Fresh Tracks Responses

The annual Fresh Tracks Residency & Performance program for early career movement-based artists is now in its 60th year. Originating at Dance Theater Workshop in 1965, it remains one of the most anticipated shows I've attended since moving to New York a year ago. With Juliana May serving as Artistic Advisor, this year's program carried the weight of a legacy which is discussed not only for the work it presents, but for what selection into Fresh Tracks can represent within the field.

Amongst the artists I admire and work alongside, Fresh Tracks is spoken about with a mixture of aspiration, admiration, and, at times, disappointment. The residency has long been understood as more than a performance opportunity: it offers sustained artistic support in a moment of dwindling NEA funds, public visibility in a major NYC theatre, critical attention in the form of press coverage and review, and institutional endorsement that can meaningfully shape an early-career artist's trajectory. And all of this flutters around my head as I take a seat in the left House of New York Live Art's theatre. 

Again & Again

The second night of Fresh Tracks opens with a clearing. We are issued into a state of intense focusing, into a new kind of music only possible through the performed hardness of bodies at serious work. 

I write of both Ryan X’s and the dancers’ jingling in motion. The music of Ariel's world induced a heightened and ritualistic experience of listening. By paying such close attention, I unexpectedly tripped into a world of rhythm and collaborative effort. 

Isolated from every day, this music emerges from Ariel’s devoted craft of choreographed shape. The expert control of lines and gestures within the performances of Marin, Emma, Dasol and Ariel show bodies moving in the calculating, emotionless, and withholding energy of the worker. Whether the dancers drew from rehearsal or life they collectively became bodies in the middle of a daily slog. They showed us the performance hidden from public view: the effort and dehumanizing monotony of endless and meaningless work that takes up so much of our days: work of excel sheets, of email formatting, of drafting slide decks, of bussing tables, of writing grant narratives, of artist statements, of google docs, shapes itself in my brain as a very pregnant moment of stillness. A stillness which haunts any recounting of my day's activities. 

Which is how Ariel begins the dance. 

The movement's simplicity and clarity reminds me of ceramics using harvested wild clay. Of digging hands deep into clay, rinsing, washing, repeating and smoothing out any edges, simplifying down the shape, simplifying the movement, the labor of the body, shaping complexity into a single moment of reforged material. 

If this dance were a piece of Wild Wisconsin Ceramics, stillness would be the glaze that unites and steadies the work. The sounds of dirtied sneakers would be the sounds of sponge-soaking water and the slow whirl of the table. The dancers themselves and how they find themselves becoming supine in handstands and crawling lizards and carwashes big enough for airplanes would be themselves the limitless possibilities in working with your hands. 

In a deeply investigated choreography, possibilities of voice, and bodies in unison make their way into the deepest and calmest parts of my mind. The space where the secrets that are sewed into hems live. And it is from this place that I watch with admiration, legs swinging and sweeping and creating rhythmic squeak squeak squeaks (they’re wearing sneakers). As the dancers move in grapevines, they flood the stage with nuanced and satisfying loops held only in memory. Drifting between witnessing and remembering, my eye catches ripples that flow from one dancer to the next, the anticipation of the coins jingle bringing me back to the present time and time again. 

As I watch the dancers’ labor, I think maybe they're moving their carry-on into overhead compartments. As the dancers continue to toil through the endless effort of the humiliating struggle we endure in this pay to play reality, I lose an instinct I had at the beginning of the dance. By the end I no longer cared to see their jingly change that announced their every step, their constant reminder of being observed and surveilled maybe by a boss, maybe by an app, maybe by us the audience. 

I leave instead only with the desire for the dancers to get to where they are attempting to go, together, with coins in their pockets, and dirty shoes, spinning and spinning and spinning. Together. 

AB+

Dhaliah's choreography of living scenes combine the technical ferocity of ballroom with the jester privilege of posting online. It feels like a drive in the car to a Dolls v Twinks wrestling match in a former Industrial Steel Factory, by a very intoxicated friend, through an unknown part of the city, with a dead phone, and a gun in the glove compartment. 

