Mausoleum: a place to acknowledge and remember a past that has been laid to rest.
A dance work that considers and interrupts what has come, making way for tomorrow.
In this new evening-length work, which is site-adaptive for being performed in the round and in the proscenium, performers become videographers, redirecting the audience's gaze through live simulcast projections. Overstimulating and nonstop, the work interrogates our overconsumption of media, addiction to drama, inertia that concretizes unsustainable forms of life and work, and the inextricable link between love and loss—death only matters if care is established.
Mausoleum fits not only into CMD’s overall creative and artistic practice—collaborative, functioning as a container, carving out avenues of empathy—but importantly, builds upon a key commitment that is why the company hasn’t premiered new live dance work terribly recently: a requirement of accountability and transparency in the ethical treatment of collaborators, striving toward greater labor equity. When self-funding was not a viable option to create new work and institutional support was not readily available, CMD would rather sit out a season than exploit the talents of its collaborators in any way.
We are taking strides to create a sustainable creative practice and company that fosters new work while providing fair, ethical treatment to all—Mausoleum is our re-entry into making live performance after a hiatus full of recalibrating and reckoning, and its success will dictate the feasibility of the future of the organization, as well as have the power to capitalize on the current labor movement waves in the United States to shape the broader conversation about labor equity in the dance field.
Artists spend decades honing their craft, and are continually undervalued. Our performers earn $30/rehearsal hour, $250/ performance, and $100/day per diem while touring. All collaborators are fairly and equitably compensated. We must change what creatives can expect from a career in the arts, even when (as in this case) much of the funding comes from personal income. While these figures are still inadequate, they are above what more established, awarded, and lauded independent dance-makers pay. It's one step to break the cycle of labor abuse in the dance world.
Trailer for Mausoleum, featuring music from Ex-Fiancée and words from Jayson P. Smith.
Visual art by Robert Flynt, documentation photography by Elyse Mertz.
Trailer for ChrisMastersDance’s dance film collaboration with composer Ex-Fiancée, A Feast That Never Comes
Behind-the-scenes footage from rehearsals for Mausoleum can be found on ChrisMastersDance’s Instagram and Ex-Fiancée’s TikTok.
Some samples: Teaser with description, Duet from 4 angles, Perspectives of filming simulcast, Perspective from the inside, No-touch duet, Camera operating #1, Camera operating #2
Chris Masters (Concept and Direction)
Chris Masters has been making dance work for over twenty years, and is currently director of ChrisMastersDance (CMD). His work has been presented at Judson Memorial Church, Salvatore Capezio Theatre, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, Danspace Project, 100 Grand, Triskelion Arts, Irondale Center, and Dixon Place in NYC, as well as Detroit Opera House, Music Hall Performance Space (Detroit), Boll Theatre (Detroit), Iron Factory (Philadelphia), Fengchao Theatre (Beijing), and CMD has held creative residencies at Public Space One (Iowa City) and 555 Gallery (Detroit).
Masters has performed the work of Martha Clarke, Colleen Thomas, Stephanie Liapis, Keith Thompson, Doug Elkins, and Jan Erkert, among others. Additionally, Chris performed with Third Rail Projects' Then She Fell, recipient of a 2013 New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award. As an educator, Masters has served on the faculties of University of Michigan, Wayne State University, University of Iowa, Albion College, American College Dance Festival, Dance New Amsterdam, 100 Grand, Gibney Dance Center, Mark Morris Dance Center, and Peridance Capezio Center. Chris completed a MFA in Choreography from University of Iowa, where he was awarded an Iowa Arts Fellowship.
Ex-Fiancée/Sven Britt (Composer, Camera Operator)
Sven Britt is the resident composer for ChrisMastersDance, completing scores for several works, including Exit Strategies (Triskelion, 2014), Mausoleum (Work-In-Progress) (Danspace, December 2014), and A Willful Host (La MaMa Moves!, May 2014). His compositional work for dance has been shown at Iron Factory (Philadelphia), University of Iowa, University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, and the Fengchao Theatre in Beijing (with an immersive dance theatre work created with CMD). He accompanies all dance classes taught by Chris Masters (among others), at Peridance Capezio Center, Mark Morris Dance Center, Gibney Dance Center, and University of Iowa.
