Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup to Present DEA X DEA & Moving Memory: NEXT GENERATION

Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup presents The Moving Memory Project featuring DEA x DEA on Friday, June 6, 2025 at 7:30pm and Moving Memory: NEXT GENERATION on Saturday, June 7, 2025 at 7:30pm at Broadway Presbyterian Church. Tickets are pay as you wish, reservation required! 

Launched in 2019 by Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup, The Moving Memory Project embodies its founders' vision of bringing together artists, caregivers, and seniors to create a community of care surrounding issues connected to memory loss and destigmatizing the diagnosis of dementia, to raise awareness until a cure is found. "Works like this can help the world think and talk about dementia and memory loss in important new ways," says project advisor David Shenk whose writings on Alzheimer's and dementia garnered him international acclaim as an authority on the subject.

"What makes us human?" That's the central question animating DEA x DEA, a whimsical evening-length dance work co-choreographed by Stefanie Nelson and Maya Orchin that uses Massimiliano Bontempelli's 1925 play, Nostra Dea, as a springboard to explore the clichés and expectations surrounding feminine identity. In Bontempelli's absurdist comedy, the protagonist is a blank slate, adopting new identities dictated by the outfits she wears. In this contemporary reinterpretation, her transformations reflect the fluid and often contradictory roles imposed on women-simultaneously shaping and erasing identity. Nelson and Orchin shift away from the metaphor of clothing as a mere expression of self and instead critique the "one-size-fits-all" approach to identity. The work explores historical amnesia through the image of a swinging pendulum, progress and regression in a cyclical repetition over time. Ultimately, the dancers embody unpredictable forces of chaos-shaped by and resistant to the expectations placed upon them, revealing the instability of identity in a world that insists on defining it.

This final iteration culminates years of development, from solos to duets to ensemble works. Now distilled into its purest form, DEA x DEA embraces contradiction, movement, and metamorphosis-demanding we ask not just who Dea is, but who we are becoming.

Moving Memory: NEXT GENERATION continues to nurture emerging artistic voices, foster meaningful creative connections, and create space for the next generation of artists in our community.

This edition invites you to an evening of dance curated by Stefanie Nelson, featuring original movement-based works that delve into the themes of memory, erasure, and forgetting.

The performance highlights contributions from members of the Dance Italia community, including Nunzia Picciallo, Next Gen selected choreographer Anna Rice, and a special guest solo by Marjani Forté-Saunders, created in collaboration with Idea Reid, a recent graduate of Barnard College.

Program:

A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to Be

Choreography: Marjani-Forte Saunders in collaboration with Idea Reid

Performer: Idea Reid

Music: I Won't Complain by Rev. Paul Jones and Empty Grail by Vernon Reid

Inspired by the works of: Kara Walker, Frantz Fanon, and Forté-Saunders' On Permanence and I Won't Complain

This work navigates grief, Black embodiment, and resistance through layered references and deeply personal expression. Anchored by text, song, and movement, it presents a space for reflection on presence, inheritance, and visionary imagination across time.

Idea Reid is a Barnard College graduate with a background in both Dance and Psychology. Her performance credits include work by Norbert de la Cruz III, Chanel DaSilva, and others.

WAMI

Created & Performed by: Nunzia Picciallo

Music: Marcal, Nunzia Picciallo

Supported by: Equilibrio Dinamico, Big Factory, Associazione Culturale Ri.E.S.Co., Fuorimargine Sardegna, Tersicorea T.Off

Produced with support from: MIC Italian Ministry of Culture, GAI, TPP Puglia Public Theater, GA/ER

Awards: Performance Award (Solo-Tanz-Theater Festival), Masdanza Award, SAI Festival Award, and more.

WAMI reclaims the dancing body from binary expectations. Through raw, shifting movement, Nunzia Picciallo offers a vision of identity unbound-fluid, resistant, and fully embodied in its rebellion against structural norms.

smeard

Choreography: Anna Rice in collaboration with the dancers

Dancers: Georgia Dahill-Fuchel, Hanna Golden, Taylor Graham, Anna Rice, Kayla White

Music Composition: Georgia Dahill-Fuchel

Costume Design: Anna Rice

smeard explores the liminal world of dreams-where subconscious truths surface and disorienting logic reigns. Through a surreal, shifting movement language, the work invites audiences into a realm where reality and memory blur, allowing glimpses of our most avoided inner narratives.

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