Dhaliah's use of structure is highly attuned to the artificiality of gender and behavior we can all recognize and laugh at. I feel like she is asking us to question who we are when we're in the slitted hospital gown, who we are when we're the nurse on the 12th hour of a shift, who we are as the right wing podcaster, a televised insurance provider, a viral comment debasing young people's ideals around gender and communism and trauma. 

The dancers jump and hurl themselves at each other, screaming "I should get Therapy, but I don't have insurance. I am very traumatized!" And then we are driven through scenes so full of kinetic and digital movement that the bodies in motion became mesmerising props of a stage being willed into carrying the uncontainable beast that is “being online.” On stage there felt a fated choreography for the dancers to fall into a unison. To create a dance of twirling delirium and tossing their bodies together with creative violence. 

The overall performance's investigations into trans aesthetics is moored by its accusations against the American Healthcare Experience as one of a Doomed horror story. It's the Trans Aesthetic of being a magic practitioner scapegoated as a harbinger of Doom. As Dhaliah and her dancers take their Greco-Roman shapes Doom is all I can think of and this messaging is presented to us with such urgency that while we watch the performers navigate with humor and mock violence, we are left without much hope for change. 

But change feels overrated and too luxurious in this world. Instead, the performance wants you to focus on the bodies. The bend of her arm, the tilt of her head, the weighted pop of her foot and twist of her leg all striving to embody the disorientating rhythms of the digital landscape that have driven us into our pockets of echochamber. The theatrics of the overloaded text, the relentlessness of club tracks, the wrapping of trans bodies in ribbed tank tops torn into bandages all mimic this experience of being in between a digital and a hyperreal. Bodies in Trans femme figurative art yield their weight towards the Cybernetic and the Chimeric which Dahlia goes for, taking the opportunity of Fresh Tracks to take a choreographic swing that feels big if also reliant on the possibilities of the main stage theatre's capabilities. 

What I loved about the piece was its bigness: its commitment to something now and honest. In doing so it gives into the slot machine type power of the devices we have. We are existing in a Twinks Vs Dolls economic structure, in a Wrestle Speed Dating social scene, and this performance tells much of that story. 

Without Breasts There is No Paradise

Cristina's vignettes play out with a high level of sophistication and craft that allow the impulses behind the work to succeed in their lofty and admirable mission. Beginning in a scene that was undoubtedly the most memorable for me, Cristina and Valentina slap and slap before doing the back to back sister twister and the Floor Scream Crab Walk Duet in a disorientation display of pure physicality and joyous recklessness. And it is Kashia's unpredictable entrance as Miss Venezuela that anchors the entire dance in a new sensation.

Cristina avoids the pitfalls of what might be referred to as an "identity dance," a term I myself despise, by never relying on the cultural objects to speak for themselves without a deep reevaluation. A piñata is not a piñata, but an object of smoking tender embrace. A luchador couple does not show up to fight but rather to cradle each other. I think of the way the mythic beauty in Mapplethorpe's "Two Men Dancing" (1984) elevates togetherness. Cristina makes exits into gags; sweeping into ritual. We, the audience are better because of it. 

The dance allows us into an invaluable moment of loss of former behavior and prescribed meaning. Cristina created a deeply emotional performance that left me in a state of rediscovery that remains real and true long after the curtains have closed. It is because of her commitment to using the tools available in dance and performance. She reminds me of the power of this artform when truly considering what an entrance can do. The same goes for  her use of  props, lighting, and text, and she does it with a love for the art that is undeniable. 

As a choreographer, Cristina reminds me that reclamation is work that remains one of the most powerful tools of choreography, in a world that seeks to display disempowered people as villains, enemies of national identity, and outsiders to everyday norms and "American" behavior. 

I have seen work before which attempts to use an internal catalogue of stereotypes. But Cristina's work doesn't feel like that catalogue is being used with an aim of pointing a finger. It remains powerful in how it toggles between being extremely focused and yet universal in her commitment to the power dance has in re-evaluating what we collectively are capable of imagining for ourselves and others. 

