• A PERFORMANCE INSTALLATION IN THE SAGE CHAPEL CRYPT • FRIDAY NOVEMBER 1 • 5:00 PM TO 8:00 PM • FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC •

CHOREOGRAPHED BY DANIELLE RUSSO

FEATURING ALEXANDER ANDERSON, JARUAM XAVIER, KAYLA FARRISH & KEVIN SHANNON

Sage Chapel is located at 147 Ho Plaza at Cornell University with closest proximity to the Willard Straight Hall parking lot and 10, 30, 43 & 51 buses.

Presented by Ithaca Gallery Night •

SINCE THOU WAST PRECIOUS IN MY SIGHT, VOL. 3 is a series of highly athletic duels on persistent 30-minute loops, confronting habits, grievances, and at times, desires to submit. When cycles of will and reckoning transcend into the ritualized, what is the endurance, the ceiling, the undoing of a body of trust and conviction?

Choreographer Danielle Russo draws upon themes of original sin, obedience, and penance from her own experiences with/standing Catholic devotions to expose and dually exhaust socialized and conditioned frameworks of performative power via pious postures, gestures, ritual motifs, iconographies, and taboos. Each artist engages with an opposing performer for two consecutive cycles, urging bystanders to confront their own biases around cyclical patterns of control, force, deference, or the resistance thereof. What of their own biases and complicities will be revealed? To which will they hold themselves accountable? Confess? Reconcile?

Intentionally pared down in its staging, the installation is equally witnessed by the incidental soundscape of its heard devotion.

Sage Chapel emerged in retaliation to whispers of the school’s “godlessness,” but as the first nonsectarian chapel to serve a university campus in the country. Patron Henry W. Sage stipulated that "students should be attracted but not coerced into it." In 1872, Reverend and first Professor of Architecture Charles Babcock presented its design. Its active service still stands beside secular artwork commemorating the academic subjects [lending to the nickname “heathens on the hill”] as well as its memorial to Civil Rights workers echoed by its legacy of historic gatherings and speeches by iconic change makers, such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. It is also the resting place of fourteen individuals, including Ezra Cornell.

Trigger Warning: Please note that the performances explore mature content with an intense, vulnerable physicality.

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ALEXANDER ANDERSON

Alexander Anderson is a multifaceted dancer, choreographer, producer, teacher, and stager. He trained at Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts and is a graduate of The Juilliard School. Following graduation, Anderson began dancing for Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and became a company member of Nederlands Dans Theater 1 in 2017. There, his standout performance in Crystal Pite’s “Solo Echo” garnered critical acclaim, earning him Dance Europe Magazine’s Outstanding Performance by a Male Dancer in 2019. In 2020, Alexander became an Artistic Associate at Gibney Company, where he was later named the Inaugural Choreographic Fellow. As a choreographer, he has also been commissioned by Earl Mosley’s Diversity of Dance, Ballet Austin II, Buglisi Dance Theater, Houston Contemporary Dance Company, and SFDanceworks, among others. He has taught and choreographed for Ailey Fordham BFA/Professional Division, Peridance, Steps On Broadway, Gibney Dance, School of American Ballet (SAB), ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Summer Intensive. Alexander's passion for dance extends beyond performance, self-producing “Falling Elsewhere” at Arts on Site, featuring in “Smile 2,” and staging Edward Clug and Marco Goecke’s productions, including Goecke's critically acclaimed “Midnight Raga,” winner of the Gouden Zwaan (as an original cast member) for the most impressive dance production in 2017. He is a recipient of the prestigious Princess Grace Award.

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DANIELLE RUSSO

Danielle Russo is a choreographer and performer, artivist and community organizer, and scholarly educator working in aesthetics, philosophies, and thresholds of experimental dance and performance on the continuum of intermedia and socially engaged artwork. 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, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 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 have included C.N.N. - Ballet de Lorraine (FR), Danscentrum Jette (BE), Nadine Laboratory for the Contemporary Arts (BE), 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 NYC Department of Cultural Affairs through the Brooklyn Arts Council (BAF, LAS), Carnegie, Dance/NYC, Harkness Foundation for Dance, One Brooklyn Fund, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Her independent work is driven by social and civic impact, founded on a deep belief in local art activism that responds to neighborhood-to-nationwide urgencies and emergencies. Since founding Danielle Russo Performance Project (DRPP) in 2010, she has been producing large-scale performances and experiential artwork in public spaces, for public audiences, and frequently, through public collaborations. This emphasis on the intersection of local arts and public access aims to bridge existing gaps between what is all too often the exclusionary curation of live arts and the larger, multi-cultural milieu that is New York―her home base. 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, to name a few. Currently, she is Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Department of Performing & Media Arts at Cornell University, where she is uniquely professor of dance practice and of critical dance and performance studies, alike. Previously, she was faculty at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, SUNY Purchase, University of Iowa, CUNY, and The Joffrey Ballet School BFA and Professional Divisions. Outside of her own devising, Russo danced for several seasons with The Metropolitan Opera.

