascal Gemme)
Motel Henry (Jean-Claude Mirandette)
Hommage à Guy Thomas (Philippe Bruneau)
BIOS
One of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” Nic Gareiss (he/they) has been hailed by the New York Times for his “dexterous melding of Irish and Appalachian dance” and called “the most inventive and expressive step dancer on the scene” by the Boston Herald. They reimagine movement as a musical practice, recasting dance as a medium that appeals to both eyes and ears. Born, raised, and residing in what some people call Michigan, Gareiss engages many percussive dance traditions, weaving together a singular dance practice marked by his love of clog, flatfoot, and step dance footwork vocabulary; improvisation; and musical collaboration. Gareiss received the 2020 Michigan Heritage Award, the region’s highest distinction bestowed on traditional artists. They have performed in seventeen countries including at London’s Barbican Centre, the Irish National Concert Hall, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Kennedy Center and collaborated with The Chieftains, The Gloaming, Phil Wiggins, Colin Dunne, Liz Carroll, Bruce Molsky, Sandy Silva, Bill Frisell, Alasdair Fraser, and Natalie Haas. Nic’s graduate thesis was the first piece of scholarship to center the experience of LGBTQ Irish step dancers, he holds a MA in Ethnochoreology from the University of Limerick. www.nicgareiss.com / @nicgareisslfi
Montréal fiddler Alexis Chartrand (he/him) has been active in the Québécois traditional music scene for many years. He is known for his energetic accompaniment of step dancing and social dances, frequently collaborating with movers including baroque dancer Anne-Marie Gardette and traditional dancer and caller Pierre Chartrand. His 2017 album with multi-instrumentalist Nicolas Babineau (fiddle, guitar), Gigues à 2 faces, was nominated for Best Traditional Album at the 2018 Canadian Folk Music Awards, while their 2019 album un beau ptit son has brought their performances across Québec, Canada, New England, and Europe. Alexis’ research into the intersections between traditional and baroque violin styles has been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Montréal Arts Council, and the Centre des Musiciens du Monde. This work has led to the introduction of the baroque violin into the practice of Québécois folklore, and to new interactions between the worlds of traditional and early musics. His teaching has been appreciated at CAMMAC, Sutton (Québec), Boxwood Festival (Nova Scotia), and Carleton University (Ontario), among others, where he has given workshops on fiddle, traditional repertoire and traditional music history. www.agchartrand.com / @agchartrand
Photo: Bernd Kumar
please cry
ABOUT
“One day, I discovered a photograph revealing that my grandmother had been a military nurse for Japan during World War II. Later, I watched a documentary about a woman who, like her, had served in the war, sharing long-buried trauma. Had my grandmother endured something similar? I don’t really know…” Please Cry is a deeply personal solo performance by Megumi Eda, blending dance, live video, and music to explore intergenerational trauma, resilience, and the lingering impact of war. Inspired by the silence surrounding her grandmother’s past, the piece reflects on how unspoken histories echo across generations. Through movement, Megumi seeks to embody these inherited emotions, giving form to what words cannot express. War’s trauma is never just history—it lingers, passed down like an unbroken chain.
This production is a co-production of CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing and is made possible by a travel grant from CRS. https://crsny.org
CREDITS
Concept, Performance, Video: Megumi Eda
Composition, Live Sound: Reiko Yamada
Lighting: Clifton Taylor (?)
BIOS
Megumi Eda is a dancer and filmmaker creating multimedia works at the intersection of theater, dance, and film. She began her career at 17 with the Hamburg Ballet, later joining the Dutch National Ballet and Rambert Dance Company. In 2004, she moved to New York as a founding member of Armitage Gone! Dance, collaborating on over a dozen new works and winning the Bessie Award that year. Her long-term collaboration with Yoshiko Chuma has led to innovative performance projects. Now based in Berlin, she focuses on exploring Multi-Generational War Trauma, Women’s Rights, and Institutional Abuse in the Dance World through works like fish άɪ lens (2025), Please Cry (2022), and DIVINE (2023) with Yuko Kaseki.
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and arts organization founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. CRS is a signatory to the We Have Voice Collective Code of Conduct and a multi-year sponsor of M3 (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize, and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions. https://crsny.org
A co-production by Megumi Eda and DOCK ART funded by the Senate Department for Culture
and Europe in 2022.
Supported by Tir Danza https://www.tirdanza.it/megumi-eda/
The premiere of Please Cry in 2022 was co-produced by Megumi Eda and DOCK ART, funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe and supported by Tir Danza. Please Cry is a co-production of CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing and is made possible by a travel grant from CRS.
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.