I'm reminded of a writing about this risky business of interdisciplinary practice. 

"Isn’t this precisely the promise of true interdisciplinary practice? That invention springs from working in the unfamiliar zones between the silos of specialty, and doing so in such a way that one is, quite deliberately, always off-kilter. Zen practitioners call that fertile discomfort the “beginner’s mind.” Travelers know it for the anxious exhilaration that comes from exploring utterly foreign territory without a map or knowledge of the language.  Actually, it seems fitting that genuine discomfort, what Hay calls a sensation of “catastrophic loss of former behavior,” is the necessary companion of such preternatural awareness and sensitivity.  Seeking out real experience in the moment and genuine insight, outside the twin constructs of habit and preconception – that’s inherently risky business." - Deborah Hay: Turn Your F’ing Head!

By Michèle Steinwald, Susannah Schouweiler (https://www.walkerart.org/reader/deborah-hay/)

Cristina continues this risky business with striking and singular vision.    

Swell

"MOMMY TAKE ME TO URBAN OUTFITTERS I WANT SOME LEGGINGS"

I see enormous GLOVES to start off the performance and I feel like we're going to have a sickening little time and I'm thinking about Violet Chachki at the Met Ball, and the ludicrously terrible definitions of CAMP attempted by the Rich, as we judged from our feeds and I mean maybe also Puppets? Maybe this dance is gonna have a big freaky puppet? 

And then, the dance kinda does have puppets: Miss Rose Luardo, Mr Rose, Mr boss, Ms boss, & what the Fuck is going on? 

Displayed in bold text on the inflatable giant gloves are "Moore'$ Law" and "GREED IS GOOD" which remain the only set pieces. 

Apparently, according to wikipedia, Moore'$ Law - is the empirical observation that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles roughly every two years while the cost of computers is cut in half. Originally posited by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965, this concept has served as the foundational guiding principle for the semiconductor industry, dictating the exponential growth of computing power. 

Dictating the exponential growth of the Fresh Tracks Program.

This dance, this comedy-circus-brainrot-soundscored-dance, is an indictment against all of us. This is Cringefest City. And the dazzling starpower and transformation of Rose into a caricature of modern work raises the bar for what I am willing to sit through and what I am willing to stare into the mirror at. 

"I'M YOUR BOSS and I need you to believe me when I say that Spongebob is White." 

How can someone perform with complete unbound sincerity and then join us in the lobby for drinks afterwards? In my opinion, the dance is a triumph of an argument for allowing dancers to create with the maximalist hand of a generation whose foray into adulthood has been clouded by social reorganizations that have eroded the fabric of society time and time again. . . 

Young people are facing adulthood clouded by AI, Covid, war, and genocide. They're graduating as the first people to see a confederate flag in the White House, to see the lack of response to the Epstein files, to see ICE officers shoot civilians in their cars. Mass deportations get worse as environmental catastrophe clicks down and summers become moments of civil unrest protesting the murder of Black civilians by heavily armed and lethal racist officers. Shooters in Kenosha walk free, Healthcare CEOs are gunned down in Manhattan and the echo chambers rejoice. Somehow art needs to capture all of that, acknowledge all of that. 

People are overwhelmed with the choice of what to talk about. Any attempt at trying to contain it all results in a dizzying display of theme ping pong and a jittering unclassifiable movement quality, as we witness a single mind overextend itself trying to contain it all. 

Wait, I think I LITERALLY Know this person, I've seen them on the train and averted my gaze and changed carts between stops, I've seen him in Union Square and he had a pamphlet and told me I was stuck up when I didn't take it. I've seen them looking back at me in the mirror whenever I consider myself a stupid idiot for believing in the power of dance rather than selling my soul to be a consultant and destroying the middle class.I've seen this person standing behind the podium up on stage telling us we should be happy to be graduating into a moment of endless possibilities thanks to the "AI Goldrush" pushed by the mega corporations whose Q2 earnings skyrocketed because GREED IS GOOD!!!!