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KAYLA FARRISH

Kayla Farrish is a Black American Director merging dance-theater, filmmaking, narrative, and sound score. She captures ranging identity, the mythical dualities of history and present survival, and powerful dreaming lending to liberation. As a creator, she is currently a NEFA National Dance Project Grantee for her project “Put Away the Fire, dear” currently on tour and the recipient of the Ellis Beauregard Contemporary Dance Award. She also has been commissioned by Limon Dance Company, ODC Theater, Louis Armstrong House Museum, Blacklight Summit, Harlem Stage and beyond. Presenting spaces include Lincoln Center, Park Avenue Armory, Symphony Space, and National Sawdust, among receiving support from Watermill Center for the Arts, Armstrong Now, Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, Baryshnikov Arts Center, La Mama Theater, and others. As a performer, Farrish has worked with companies Sleep No More NYC, Kyle Abraham/AIM, Marjani Forte/7NMS, Danielle Russo, Kate Weare Company, Helen Simoneau Danse, Company SBB, Dendy/Donovan Projects, Arthur Aviles, Rashuan Mitchell/Silas Reiner, Nicole Von Arx, Baye &Asa, and others. As an educator, she has been adjunct faculty for NYU Tisch Dance, SUNY Purchase College, and Sarah Lawrence College. She performs in dance-theater, site-specific, musician collaborations, and films for a range of artists. She is excited to create more, and to continue to be a part of radical movements of freedom and humanity.

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JARUAM XAVIER

Jaruam Xavier is a Brazilian choreographer and dancer who has performed extensively for companies and choreographers in Belgium, Brazil, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Uruguay, and the United States. He was a company member of Brazil’s preeminent Balé da Cidade de São Paulo from 2008 to 2018, where he was featured in the works of Mauro Bigonzetti, Alexander Ekman, Andonis Foniadakis, Itzik Galili, Francesca Harper, André Mesquita, Ohad Naharin, and Cayetano Soto. As a choreographer, he delves into the exploration of Anthropophagic Body Formation, a framework that incorporates dance and cultural hybridity to assimilate knowledge. His work is influenced by Candomblé, Capoeira, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which are evident in his distinctive style. He has received prestigious fellowships, scholarships, and grants, enabling him to conduct research on Capoeira and Candomblé, both African Brazilian diasporic embodied practices, which was also at the center of his work at the University of Iowa, where he completed his MFA in Dance. There, Xavier collaborated with renowned programs such as the International Writing Program and Grant Wood Art Colony. He has also been appointed rehearsal director for guest dance companies and has served as an artist in residence at Art Omi. Currently, he is an assistant professor of Theater & Dance and an Affiliate Faculty member in Latin American Studies at Bucknell University.

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KEVIN SHANNON

Kevin J. Shannon is a freelance artist, dance educator, ceramic artist, artistic facilitator, and stager. He has worked with creators such as Brian Brooks/Moving Company, FLOCK, Danielle Russo, Hélène Simoneau Danse, kNonAme/Roderick George and Robyn Mineko Williams and Artists. Shannon trained at Baltimore School of the Arts, School of the American Ballet, and Miami City Ballet, among others. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School and was a longtime company member of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, where he performed principal roles in works by Kyle Abraham, Aszure Barton, Alejandro Cerrudo, Peter Chu, Sharon Eyal, William Forsythe, Jirí Kylián, Ohad Naharin, Crystal Pite, Victor Quijada, and Twyla Tharp, among many others. As an educator, he has led and programmed the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Summer Intensive and was on faculty for the Gibney Pro certificate program in New York City under the direction of Alexandra Wells. He is currently a guest teacher for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, José Limón Dance Company, and Gibney Company. Shannon has been a visiting artist for the School of The Art Institute of Chicago and a guest educator for the University of Chicago. Shannon is a certified IMAGE TECH for dancers™ teacher. He has also had the privilege to stage the works of Robyn Mineko Williams, teach master classes for FLOCK, and be the artist liaison for Springboard Danse Montreal where he facilitated a community of 120 dancers, 10 principal companies, 4 emerging artists, 2 resident choreographers and 1 fellow from around the world. Shannon also served as Rehearsal Director for SINCE THOU WAST PRECIOUS IN MY SIGHT, VOL. 3.

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Previous volumes have been presented at Julian Schnabel’s Casa del Popolo, Armory Arts Week, National Academy for the Performing Arts (POS), and Co-Prosperity Galleries in partnership with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

This premiere of Vol. 3 is made possible by funding in part by the Cornell Council for the Arts, Cornell Society for the Humanities Research Grants with the Office of the Vice President of Research & Innovation, Arthur C. & Molly Phelps Bean Faculty Fellowship, and SOS Grant Funding from the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County, with the generosity and support the Department of Performing & Media Arts and the Office of Spirituality and Meaning Making at Cornell University. Click here for more information about our partners and sponsors.

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Text by Samuel Beckett, as arranged by Danielle Russo under the fair use guidelines.

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Click here for more information about Danielle Russo Performance Project.

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For questions, concerns, or press kit information, please email drusso@cornell.edu.

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Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱ hó:nǫɁ (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱ hó:nǫɁ 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 Gayogo̱ hó:nǫɁ dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱ hó:nǫɁ people, past and present, to these lands and waters.

In addition to the Gayogo̱ hó:nǫɁ land acknowledgment but separate from it, the AIISP faculty would like to emphasize: Cornell's founding was enabled in the course of a national genocide by the sale of almost one million acres of stolen Indian land under the Morrill Act of 1862. To date the university has neither officially acknowledged its complicity in this theft nor has it offered any form of restitution to the hundreds of Native communities impacted.