Trisha Brown Dance Company

The Dark: PS21’s fearless winter festival of live performance radiating across Columbia County

The Dark is a new annual festival from PS21 : Center for Contemporary Performance that celebrates and elevates the depths of winter. Taking place February 16–22, 2026, the festival will unfold at PS21 and across Columbia County—in theatres, restaurants, libraries, saunas, and outdoor public spaces. Featuring more than 60 international artists and over 80 performances, The Dark offers a packed week of world-class contemporary performance, installation, music, dance, and theatre—all exploring winter as a time of community and solitude, fire and ice, darkness and light. A major new attraction for the region, the festival positions Columbia County as a year-round cultural destination—not just a summer one.

It is a light in the dark—and The Dark is the light.

Secure your Festival Pass to The Dark now which includes tickets to every performance along with a complimentary sauna and ice skating session!

FESTIVAL PASS

For this performance of In Plain Site, the Trisha Brown Dance Company presents excerpts drawn from Trisha Brown’s Early Works (1966–1979). These works reveal Brown’s early investigations into gravity, accumulation, and the quiet intelligence of the moving body. Experienced at close range, the choreography invites audiences into the understated radicalism that helped redefine how dance could inhabit space.

Founding Artistic Director and Choreographer: Trisha Brown

Executive Director: Kirstin Kapustik

Associate Artistic Director: Carolyn Lucas

Rehearsal Direction and Arrangement: Iréne Hultman Monti

Dancers:  Savannah Gaillard, Rochelle Jamila, Burr Johnson, Ashley Merker, Patrick Needham, Jennifer Payán, Spencer Weidie

Stage manager: Joe Levasseur

Trisha Brown 1936-2017

One of the most acclaimed and influential choreographers and dancers of her time, Trisha’s groundbreaking work forever changed the landscape of art. From her birthplace roots in rural Aberdeen, Washington, Brown – a 1958 graduate of Mills College Dance Department – arrived in New York in 1961. A student of Ann Halprin, Brown participated in the choreographic composition workshops taught by Robert Dunn – from which Judson Dance Theater was born – greatly contributing to the fervent of interdisciplinary creativity that defined 1960s New York. Expanding the physical behaviors that qualified as dance, she discovered the extraordinary in the everyday, and brought tasks, rulegames, natural movement, and improvisation into the making of choreography.

With the founding of the Trisha Brown Dance Company in 1970, Brown set off on her own distinctive path of artistic investigation and ceaseless experimentation, which extended for forty years. The creator of over 100 choreographies and six operas, and a graphic artist, whose drawings have earned recognition in numerous museum exhibitions and collections, Brown’s earliest works took impetus from the cityscape of downtown SoHo, where she was a pioneering settler. In the 1970s, as Brown strove to invent an original abstract movement language – one of her singular achievements – it was art galleries, museums, and international exhibitions that provided her work its most important presentation context.  Indeed, contemporary projects to introduce choreography to the museum setting are unthinkable apart from the exemplary model that Brown established.

Today, the Trisha Brown Dance Company continues to perpetuate Brown’s legacy through its “In Plain Site” initiative. Through it, the company draws on Brown’s model for reinvigorating her choreography through its re-siting in relation to new contexts that include outdoor sites and museum settings and collections. The company is also involved in an ongoing process of reconstructing and remounting major works that Brown created for the proscenium stage between 1979 and 2011.

In her lifetime, Trisha Brown was the recipient of nearly every award available to contemporary choreographers. The first woman to receive the coveted MacArthur ‘genius’ grant (in 1991), Brown was honored by five fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, two John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships, and Brandeis University’s Creative Arts Medal in Dance (1982). In 1988, she was named Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the government of France. In January 2000, she was promoted to Officier and in 2004, she was again elevated, this time to the level of Commandeur. Brown was a 1994 recipient of the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award and, at the invitation of President Bill Clinton, served on the National Council on the Arts from 1994 to 1997. In 1999, she received the New York State Governor’s Arts Award and, in 2003, was honored with the National Medal of Arts. In 2011, Brown received the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for making an “outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.”