As the intro to Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 loops, I feel with awful anxiety the realities of modern work, of our Smiling Friends-esqu speculative betting market dominated economy. Of the stupid little reductive ready to buy brand names we give to milk shakes and pants and ravioli. Have we no dignity left? 

Rose with her unpredictability and seemingly instant access to a depth of madness forces us as observers to drop our passivity. If there is any entertainment here, it comes alongside a long winded and overstimulating performance that is alienating to a point of almost unwatchability due to its frank sincerity and decisive collaging of the absurd contradictions of entering and remaining within the workforce.  

Sacha is powerfully capable of curating text that has become part of our everyday life and representing it humorously to the audience, allowing us to laugh at its own grotesque distortion. 

I believe her to be a master of the grotesque in a true sense of the word. Her use of text and character pushes the work past a limitation I've felt in other dance's attempts at character study and even solo. The impossible task of holding an audience within the world of the solo performer is possible because of the unshakeable quality Rose brings to the work and Sacha's devoted and insightful wordsmithing. 

I wonder how different the piece is from day to day. And I also wonder how far away is a reality in which we all become Rose. 

Vol. 1/DND/A Study on Perspective

"I mean who really wants to be the queen of 8.2 Billion People?"

"Y'all interested? In my 3 for one?

I work hard to provide for this community!"

Dorchel, Once again, Emerges. This time not swinging a mattress high above her head as she did in Triskellion weeks before but from an EGG of a bag, which is at the same time a Garment.  OK. A statement of silhouette, and movement, and shapeshifting. And as I begin to take note of the construction of the three dancers, Christine sets up a row of chairs that I just feel like are looming and ever present. Are they for us? 

I don't wanna get called on. I really don't ever but I especially don't think I could use this bike tire for a  necklace. I think it might be trash, and I am already overstimulated! It's the end of the night, I'm overstimulated and I haven't even looked at my phone but as Christine descends, I take note of a freedom from a certain anxiety I carry around all day in the city. Because at least, if I do get asked about a three for one, it won't be filmed and posted and make me look like an idiot, because of the safety of the theatre. I should be encouraged to try out a response right but also no no I really don't want to. 

As Dorchel and Syaera and Chance slip and dip and hold each other, as the weight of care takes shape, as Malcom's costumes gather sweat and draw the eye to the muscularity of dancer legs, I notice the whistle, is it always there? A Whistle which continues into the night, I swear I've heard it walking through the city. Is this the sound of a data center? No NO ! Maybe it's the thrum of 8 million people charging their phones so they can be ready to tap to pay to scan to snap to post to share and like and swipe from their chair. 

I mean, what is up with these chairs? 

I find within my daily account of the day, the folding chair a missing part sacrificed to the need of being ready to go. Too cumbersome a burden and plus won't they have chairs wherever it is we're going anyways? In Culturebot, Joëlle Antonia Santiago mentions the chairs as an endearing image from the Montgomery River Brawl. (https://www.culturebot.org/2026/05/104090/the-radical-geometries-of-dorchel-haqq) 

And I believe they reappear once again as a way of staging and solidifying a moment of virality and Culture into the Fresh Tracks Historical Canon. 

Dorchel in this work creates with the vibrancy of a much longer, much bigger production, spanning worlds, but distilled here for the NYLA stage, it becomes a dance whose excellence is born from its deliberately crafted use of the entire space. I think Dorchel really will take her time to take care of her people and of her artform. 

She is going to see through the exercise, she is going to create a dance which commits to the score and pushes it into a moment of exalting exhaustion. 

Is there always a whistle blowing somewhere at night? 

As the collective cares for each other, the spillage of voice and erotic touch and love slip and blend. The everyday becomes theatre and yet it is through its unrehearsed use of the performers’ real relationships that we are able to see the result of time in the studio, sharing weight, learning how to slide over without leaving anyone behind.