7th annual Artists in Motion Series: A Healing Night

Artists in Motion, presented by Alison Cook Beatty Dance and Guest Artists
Ailey Citygroup Theater
New York, NY

November 1, 2025
Artists in Motion Program: Water (Alison Cook Beatty Dance), Ark (NunweilerTanz), Indulge in the Moment – “Breathing Room” and “Bailando” (Katie Binder and Dancers), Golden Hour – FOR CHARLIE (Claire Wagner), Liminality (DanceKerr and Dancers), Becoming Another (Alison Cook Beatty Dance), Poetic License (excerpt) (Erika Batdorf), Cardinals in Snow (Saving Grace Dance Ensemble), Privacy (excerpt) (Britt Fishel & Artists), Nova(world premiere) (Alison Cook Beatty Dance)

Bethany Beacham

There is a unique delight in seeing a dance performance with little to no context, allowing the work to reveal itself without the burden of expectations. Even though I couldn’t help myself and did some preliminary research, I arrived at the seventh annual Artists in Motion Dance Performance Series, presented by Alison Cook Beatty Dance, with minimal information. What emerged that night was a showcase guided purely by what occurred onstage. Movement spoke to vast themes with emotional precision where words had not yet intervened.

This spectacular showcase brought together 53 artists who performed across ten works, spanning a wide range of styles, themes, and polish. Alongside Alison Cook Beatty Dance’s three contributions to the evening, featured guest artists and choreographers included Britt Fishel & Artists, Claire Wagner, DanceKerr & Dancers, Erika Batdorf, Katie Binder, NunweilerTanz, and Saving Grace Dance Ensemble. Each guest presented one piece, whilst Alison Cook Beatty Dance anchored the program with three.

The evening opened with Water by Alison Cook Beatty Dance, an energetic and atmospheric work that immediately established itself with elemental force. I tried to ignore my momentary distraction from their kneepads and focused instead on how the dancers moved through war-like motifs, such as combat, collision, and survival, before dissolving into imagery of oceanic chaos. At times, the stage became a cacophony of bodies, evoking shipwrecks and explosions, dancers seemingly lifted and redirected by invisible currents. I was most lost within the piece when the movement succumbed to this force entirely, as if the dancers were no longer propelling themselves around the stage but instead being carried by wind and tide.

Aside from recognizing the clever programming of following Water with the second piece, Ark, it took me a moment to orient to it due to its strikingly similar costumes to Water. But when I did, my focus shifted to the impactful pairings among the six NunweilerTanz dancers. In a series of simultaneous pas de deux, each pair and cluster reminded me of the fluidity of friendship, of how we hold each other up, constructing structures of support between us. I was impressed by the imagery this piece evoked, such as the fragile systems of interconnectedness that allow us to remain in an equally fragile world. Each dancer rendered this beautifully with a generosity that shone light on the ensemble as a whole, not any particular individual. Ark was choreographed by the company’s Artistic Director, Alexandria Nunweiler.

Katie Binder’s two contributions under the umbrella Indulge in the Moment were not as strong as the other pieces in this showcase. The first section, a solo called Breathing Room, struggled to find momentum, with long stretches of stillness that could have been used more richly with movement that supported the song lyrics playing overhead. I couldn’t help but feel a callback to dance competition circuits, though perhaps that was due to the kitschy costumes. However, I do applaud the soloist who tackled this choreography with so much heart and diligence in her technique.

Binder’s second piece, Bailando, promised rhythmic vitality in the music choice, which I much preferred to the backing to Breathing Room, which sounded rather generic, but, overall, it suffered from timing issues and under-rehearsed performers. It was rather uncomfortable to sit through a piece where certain dancers, who had been placed in the front, were looking over their shoulders to check the choreography. Even so, they all smiled brightly throughout the performance, which reminded me of my own excitement and fear when I first performed on a professional New York City stage.

Claire Wagner’s Golden Hour – FOR CHARLIE demarcated a turning point in the evening for me. From the moment the dancers entered, they carried energy and passion as if it were a weapon. The piece pulsed with a collective fury and conviction, in a way that made me want to stand up and say, “I, too, am a wronged woman! Let me dance!” These wonderful performers, righteous, contagiously fierce, and somehow effortlessly cool (were they even breaking a sweat?) absolutely captivated me from beginning to end. I was sincerely disappointed when they left the stage.

Liminality, presented by DanceKerr & Dancers and choreographed by its Artistic Director, Michael Anthony Kerr, was visually busy and narratively ambiguous. Though the piece was ambitious and featured the largest cast of the night, I also struggled to latch on to what themes were presented. However, something about the music, and subsequently the choreography, kept bringing the phrase, “It’s a jungle out there” to mind. Each dancer was dressed in a different brightly colored top, with the principal dancer (soloist Lindsey Jones, who impressed me with her technique and vibrancy) in a dress that reminded me a little too much of a circuit board. There were wonderfully synchronized group sections, anachronistic party dancing, and a rollercoaster of emotions that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Perhaps it was the sheer number of differing elements going on in the piece that made it not quite land for me.