Savannah Gaillard (Dancer; she/her) is a movement artist and motion graphics designer from Northern Virginia. She received her BFA in Dance and a minor in Public Health from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Savannah has performed works by Wayne McGregor, Ronald K. Brown, Sidra Bell, Rodney Hamilton, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Reiner, Mathew James, and Nicole Mannarino. She studied improvisation in Berlin under Meg Stuart, Judith Sanchez-Ruiz, and Leila McMillan. She performed Off-Broadway in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma Dream Ballet (2018) and Nevermore Immersive’s Dreams of Dracula (2023). Savannah creates durational, multi-media, set improvisation scores. Her work has been shown in the Jack Crystal Theater, Lightbox NYC, and the Junction Function NYC. Savannah was the Lead Administrator for Eryc Taylor Dance for three years (2022-2025). During that time, she managed and aided in 4 ETD productions, the Fall Forward Dance Workshop, and the New Choreographer Grant award. In 2023, Savannah was invited to join the Trisha Brown Dance Company.

Rochelle Jamila (Dancer; she/her) is a Brooklyn based interdisciplinary artist, dancer, and womb/ birth worker hailing from Memphis, Tennessee. She began her dance career at Classical Ballet Memphis under Pat Gillespie and Katie Smythe’s New Ballet Ensemble. While attending Phillips Academy Andover, Rochelle studied modern and post- modern dance with Judith Wombwell and Erin Strong. Rochelle graduated from Columbia University in 2017 with a B.A. in Dance and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. While attending Columbia, Rochelle performed works by Joanna Kotze, Alexandra Beller, and Colleen Thomas, and began her own choreographic journey. Rochelle has notably worked with Ebony Noelle Golden, Ogemdi Ude, Jasmine Hearn, Jodi Melnick, Beth Gill, Maria Bauman, and Reggie Wilson, among others. Rochelle’s choreographic practice imagines liberation inspired by Nature’s cycles, folk practices of the African diaspora, and the physical and psychic realms of women/bleeding people and has been presented in Tennessee, New York and the Netherlands. Her work has been shown at Judson Church, Snug Harbor Botanic Garden, Triskelion Arts, The Buckman Theater, and University of Amsterdam. Rochelle is honored to be a 2025 Movement Research Van Lier Emerging Artist of Color Fellow.

Burr Johnson (Dancer; he/him) currently dances with Kimberly Bartosik/daela and The Trisha Brown Dance Company. He has performed with John Jasperse Projects (2010-2016), Shen Wei Dance Arts (2009-2017), Marina Abramović/GIVENCHY, Ryan McNamara, Netta Yerushalmy, Boris Charmatz, Isabel Lewis, Christopher Williams, Sally Silvers, Bill Young, Jack Ferver, Moriah Evans, and The Merce Cunningham Trust for Night of 100 solos: LA. He is a 2020 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award honoree for individual performance in Kimberly Bartosik’s through the mirror of their eyes.  His choreographic work has been presented through Abrons Art Center, Danspace Project, The American Dance Festival, GIBNEY, Works and Process at the Guggenheim Museum, and The Alvin Ailey School. He has participated in creative residencies through Redtail Arts in Jamaica Queens, The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation in Rockland Maine, New York Live Arts Studio Series, and the Alvin Ailey New Directions Choreography Lab in NYC. As a guest, he has taught at Henrico Center for the Arts, Philadelphia University of the Arts, the University of Utah, Salem College, MoMA PS1, Goucher College, Virginia Commonwealth University, UNC Greensboro, and The American Dance Festival. He holds a BFA in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Ashley Merker (Dancer; she/her) is a Brooklyn based dance artist, and GYROTONIC® and Pilates instructor. Originally from Denver, Colorado, she began her dance training at an early age. She earned her BFA from The Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase where she performed works by Kimberly Bartosik, Hannah Garner, Aszure Barton, Martha Graham, Trisha Brown, Adam Barruch and Doug Varone. She also studied at Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth, Australia where she performed work by Rhianon Newton. Since graduating she has danced and collaborated with Buglisi Dance Theatre under the direction of Jacqulyn Buglisi, and has since performed with Doug Varone and Dancers, Emma Cianchi, Claude Johnson, Nicole Fuentes, and is currently a performer in Kimberly Bartosik’s bLUr. Ashley is in her third season with the Trisha Brown Dance Company and is thrilled to share in this work with her fellow artists.

Patrick Needham (Dancer; he/him) is an LA native living in New York City, where he earned his BFA in Dance and Choreography from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Along with being a current member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company, he has enjoyed collaborating with choreographers such as Anneke Hansen, Netta Yerushalmy, and Kendra Portier, among others. Needham has performed experimental dance theater with Company SBB and HOLDTIGHT. Teaching highlights include summer dance intensives at the ASWARA School of Dance in Malaysia and WESTSIDE Dance Project in Southern California. Needham’s most recent endeavor has been teaching for the Trisha Brown Dance Company’s Education programs, all while pursuing his performance career. Currently, he is thrilled to be focusing on a new chapter of creating his own choreography repertoire for future performances and events.

