Seán Curran’s connection to the NYU community runs deep. He is an alum of the dance program (BFA, ’83), who returned to Tisch Dance as a teacher in 2011 and later served as Chair of the department for nine years (2014 – 2023). He is an Arts Professor, a NYU Center for Ballet & the Arts Fellow (2017), and now joins the ranks of artists presented by the NYU Skirball Center.

As a choreographer, Seán’s distinctive work blends formalism with humanism. Abstraction, accumulation, counterpoint, and patterning are molded into metaphysical worlds where the music and body reveal a story that is startling in its visceral clarity. At their core, his dances explore our innate desire to connect and form authentic relationships. Just as our students at Tisch Dance respond to Seán’s incredible empathy and the supportive community he creates, audiences respond to Seán’s dances for their relatability – his way of rendering the autobiographical universal.

Seán has taught thousands of students, at NYU and all over the U.S., influencing generations of dancers and choreographers. These performances at NYU Skirball Center are significant for me because so many Tisch Dance alums – whom I’ve taught and mentored over more than 20 years – are now performing professionally with the company. They are remarkable dancers and people.

For years, Seán has taught students that music is the motor for dancing, encouraging them to dance not only to the music but IN the music. His works for Seán Curran Company, opera and theatre, use meter, rhythm, and speed in unexpected yet deeply satisfying ways. Seán’s profound love of music and incredible musicality are well matched to the two very challenging pieces of music on this program.

In Everywhere All the Time, Donnacha Dennehy’s percussion score, Surface Tension, performed by Third Coast Percussion, is dense and alive; magnificent moments of thunder charge the atmosphere on stage. The dancers are astonishing in balancing the warp and weft of the brilliantly complex music, dancing on the edge of danger. In Everywhere All the Time, Seán expands his artistic focus on human relationships to contemplate humans’ essential yet conflicted relationship with the natural environment.

Conversely, Seán’s newest work, PATH, is a three-part meditation transcending the corporal world. The ancient Catholic pilgrimage route of the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain is a metaphor for his spiritual journey, tracing a non-linear, wandering path of self-discovery. Composer Joby Talbott’s evocative choral composition, Path of Miracles, with text written by Robert Dickinson and sung by Tenebrae, is carefully entwined with the motifs and phrases found in the choreography. Like all of Seán’s work, there is meaning behind every movement.

Pamela Pietro is an Arts Professor and Chair of the NYU Tisch Department of Dance, where she received the prestigious David Payne-Carter Award for Teaching Excellence. Her choreography, teaching, and somatic research have been presented nationally and internationally.