He has played, produced, and toured professionally with Stranger Cat (Joyful Noise Recordings [Son Lux, Kishi Bashi, of Montreal]), a duo with Cat Martino (The Shins, Sufjan Stevens, Sharon van Etten), playing at Bonnaroo, as well as opening for Son Lux, Patrick Watson, Sebadoh, Natalie Prass, Night Beds, Indians, Emmy the Great, Yoni Wolf, Serengeti, Reptar, Surfer Blood, and Porches.
His upcoming album A Feast That Never Comes—directed by Chris Masters—is accompanied by a dance film that has received 500+ festival awards and selections in the most competitive festival season in history.
cove barton (Performer, Choreographer)
cove barton is a trans movement artist and filmmaker currently based in Brooklyn (Lenapehoking). He graduated magna cum laude from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA through the Dance Department’s Advanced Degree Program, and he has worked with artists such as Beth Terwilleger, Cameo Lethem, Netta Yerushalmy, Danielle Agami, and Babette Pendleton, among others. They are currently in process with ChrisMastersDance as a dancer/choreographer, and with Ballez as a performing artist. Barton’s choreographic and film work has been shown at venues like Base: Experimental Arts + Space, Velocity Dance Center, Vashon Center for Dance, MAC Gallery and Studio Current. Barton looks for expansive qualities of connection, and collaborations that are openhearted and fostering change.
Sabrina Canas (Performer, Choreographer)
Sabrina Canas is a first-generation Argentine American artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She holds her BFA in Dance from UArts, where she performed in works by Netta Yerushalmy, Helen Simoneau, Beth Gill, and Sidra Bell, among others. In January 2018, she attended and performed at the International Association for Blacks in Dance Conference in Los Angeles, CA under the direction of Tommie-Waheed Evans and Kim Bears-Bailey; and produced/presented an immersive installation performance under the direction of Niall Jones. Since moving to Brooklyn, Sabrina has presented work at The Craft: Late Night Performances and Brews, and performed at Triskelion Arts; HATCH Performance Series; Uptown Rising Performance Series; and was a featured dancer in jazz musician Tony Glausi's music video, When It All Comes Crashing Down. She is currently a company member of ChrisMastersDance and Kinesis Project in NYC, while continuing to pursue her own work.
Abigail Linnemeyer (Performer, Choreographer)
Abigail Linnemeyer (she/they) is a Brooklyn based performer, choreographer and dance activist. She is physically invested in improvisation, partner work, and athleticism. Her queer identity inspires her research into gender in process and community outreach. She is currently working with ChrisMastersDance, Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDprojectNYC, and m i c c a. In recent years, she has worked on projects with Kayla Farrish, MICHIYAYA Dance, Elizabeth Dishman, Megan Flynn, Mark Dendy, and Grounded Aerial Dance Company. Since Abigail’s relocation to NY in 2021 they have had the opportunity to perform at Dixon place, TADA Theater, House of YES, 92nd St Y, NOoSPHERE Arts, and Lincoln Center among other non-traditional spaces. In addition to Abigail’s creative efforts, she is part of Dance/NYC’s Junior Committee. Abigail is eager to continue to pursue her desire to work in environments that center collaborative values and actively work to uplift queer communities.
Marcus Sarjeant (Performer, Choreographer)
Marcus Sarjeant is a 22-year-old dancer from Southern California where he trained with Westside Dance Project. In 2022, he graduated Summa Cum Laude from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in dance. Marcus has performed the works of choreographers such as Annamari Keskinen, Connie Shiau, Kayla Farrish, and Johannes Wieland. He was a Spotlight Grand Prize winner for Non-Classical dance in 2018. Marcus is excited to continue performing and creating work in New York.
Eva Yaa Asantewaa (Lead Dramaturg)
Eva Yaa Asantewaa (she/her) is a veteran writer, editor, curator and community educator. She won the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance.
Since 1976, she has contributed dance criticism and journalism to Dance Magazine, The Village Voice, SoHo Weekly News, Gay City News, The Dance Enthusiast, Time Out New York, her arts blog, InfiniteBody, and other publications and podcasts (Body and Soul; Serious Moonlight).
In 2016, for Danspace Project’s Lost and Found platform, Ms. Yaa Asantewaa created the skeleton architecture, or the future of our worlds, an evening of group improvisation featuring 21 Black women and gender-nonconforming performers, a cast that won a 2017 Bessie for Outstanding Performer. In 2018, Queer|Art named one of its awards in her honor, the Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant for Queer Women(+) Dance Artists. In 2019, Yaa Asantewaa was a recipient of a BAX Arts & Artists in Progress Award. She is Founding Director of Black Diaspora and founder of Black Curators in Dance and Performance.