Jennifer Payán (Dancer; she/her) is a first generation American-Dominican dance artist and Pilates instructor, raised in Teaneck, NJ. She received her BFA in Dance from Rutgers University with Magna Cum Laude honors, along with her 450-hour comprehensive Pilates certification through Polestar Pilates under Kim Gibilisco. Upon graduating, Jennifer performed for Pam Tanowitz Dance, Company Stefanie Batten Bland, Netta Yerushalmy, Jasmin Hearn Collaborates, UNA Productions, and GREYZONE. Beyond concert dance work, Jennifer has been featured in various film, immersive, and commercial performances by Punchdrunk’s, Sleep No More, Yara Travieso, Warren Adams, Amy Gardner, Bobbi Jene Smith, Solange Knowles, Maleek Washington, Austin Goodwin, among others. In 2021, Jennifer was invited to perform with the Trisha Brown Dance Company and is entering her 5th year as company member. 

Spencer James Weidie (Dancer; they/them) is a performance artist based in New York City. They graduated from the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College, SUNY with a BFA in Dance and a concentration in Dance Composition. They also studied at London Contemporary Dance School, Springboard Dans Montreal, and with the Merce Cunningham Trust. Spencer has previously held company positions with Brian Brooks/Moving Company, Bocatuya, Gallim Dance, MADBOOTS Dance, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, and Punchdrunk’s, Sleep No More. In 2022, Spencer was invited to join the Trisha Brown Dance Company under Carolyn Lucas. In 2024, Spencer made their Broadway Debut as Dance Captain and Swing in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club. Spencer is also the creator, curator, and host of FREEPLAY, a monthly open improvisation space for performance-based artists in NYC.

Iréne Hultman (Rehearsal Director; she/her) is a Swedish-born, New York–based choreographer, dancer, dramaturge and educator working across dance and performance. Her research explores how media, affect, and speculative theory shape movement and artistic production. Hultman was a member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company from 1983 to 1988 and later served as rehearsal director from 2006 to 2009, during which time she staged Brown’s Early Works at institutions including the Walker Art Center, Centre Pompidou, and Les Tuileries in Paris.

From 1988 to 2001, she was Artistic Director of Iréne Hultman Dance, touring nationally and internationally with works including Red-Cap, Tango-Babe, Cascade, Nordic Love, and Love, Betrayal and a Bowling Trophy. Her choreographic work also includes opera productions such as Mozart’s Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute at Drottningholm Palace Theatre, as well as new operas at the Royal Swedish Opera.

Hultman is co-founder of Firework and Järna-Brooklyn, fostering interdisciplinary exchange between Swedish and American artists. She has taught internationally and collaborated as a performer with artists including Yvonne Rainer, Xavier Le Roy, Moriah Evans, Yanira Castro and Emily Coates. A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts Award, she is a former member of the Bessie Committee and currently on the Artist Advisory Board at Danspace Project. She serves as faculty in Theater,Dance and Performance Studies at Yale University.

TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY (TBDC) is a post-modern dance company dedicated to the performance and preservation of the work of Trisha Brown (1936-2017) and projects related to her legacy. Established in 1970, TBDC has toured throughout the world presenting work, teaching, and building relationships with audiences and artists alike. https://trishabrowncompany.org

The Trisha Brown Dance Company is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Other major support of the Trisha Brown Dance Company provided by the Imperfect Family Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, Jody and John Arnhold, the Hyde and Watson Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance and The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. TBDC also extends special thanks to the Trisha Brown Company Board of Trustees and the Company’s Individual Donors at all levels.

Board of Trustees: Jeanne Linnes, President, Bill Wagner, Treasurer, Barbara Bertozzi-Castelli, Ruth Cummings, Nakia Eliott Lawrence P. Hughes, Anne Livet, Tara Lorenzen, Stacy Spence, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Chair Emerita

The Dark is supported through a Market New York grant, awarded to PS21 : Center for Contemporary Performance from Empire State Development and I LOVE NY, New York State’s Division of Tourism.

Digital content coverage for The Dark is supported by Bloomberg Connects.

The Dark‘s business sponsors are Millay Arts and The Mountains Media.   

Thank you to the many generous individual supporters who helped fund The Dark. 

PS21’s programs are made possible in part with support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Please note that this performance has an unconventional seating, limited seats or standing room only. We are happy to accommodate any specific accessibility needs.

Please reach out to Adriana at boxoffice@ps21chatham.org, and she will coordinate with our front-of-house team to ensure your experience is comfortable and enjoyable.