Last month, BODYSONNET brought New York Now to Judson Church, marking the company’s first program as a New York based group.
The evening featured revivals of works by Artistic Director and Co-Founder Moscelyne ParkeHarrison and Associate Artistic Director and Co-Founder Mio Ishikawa, inside one of downtown dance’s most recognizable venues.
The program included Ishikawa’s newave, ParkeHarrison’s solo x dance, and say i am you, first made for Post:ballet in 2022 and revived here with a New York cast. With more than three separate works on a bill, the evening was a company putting its values in public: collaboration, physical closeness, trust, and a real investment in the audience it had gathered.
That goes back to the beginning. BODYSONNET started as an umbrella for projects and a way to keep going. In conversation, ParkeHarrison described graduating from Juilliard in 2019 and looking around with her best friend and co-founder Sean Lammer at a much thinner landscape than expected. Not many jobs, and not many clear models for how to keep making work once school ended.
Their first performance took place in three adjacent racquetball courts inside a gym which, as ParkeHarrison explains it, is actually perfect for dance with a strong floor, neutral space, and expansive room for show. They performed alongside a chamber music group remixing classical pieces, dancers and musicians moving between the courts together. Then the pandemic hit, and what had started almost by accident as site-specific work became useful in a much bigger way. Other groups were still figuring out how to move outside traditional stage settings. BODYSONNET was already there.
Photo Courtesy: Moscelyne ParkeHarrison
ParkeHarrison talked about residencies, local collaborations, and a horizontal structure where dancers also handled production, fundraising, and outreach. One of the most direct things she said was about mixed bills, which refers to a program made up of short pieces created by different choreographers who are commissioned by the company. These mixed bills made sense for a while because they opened doors and made collaboration practical. But eventually she started feeling what was missing. In a mixed-bill format, she said, you lose the creation of an entire world. That one line explains a lot about BODYSONNET’s direction. The company isn’t interested in putting up a piece, taking a bow, and moving on. It wants to build an environment around the work and something the audience can feel inside.
Producing their first official performance as a NYC based company at Judson Church was intentional, ParkeHarrison said directly. Known as the birthplace of post-modern dance in the 1960s, it’s one of the rooms in New York dance history that still carries a charge. Any younger company that performs there is stepping into a larger conversation whether it wants to or not. New York Now didn’t lean on that. ParkeHarrison used the phrase “post contemporary dance” when talking about where the company is headed. Whether that label sticks or not, the direction is clear. BODYSONNET is working to make dance that doesn’t fit neatly inside existing categories, and New York Now gave a sense of that. BODYSONNET is making work that is specific, collaborative, and genuinely alive.
Photo Courtesy: Maximillian Tortoriello
The next project, Magma, is the most ambitious thing on the horizon. First staged in a nightclub in San Francisco, it moves between proscenium, installation, and immersive formats in a single evening. The piece is built around the Cassandra Complex, not the Greek myth exactly, but the psychological label applied to women who are dismissed as hysterical when they’re right.
ParkeHarrison started developing the concept in 2022, watching the political landscape and landing on one idea: belief is more powerful than truth. The piece is created entirely by femme and queer artists, and how you move through it is entirely your own. Every choice you make about where to go next in the space determines what you see. This means your version of the work, and your version of the truth, is different from everyone else’s in the room.
Keep up to date with what’s next for BODYSONNET at bodysonnet.org or by following them on Instagram @bodysonnet.