From 2018-2021, Ms. Yaa Asantewaa served as Senior Director of Curation as well as Editorial Director at Gibney and now continues some of that work as an independent consultant directing and curating some of the programs she initiated for Gibney--Black Diaspora, Imagining journal, Deeper Lectures, Deeper Duets, and WORD!
She was a member of the inaugural faculty of Montclair State University’s MFA in Dance program. She has also served on the faculty for New England Foundation for the Arts' Regional Dance Development Initiative Dance Lab 2016 for emerging Chicago-area dance artists as well as the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography's inaugural Forward Dialogues Dance Lab for Emerging Choreographers.
Ms. Yaa Asantewaa was a member of the New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards committee for three years and has been a consultant or panelist for numerous arts funding or awards organizations including the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
As a WBAI radio broadcaster (1987-89), Ms. Yaa Asantewaa worked with the Women’s Radio Collective and the Gay and Lesbian Independent Broadcasters Collective (OUTLOOKS) and co-hosted the Tuesday Afternoon Arts Magazine with Jennifer Bernet as well as producing her own specials.
Ms. Yaa Asantewaa was born in New York of Barbadian immigrant heritage and makes her home in the East Village/Lenapehoking.
In addition to her work in the arts, Ms. Yaa Asantewaa maintains a private practice in Tarot counseling. From January 2001 to January 2005, Eva published DancingWorld, a monthly email newsletter devoted to Tarot, psychic and spiritual development, and creativity. She is an ordained minister (ULC, Modesto, CA) and legally registered with the City of New York as a marriage officiant with special interest in neo-pagan and secular-humanist ceremony.
While studying at Fordham University--where she received her B.A. in Communications in 1974--Ms. Yaa Asantewaa was introduced to Jungian psychology and the "mind games" techniques created by Robert Masters and Jean Houston. She also studied Community Health Education at Hunter College School of Health Sciences and received the Hunter College President's Award for HIV/AIDS Creative and Scholarly Work, First Prize, 1992.
Through Radical Magick (which she founded in 1992), Ms. Yaa Asantewaa produced and facilitated workshops and special events sponsored by over sixty health and social service, spiritual, feminist, people of color, and LGBTQ+ organizations in the New York metropolitan area. Among these are the New York Open Center’s Womanspirit Journey program, New York Theosophical Society, College of New Rochelle, Healing Works, New York State Conference on Women’s Health, Riverside Church Wellness Center, Women’s Health Education Project, and Women’s Rites Center.
Her poetry appears in The Zenith of Desire: Contemporary Lesbian Poems about Sex (ed., Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, Crown, 1996), Does Your Mama Know? An Anthology of Black Lesbian Coming Out Stories (ed., Lisa C. Moore, RedBone Press, 1997), Queer Dog: Homo Pup Poetry (ed., Gerry Gomez Pearlberg, Cleis, 1997), Isis Rising: The Goddess in the New Aeon (ed., Denise Dumars, 2000), Brooklyn Review, Kuumba, Starfish, WV, Tempus, The Isis Papers, and the Pegasus Dreaming, Star Leaper, and Pedestal Magazine Web sites. She was also published in An Eye for An Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11 (Regent Press). She has read her work at numerous venues including the Brooklyn Museum, the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, A Different Light Bookstore, Bowery Poetry Club, and Cornelia Street Cafe.
Robert Flynt & David Fishel (Photography and Video Art)
Robert Flynt’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States and abroad since 1980. It has been shown in major museums, galleries, and alternative spaces, as well as in collaborative performance and dance projects.
