The Department of Performing and Media Arts presents:

SHED

2025 Annual Spring Dance Presenting Series 
An Evening of Intermedia Dance in Three Episodes 

Kiplinger Theatre, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts
430 College Avenue
Friday, April 25th, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, April 26th, 7:30 p.m.

60 Minutes • No Intermission

The Department of Performing & Media Arts is pleased to announce the 2025 Annual Spring Dance Presenting Series in culmination of its yearlong programming, New/Futurism: Installation, Intermedia, Interactive & Immersive Dance. 

SHED is an evening of intermedia dance in three episodes, featuring Cornell students performing 50 Looks etcetera, a Merce Cuningham MiniEvent arranged and staged by Patricia Lent, alongside original choreography by Olive Prince and Danielle Russo in co-creation with Cornellians studying Technology in Music Performance with Kevin Ernste and Warren Cross. SHED explores cycles of technological revolution and the existential transcendence, and at times, ruin and debris that can follow. 

Experiments in “the mechanical” and humanmade connect the present with interdisciplinary legacies, like The Bauhaus and Fluxus, as well as Merce Cunningham, whose historic Events established the modern foundation for intermedia dance and co-creation as collaboration. Moreover, Cunningham and composer John Cage inspired the likes of the Happening, nudging artists and audiences away from the proscenium and instead towards a more democratic “stage” and approach, endeavoring site-specific, installational, and times, immersive experience as performance. Here, Cornell students had the privilege of working with esteemed company alumnus and The Merce Cunningham Trust Co-Director, Patricia Lent, in learning Cunningham’s 50 Looks and other iconic repertory, including choreography for San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square, originally for his 1968 made-for-television, avant-garde film in collaboration with Richard Moore. Ultimately, and cyclically, we return to the organic—the human form and essence—at times surreal, but always tangible in ways that urge us to reflect on how we wish to define our future. 

50 Looks etcetera is a Merce Cunningham MiniEvent, incorporating material from 50 Looks (1979) and Assemblage (1968), arranged and staged by esteemed company alumnus and Trust Co-Director Patricia Lent. This iconic repertory will be danced alongside Olive Prince's Residue and Danielle Russo's Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks. 

New/Futurism: Installation, Intermedia, Interactive & Immersive Dance is a yearlong activation of brand-new, cutting-edge curriculum, curricular and extracurricular events, guest artist exchanges, symposia, and performance and live-action engagements germane in the twenty-first century field of dance and its momentous innovations. 

What is the practice, purpose, potential, and power of dance beyond the traditional proscenium stage? How does the meaning of choreography operate and expand as its format alters and transforms? How does the dancer exercise and prepare themselves to activate and to communicate their practice in new and different surroundings? Audiences? Technologies? “Rules” of Engagement? 

Futurism first emerged in the early twentieth century as an effort to articulate the moxie and acceleration of modern thinking and making, emphasizing groundbreaking technologies and their lasting impact. In 1965, Fluxus co-founder Dick Higgins followed by naming the simultaneous, inter-practice of multiple art mediums, traditions, and genres as “intermedia.” Still an increasingly interdisciplinary field, intermedia is ever-relevant–colliding, propelling, and entangling dance with theater, film, text, music, sound, projection, and scenic design in the emergence of new, redefined stages, studies, materials, methods, and careers in the practice and production of dance. Embedded in this very legacy, the Department of Performing & Media Arts is committed to equipping Cornellians with the knowledge and skill sets to bring their artistic visions and curiosities into astonishing, interdisciplinary form.

The vision of the Department of Performing and Media Arts is to nurture and mentor artists, performers, writers, and thinkers through the process of event programming. We recognize that all people should see their stories represented, and envision their stories as valuable. We commit ourselves to creating spaces that actively seek to break down systems of oppression based on race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and place of origin and empower all to be involved. We seek to stimulate thoughtful discussion and enact social change within our productions and our audiences. It is our goal to make our events accessible to the wider Cornell and Ithaca community, to strengthen bonds and engage inquiry, dialogue, and impact around social and cultural expression. 

In the 2024-2025 academic year we will help realize a wide range of students’ creative projects, from original plays, to solo performances, to readings, to choreographies, to acting, directorial, and curatorial projects. We are particularly happy that in addition to supporting live performances, we are now also supporting the production of student films. Enjoy the shows!

Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks 

Choreography: Danielle Russo with “glitches” and contributions from the dancers 
Music: Adowyn Safon Ernste, Zeke A. B. Lawrence 
Projection Design: Jane Chen, Adowyn Safon Ernste 
Motion Sensor Design: Becky Lee 
Costumes: Sarah E. Bernstein 
Lighting: Steve TenEyck 

Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks references Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), questioning what is at risk, ceded, and acquired in a technologically-governed and socially-engineered futuristic society. 