Again, Alison Cook Beatty Dance presented another one of the strongest offerings of the night, Becoming Another, set to an original score by Dr. YoungMi Ha. Performed against a film projection and evocative lighting that bathed the dancers in hues matching the colourful embroidery on their flesh-tone costumes, the work explored how love and relationships evolve throughout time through the story of Adam and Eve. One central couple was mirrored against three others named Primavera, Amour, and Wise. Though each body, perhaps due to their gossamer costumes, held a vulnerability on stage, each dancer soared through the piece with fantastic technique without getting lost in storytelling. Vocal narration was layered beautifully over the music in a way that didn’t make me feel like the dance was being explained to me. A standout line at the end, “After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve at the beginning”, has stayed with me since the performance and sometimes pops into my head when I think about my own relationships. Two exemplary dancers who must be highlighted were Ava Trochiano, whose dancing lit a fire within me, and Rayan Le Curieux-Durival, who danced with the most magnificent lines of the evening. As the dancers took their curtain call, they handed the apples that had been on stage to various audience members in the front row. I couldn’t help but chuckle when Alison Cook-Beatty emerged from the wings to take back the forbidden fruit.

It’s safe to say that the next piece, Erika Batdorf’s Poetic License, was the most arresting of the evening, and was therefore one of my favourites. Though it was just an excerpt of a larger performance, Batdorf blurred the line beautifully between dance and performance art to present a heart-wrenching story. The piece featured spoken word, the stark imagery of a single high-standing chair on stage, and a woman who seemed to be grappling with mortality, freedom, and physical limitation. After some digging, I learned that the woman I saw on stage was actually the sister of the main character in the full Poetic License. The sister, as I learned from Erika Batdorf’s webpage, is partially paralyzed. Though I initially wondered why this piece was included in a dance performance series, I came to see that the character’s affecting movements — an outstretched arm, hands clutching the neck as fighting for breath, a shaking body oscillating between collapse and triumph — were some of the most powerful moments of the evening.

Cardinals in the Snow, presented by Saving Grace Dance Ensemble and choreographed by its Artistic Director Robyn Movsessian, was a welcome breath after such an emotionally charged piece. The piece began gently, and as I found myself immersed in the imagery of a snowy scene, red cardinals flitting in and out, I had momentarily forgotten to take any notes. Recurring movements that felt rooted in friendship and grace, ending with a final embrace, gave the piece emotional warmth, offering a lovely, quiet counterpoint to the evening’s more demanding works.

Britt Fishel & Artists’ Privacy (an excerpt from I call the violet moon vinca), also ranked at the top of the evening for me. Using abstract and intimate partnering, the piece explored the spiritual weight of womanhood—what we owe each other, how we forgive, and why we must return to one another. The two dancers—Lexi DiFilippo and Lydia Patselas—were some of the strongest of the evening. “This is what dance is about,” I thought as I entrusted these two women to carry me through such an emotional and symbolic piece. I am still thinking about this excerpt, about their long, silky black dresses and the honesty with which they both danced.

The evening closed with the world premiere of Nova, Alison Cook Beatty Dance’s final piece, a work that was named after a registered star. The piece was dedicated to Jo Matos, beloved former Artistic Director of The Children’s and Youth Ballet School at the Joffrey Ballet, who sadly passed away in October 2025. The performance was riddled with chaos, in just the way a piece drowning in planetary and astronomical imagery should be. Gradually, the disorder resolved itself into moments of control, before being lost again. This piece was danced beautifully, though I could see the fatigue of the evening beginning to affect some of the dancers. However, with a compelling arc, it was a justified and triumphant end to the showcase.

In her opening remarks, an emotional Alison Cook-Beatty spoke of friendship, transformation, hope, and the healing power of a coalition of artists. Each piece presented that evening reinforced these sentiments and evoked a greater voice reflecting upon these themes where words would be insufficient to do so. Not every piece reached its full potential in this ambitious program, but the cumulative effect had me on my feet at the end. When dancers and performers gather with generosity of spirit and embodied risk, something larger than any one of us does, indeed, emerge.

Bethany Beacham is a New York City-based writer and graphic designer originally from the United Kingdom. She has a B.A. in Linguistics and Rhetoric, having studied at institutions such as CUNY Hunter College, NYU, and the University of Oxford. Having worked for American Ballet Theatre for the last five years, Beacham is immersed in the world of ballet. As a former dancer turned writer, Beacham enjoys translating this physical art form onto the page.

 

Source: https://criticaldance.org/7th-annual-artists-in-motion-series-a-healing-night/