In 1992 he was included in “New Photography 8” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where his work is in the permanent collection, as well as in the Metropolitan Museum, The International Center of Photography (NY), and L.A. County Museum, among many others His notable one-person exhibitions have been at Witkin Gallery, Wessel+O’Connor Gallery and ClampArt in New York, the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica, the G. Gibson Gallery in Seattle, and the Gomez Gallery in Baltimore. He has been included in over 50 group exhibitions since 1980. He had a solo exhibition at Heartgalerie in Paris in March, 2009, followed by group exhibitions in Berlin, Tel Aviv, and Chicago, among others. In 2012, his work was featured in “Naked Before the Camera” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
Flynt’s collaborative projects include commissions from Brooklyn Academy of Music with choreographer Bebe Miller in 1989, and the L.A. International Arts Festival with Ishmael Houston-Jones and Dennis Cooper in 1990, and with Yoshiko Chuma on The Yellow Room, Daghdha Dance Company (Ireland) in 2003. Body-Scan, a image/performance project with choreographers Benoit Lachambre and Su-Feh Lee, premiered at Le Quartz in France in March, 2008 and toured internationally in 2009. In March 2009 he collaborated with Pavel Zustiak/Palissimo on Weddings and Beheadings, premiering in New York at the Ailey Center Theater. The pair received a Baryshnikov Arts Center residency in 2010 and premiered their new collaboration, Amidst, there in June, 2011. This continues as Part 2 of Palissimo’s The Painted Bird trilogy, which premiered at the Wexner Center for the Arts in September 2012. His recent collaboration with choreographer Yoshiko Chuma, Love Story, Palestine was presented at La Mama ETC in New York in May of 2012.
Along with numerous visiting artist and residency engagements throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, Flynt has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Light Work, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, Art Matters, the Peter S. Reed Foundation, and the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy. Most recently he was a resident at Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain.
Flynt’s work has appeared in numerous photo publications, anthologies and artist’s books. His 1996 monograph, Compound Fracture (Twin Palms Publishers) received a Best Books of the Year award from the American Institute of Graphic Arts.
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David Fishel is a filmmaker and video artist based in New York. His film and installation work (including that which he has created in collaboration with ChrisMastersDance and Robert Flynt for 2014’s Exit Strategies), has screened at numerous festivals internationally. His music videos, promos, and shorts are routinely broadcast globally.
Fishel is one of the founding members of Chapman Steamer Arts, an artist-in-residency program that operates out of a 110-year-old firehouse situated in NY's Hudson Valley.
Oana Botez (Costume Designer)
Ms. Botez is a Princess Grace Recipient, NEA/TCG Career Development Program Recipient and NEA/TCG Round of Global Connections Program. Nominated for The Lucille Lortel Award, The Theatre Bay Area Awards, The Henry Hewes Design Awards, The Barrymore and Drammy Award. Oana walked away recipient of both The Barrymore and Drammy Award.
Her designs have raised critical acclaim in New York’s: BAM Next Wave, Bard SummerScape/Richard B.Fisher Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center, The David H. Koch Theater/Lincoln Center, The Glimmerglass Festival,Soho Rep, LCT3, The Public Theater, 59East59, La MaMa, The Kitchen, PS122, HERE Arts Center, The Joyce Theater, The Ontological-Hysteric Theater, BRIC Arts Media, Big Apple Circus/Lincoln Center and The Classic Stage Company.
Her collaborators in theater, opera, film and dance include: Robert Woodruff, Les Waters, Richard Foreman, Maya Beiser, Richard Schechner, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Janos Szasz, Andrei Serban, Blanka Zizka, Daniel Ezralow, Todd Eckert & Marina Abramović, Denyce Graves, Jeffrey Page, Saheem Ali, Daniel Kramer, Jay Scheib, Brian Kulick, Eric Sean Fogel, Zelda Fichlander, Annie-B Parson &Paul Lazar, Doug Elkins, Ken Rus Schmoll, Michael Sexton, Daniel Alexander Jones, Will Davis, Lee Sunday Evans, Megan Sandberg-Zakian, , Mary Birnbaum, Lileana Blain - Cruz, Awoye Tiempo, Tea Alegic, Jenna Worsham, Geoff Sobelle, Kristin Linklater, Zishan Ugurlu, Rebecca Taichman, Eric Ting, Alec Duffy, Razvan Dinca, Karin Coonrod, Kristin Marting, Evan Ziporyn, Eduardo Machado, Gus Solomon Jr.&Paradigm, Carmen DeLavallade, Jackson Gay, David Levine, Dusan Tynek, Rania Ajami, Gisela Cardenas, Pavol Liska & Kelly Copper, Igor Golyak, Matthew Neenan, Molissa Fenley, Parallel Exit, Pig Iron Company, Play Company, Charles Moulton, Ripe Time, among others.
Ms. Botez is a graduate of Bucharest Art Academy (Romania) and received an MFA in Design from NYU/Tisch School of the Arts. Ms. Botez was a major contributor for the first Romanian theater design catalogue, called Scenografica. She taught costume design at Colgate College, Brooklyn College and MIT. Ms. Botez is currently an Associate Professor Adjunct in the Design Department at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. She resides in Manhattan, New York.