50 LOOKS etcetera 

Choreography: Merce Cunningham 
Arrangement & Staging: Patricia Lent 
Music and Projection Design: Eliot Ray Burk 
Costumes: Sarah E. Bernstein 
Lighting: Steve TenEyck  

Choreography by Merce Cunningham © Merce Cunningham Trust. All rights reserved. 

50 LOOKS etcetera is an arrangement of 50 Looks, a solo Merce Cunningham choreographed for himself in 1979 interwoven with material excerpted from Assemblage (1968). This arrangement was made by Patricia Lent especially for the dancers of Cornell University. 

RESIDUE 

Choreography: Olive Prince with contributions from dancers 
Music: Michael Wall and Warren Cross
Projection Design: Adowyn Safon Ernste 
Costumes: Sarah E. Bernstein 
Lighting: Steve TenEyck

DANCERS 

Nicholas DeMayo 
Ashley Dorais 
Michael Fitzdale 
Molly Flanagan 
Anna Rose Holloway 
Molly Hudson 
Jini Li 
Cate Moore 
Sara Mettner 
Taylor Pryor 
Avery Wang

MUSICIANS & TECHNOLOGISTS

Eliot Burk 
Jane Chen 
Annika Elizabeth Currie
Adowyn Safon Ernste 
Zeke A. B. Lawrence 
 

CREATIVE TEAM 

Patricia Lent Guest Artist, Co-Director and Stage for The Merce Cunningham Trust
Claire Chesne Asst Lighting Design 
Danielle Russo Faculty Choreographer 
Kevin Ernste Instructor: MUS4421 
Nick Embree Set Design 
Olive Prince Faculty Choreographer 
Sarah Bernstein Costume Design 
Steve TenEyck Lighting Design 
Tim Ostrander Props Design/Mgmt 
Warren Cross Sound Design/ Instructor: MUS4421 
Becky Lee Motion Sensor Device and Video Projection Design

Patricia Lent danced for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (1984-1993) and White Oak Dance Project (1994-1996). She later taught elementary school at P.S. 234 in Lower Manhattan (1998-2007). In 2009, Lent was named a trustee of the Merce Cunningham Trust and currently serves as the Trust’s Co-Director. Lent began teaching technique and repertory at the Merce Cunningham Studio in the late 1980s. In recent years, she has staged Cunningham’s work for numerous companies, conservatories, schools, and museums worldwide. She was the principal stager for Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event, presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in April 2019 in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Merce Cunningham’s birth. In the summer of 2023, she collaborated on an arrangement of Beach Birds performed on the shoreline at Rockaway Beach. Lent has done extensive research into Cunningham’s notes and choreographic methods, and welcomes opportunities to share her discoveries with dancers, artists, and other inquiring minds. 

Danielle Russo is an Assistant Professor of the Practice (Dance & Critical Dance Studies) at Cornell University. Her creative and scholarly research concentrates on aesthetics, philosophies, and thresholds of experimental dance/performance and interactive technologies for unconventional ‘stages’ and environments, frequently in the public realm and through socially engaged praxes. As a choreographer, she has been presented nationally at the American Dance Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, Jacob’s Pillow, Lincoln Center for Performing Arts at Damrosch Park, The Oculus at the World Trade Center, and The Yard; and internationally in Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, Panama, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and Trinidad and Tobago. Residency and fellowship awards include C.N.N. - Ballet de Lorraine (FR), Danscentrum Jette (BE), Nadine Laboratory for the Contemporary Arts (BE), New York Community Trust (US), Independent Artists Initiative WUK (AT), Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation (US), LEIMAY (US), Mana Contemporary (US), Performing Arts Forum (FR), and Springboard Danse Montréal (CA), among others. She is a multi-year grant recipient of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Carnegie, Dance/NYC, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Harkness Foundation for Dance, One Brooklyn Fund, and most recently, NYSCI with NYSCA and NYS DanceForce. Driven by social and civic impact, she has been creative placemaking and producing large-scale performances and experiential artwork in architectural, historical, and politically-charged settings since founding Danielle Russo Performance Project/DRPP in 2010. Highlights include Armory Arts Week, Julian Schnabel’s Casa del Popolo, Governors Island, HERE Arts Center, The High Line Nine, La MaMA (fabNYC), LMCC River to River with Amy and Jennifer Khoshbin, Moynihan Station, Place des Arts, and Solange Knowles’s Saint Heron. Outside of her own devising, Russo danced with The Metropolitan Opera for several seasons. Prior to arriving at Cornell, she was faculty at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance, CUNY Queens College, University of Iowa, and The Joffrey Ballet School BFA and Professional Divisions. 

