2024 RESIDENCIES

Deville Cohen. The unclassifiable visual artist Deville Cohen is devising Three Duets, a responsive multi-channel, pre-recorded, and live sculptural video environment that employs media and technology to communicate between three dancers and a group of motorized kinetic sculptures. The sculptures, constructed of renewable and repurposed materials, use movement to explore the dynamics of and intimacy between humans and objects. Cohen will collaborate with dancers Tushrik Fredericks (South Africa), Margaux Marielle-Tréhouart (Germany), and Laura K. Nicoll (USA) to choreograph Three Duets, with a soundscape composed by musician/songwriter and Le Tigre band member JD Samson. (April 14–28)

The 2024 Next Festival of Emerging Artists. This year’s crew of talented young musicians returns to PS21 to rehearse the World Premieres of Essay #1: Leave the People by Grammy nominee Curtis Stewart, violinist and Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra; new works by Michael Dudley Jr. and Next Festival Artistic Director Peter Askim; and their performance of Rebecca Saunders’ Ire, concerto for cello, strings, and percussion, featuring guest artist cellist Seth Parker Woods. The June 7 concert will be a benefit for the Crellin Park Summer Day Camp scholarship fund (June 1–8)

Rebecca Lazier. Choreographer Rebecca Lazier is devoting her residency to creating Noli Timere, a soaring aerial performance-installation, with eight dancers moving, within, on, under, and around Janet Echelman’s voluminous floating, iridescent net sculpture that is both staging ground and catalyst. Rebecca Lazier’s choreography, set to an original score by cellist and composer Jorane, daringly synthesizes experimental dance, avant-garde circus, installation art, music, advanced engineering, public sculpture, and social practice. Noli Timere (“Be not afraid,” in Latin) makes the interconnectedness of the human and natural realms tangible and speaks directly to our current moment. (May 19–31, June 8–21)

Bass-baritone Davóne Tines developing Eastman Evensong, a ceremony interweaving three solo vocal works by Julius Eastman: “Prelude to The Holy Presence of Joan D’Arc,” “The Lord has given, the Lord has taken,” and “O love, into thy bosom let me rest.” (August 16–21)

Half Waif. Singer, songwriter, and producer Nandi Rose, who records and performs internationally as Half Waif, developed the live arrangements, choreography, and visuals for seventeen songs that comprise her new record, See You At The Maypole, with her eight-piece ensemble. The residency culminated with the world premiere of the songs from the record — an album release performance to over 250 people as the closing event of the 2024 season (September 29–October 5).

Kyle Marshall, director and choreographer of Kyle Marshall Choreography(KMC) will devote his PS21 residency to completing Femenine, the first work in his Julius Eastman Trilogy, dances set to the music of Black queer composer Julius Eastman. Eastman played piano on the 1974 recording of Femenine, which also employs woodwinds, horns, marimba, voice, vibraphone, piano, strings, and an ocean of bells. The jazz-inflected chamber piece demonstrates Eastman’s masterful fusion of improvisation and pulse-based minimalism. Marshall’s equally ambitious Trilogy celebrates the joys of queerness without underplaying the injustice and discrimination that continue to plague society. (January 14–19, 2025)