Maruti Evans (Lighting Designer)
Maruti has received the Drama Desk Award in 2013 for the designs of Tiny Dynamite and Pilo Family Circus, and Drama Desk nominations for: Deliverance, In the Heat of the Night, Slaughterhouse 5, and Blindness.
Real Enemies (BAM), Epiphany (BAM), Else Where (BAM), LEIDERABEND (BAM), Witness Uganda (ART), Big Apple Circus (2015), Big Apple Circus (2016), Cool Hand Luke (59e59), Deliverance (59e59), Café Society Swing (59e59), Alice vs Wonderland (ART), Mouth Wide Open (ART), Much Ado About Nothing (ART and McCarter Theater), Master and Margarita (Summer Scape), An Oresteia (Classic Stage Co), Crowns (Goodman Theater), Ballad of Emmett Till (Penumbra Theater), Owl Answers and the Dutchman (Penumbra Theater), Le Nozze Di Figaro (L.I.O), Ofero (L.I.O), Turn of the Screw (L.I.O), and Sweeny Todd (V.O.C).
Jayson P. Smith (Writer)
Jayson P. Smith (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, & curator, currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Primarily working within language, sound, and movement, their work is interested in Black performance/interiority, collaboration, & somatic practices.
Jayson has received support from New York Foundation for the Arts (Poetry, 2017), The Poetry Project, Poetry Foundation, Callaloo, and The Conversation Literary Festival. Their writing appears in html.review, West Branch, boundary2, The Poetry Project’s Recluse, Gulf Coast, & The Offing, among others.
Jayson’s performance work has been featured in numerous venues throughout the U.S., such as Guggenheim Museum, MOMAPS1, Loft Literary Center, The Home School, & Ace Hotel NYC.
J founded & curates NOMAD Reading Series in Brooklyn, & elsewhere.
Vidya Ravilochan (Dramaturg)
Vidya Ravilochan is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at The New School for Social Research in New York who specializes in Heidegger, Ancient Greek philosophy, classical American pragmatism, and the practical philosophy of Kant & Hegel. Her dissertation offers a Heideggerian approach to understanding musicality, and her undergraduate thesis (“The Song Itself: The Musical Legality of the Cosmos in Plato’s Timaeus”) explores the indomitable irrationality—the music—behind every rational attempt to order the universe.
Her multifaceted musical background spans the early (especially baroque) music, jazz, musical theatre, and Carnatic (South Indian classical) genres. She has performed operatic roles including Casilda in Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers at Indiana University, Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Narnia Festival, and Novizia/Conversa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica at the Tuscia Opera Festival. Among her accolades are First Prize in both the classical and musical theatre divisions at the Colorado-Wyoming NATS Competition and Outstanding Soloist at the UNC Greeley Jazz Festival. She holds a Certificate in General Music Studies from the Berklee College of Music, where she studied jazz theory.
Vidya is a recipient of The Onassis Foundation Fellowship in Ancient Greek Studies (2021–4), and has had her work has been published in the Women in Philosophy Annual Journal of Papers, and accepted to the 52nd North Texas Philosophical Association Conference and the 25th Annual Philosophy Conference in Pennsylvania. She will be teaching at Iona University and The New School for Social Research in Fall 2022.
Matt Steinberg (Lighting Design Associate)
Matt Steinberg (he/him) is a lighting designer, lighting programmer, and software engineer from New York. Recent designs include Allerleirauh (Bookworm Theatrics), The Seagull, Napoli Brooklyn (AADA), A History of American Modern Dance (Venetian Arts Society), Next to Normal, In the Heights (Brown University). Associate design credits include Cécile McLorin Salvant’s Ogresse (Kennedy Center, Paris Philharmonic, SFJazz, Jazz at Lincoln Center, NJPAC), In Our Daughter’s Eyes (PROTOTYPE, LA Opera), Black Lodge (Opera Philadelphia), Angel’s Bone (Beijing Music Festival), Infinite Hotel (PROTOTYPE). Completed an assistant design residency at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. 2018 recipient of ETC’s student sponsorship for Live Design International. B.A. in computer science from Brown University. mattlsteinberg.com
Elyse Mertz (Documentation Photographer)
Elyse Mertz is a NJ/NYC based photographer who constantly studies movement, gentle or gritty. She reflects on youthfulness, the limits of the body, and its emotional and physical potential. In her work, Mertz seeks to capture humanity - whether through portraits, dancers, or performances. She uses the camera to create clarity in the chaos of human bodies.