Olive Prince is a Visiting Lecturer in Dance at Cornell University. She is a veteran Philadelphia performer, educator, and artist who now resides in Ithaca, NY. She worked as a company member with Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers, Merian Soto and Silvana Cardell for over a decade. Her performance credits include touring internationally in Tawain, Singapore, Germany and Indonesia as well as nationally at the Lincoln Center Outdoors Festival, Battery Park Dance Festival, Joe’s Pub, and Interlaken Arts Festival. Prince received her MFA in dance and choreography from Temple University. She has been commissioned to create dance for many Philadelphia companies and colleges including site-specific work for William Smith College, the Magic Gardens, and the Iron Factory. Prince is artistic director of Olive Prince Dance which has been presented at Triskelion Arts Center (NYC), the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, the Live Arts Festival (PHL), the International Contemporary Dance Conference, New Dance Alliance’s Performance Mix Joyce Soho, the CEC Resident Artist Series, the nEW Festival and as part of the Susan Hess Choreographer’s Project where she was a resident artist. Her work focuses on corporeal intuition and crafting dance in relationship to unique spaces, installation, objects, costuming, and other art forms. Prince works to create visual imagery for dance to live in. She works with dancers to explore movement originating from deep explorations with literature and poetry, combined with imagistic physical tasks, phrase work, and improvisational parameters. The creative process is frequently a “playground” of experimentation that calls upon risk, vulnerability, and transformation. Most recently, Prince was a recipient of the 2023 NY Choreographer’s Initiative Grant.

Production Staff

Alexa Alfonsi Stage Manager 
Alfred Bernstein Technical Director 
Lisa Boquist Costume Shop Supervisor 
Andrew Lee Deppen Production Manager 
Michael Garrett Lighting & Video Supervisor 
Randy Hendrickson Media Assistant 
Savannah Relos Assistant Technical Director 

Production Crew 

Ethan Ordower Production Electrician 
Gia Doan Lighting programmer 
Bixby Piccolo Hill electrician 
Jessica Pedro Pascual Fly Crew 
Andrew Deppen Fly Crew 
Alex de Smidt Dresser 
Leah Ingalls Dresser 

Paint and Props Workstudy 

Sevara Khojamuratova 

Scene Shop Workstudy 

Bailey Hecht 
Benjamin Okoronkwo 
Kate Turk 
Max Fanning 
Julia Zhang 

Costume Shop Workstudy 

Avery Wang 
Alex de Smidt 
Ana Mocklar 
Julianna Cross 
Venicia Lamy 

PMA 1610 Production Technology Laboratory 

Giacomo Cuomo 
Ellie Dawson 
Sofia Doblosky 
Noelle Elkinton 
Molly Hudson 
Ziyan Jiang 
Jack McManus 
Alex Miloszewski 
Ethan Ordower 
Owen Reynolds 
Jesse Szewczyk-Buff 
Yameng (Tracy) Zhang

The 2025 Annual Spring Dance Presenting Series is made possible with the generosity, support and participation of The Merce Cunningham Trust, the Department of Performing and Media Arts, the Department of Music, and the School of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Cornell University. Special thank you to our Chair, Dr. Samantha N. Sheppard, and the Department of Performing & Media Art’s tremendous staff and production team. And, of course, thank you to our students, whose hearts and visions are at the center of what we do and why we do it. 

Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' people, past and present, to these lands and waters. This land acknowledgment has been reviewed and approved by the traditional Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' leadership.

PMA 3210: CLASSICAL DANCE TECHNIQUE | EVOLVING STUDIO PRACTICES INTO THE 21ST CENTURY 

TR 4:50pm - 6:30pm (3 credits) 

Classical Dance Technique is a studio course for the practice and performance of classical concert dance techniques, principles, and elements, including but not limited to Cecchetti and Vaganova ballet methods.

PMA 2300: DANCE COMPOSITION 

W 7:30pm - 10:00pm (3 credits) 

Students compose and present short studies that are discussed and reworked. Problems are defined and explored through class improvisations. Informal showing at end of semester. Includes informal showing of work. Weekly assignments in basic elements of choreography.

PMA 2720: INTRODUCTION TO LATINA/O/X PERFORMANCE

MW 11:40am - 12:55pm (3 credits)

This course is an introduction to Latina/o/x Performance investigating the historical and contemporary representations of Latina/o/xs in performance and media. Throughout the semester, students will critically examine central themes and issues that inform the experiences and (re) presentations of Latina/o/xs in the United States. How is latinidad performed? In situating the class around "Latina/o/x," as both an umbrella term and an enacted social construction, we will then turn our attention to (re) presentations of latinidad within different genres of cultural expressions.