Elyse received her BFA in Dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. She is an ©ABT Certified Teacher and is an active educator at Princeton Dance and Theater Studio; teaching ballet and yoga to youth. Elyse received her 200-hr Yoga Certification in 2016 with the OM Factory. She has also studied with Little Flower Yoga to further her knowledge of teaching children.
Elyse has studied at the Art of Photographing Dance Workshop at Jacob's Pillow in 2017 and 2019 under Rose Eichenbaum. She has studied under Whitney Browne at Jacob's Pillow as well as in her "Experimental Photography", "Seeing Light" and "Creative Composition" workshops in 2020. She has photographed for Williamsburg Arts NeXus (WAXworks) in NYC and is currently the Company Photographer at Princeton Youth Ballet. Elyse photographs hundreds of dancers and choreographers through personal projects, collaborations, and live performances throughout the area.
Elyse invites you to collaborate, tell your story, and together, create a new narrative.
About Mausoleum and ChrisMastersDance
What precedes remembrance? In the midst of shouldering unrelenting pressure in an unsustainable form of life, how can we document our experiences? How can we find the time to pause, memorialize, and learn?
We build a Mausoleum. A place to acknowledge and remember a past that has been laid to rest. A dance work that considers and interrupts what has come, making way for tomorrow.
Finding underpinning Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, Sartre’s No Exit, Piketty’s Capital and Ideology, and Virgil’s Aeneid, we interrogate these questions through rigorous generative tasks, empowering collaborators to embrace their individual and indelible histories to forge a Mausoleum in the fire of their experiences and perspectives.
Overstimulating and nonstop, the work investigates our overconsumption of media, addiction to drama, inertia that concretizes unsustainable forms of life and work, and the inextricable link between love and loss.
The result is work that functions not as declarative, but rather as interrogative. There is no right answer, but there’s also no right question. You are encouraged to embrace your unique history and perspective to ask your own questions, and provide your own answers. The work remains fundamentally unfinished without you.
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ChrisMastersDance is a Brooklyn-based contemporary dance company built by a team of interdisciplinary collaborators and directed by Chris Masters. Founded in 2012, the organization's philosophy in dance making is that the work should function as a container, seamlessly blending movement invention, theoretical investigation, and character-driven theatricality. Like a container, the work can be unpacked in myriad and disparate ways, allowing for greater accessibility and connectivity to diverse audiences. The primary objective is to create an empathetic avenue for dialogue between performer, witness, and community.
Every love story is a ghost story; we are all haunted by our own histories, by the ghosts of those who have impressed themselves on us before. These histories and impressions impact our subjective experiences and future relationships—which then impress themselves upon future histories, and so on ad infinitum. The circle and cycle remains unbroken.
Our task-based approach to the generation of material—movement, words, music, film—centers the disparate and diverse voices in the room to create work that functions not as declarative, but rather as interrogative, always leaving the witness with more questions than answers.
The gulf between intention and consequence is massive in great and generative ways—rather than trying to crawl and claw our way toward the impossibility of clarity and control, our processes encourage that gulf to become an ocean.
You are hereby invited to embrace your unique history and perspective to ask your own questions, and provide your own answers. The work remains fundamentally unfinished without you.
Direction and Concept: Chris Masters
Choreography and Performance: cove barton, Sabrina Canas, Abigail Linnemeyer, Marcus Sarjeant
Original Score: Ex-Fiancée
Simulcast Videography: Sven Britt
Photography & Video Art: Robert Flynt & David Fishel
Costume Design: Oana Botez
Lighting Design: Maruti Evans
Writing: Jayson P. Smith
Lead Dramaturge: Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Supporting Dramaturge: Vidya Ravilochan
Lighting Design Associate: Matt Steinberg
Stage Manager: Katie Curran
Documentation Videographer: Sierra Hendrix
Documentation Photographer: Elyse Mertz
Publicity: Kelly Ryan
Earlier choreographic contributions by:
Bostyn Ashjian, Jason Reese Cianciulli, Rosie DeAngelo, Ross Katen*, Xuexin (Nico) Li*, Joey Loto*, Kate Vincek*
*Original work-in-progress showing at Danspace Project from invitation by Ishmael Houston-Jones
The original score for Mausoleum was created with the generous support of the Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation.
Photography and Video Art by Robert Flynt & David Fishel was filmed in part at Chapman Steamer Arts in the Hudson Valley.