Concept and Direction: Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener
Media Design: Jesse Stiles
Music: Charmaine Lee, Mas YSA
Creation and Performance: Morgan Amirah Burns, Savannah Gaillard, Jennifer Gonzalez, Michael Greenberg, Claude CJ Johnson, Catherine Kirk, Cori Kresge, Chaery Moon, and Kalliope Piersol
Lighting Design: Davison Scandrett
Costumes: Rashaun + Silas, in collaboration with performers
Production Manager: Maciej Lewandowski
Stage Manager: Alexis Hinman
Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener are New York-based dance artists. Their work involves the building of collaborative worlds through improvisational techniques, digital technologies, and material construction. They met as dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance company and since 2010 they have created multidisciplinary dance works including site-responsive installations, concert dances, gallery performances and dances for film in venues such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barbican Centre, REDCAT, The Walker Art Center, and MoMA/PS1. Throughout they have maintained a commitment to queer culture and aesthetics. Their partnership intentionally blurs authorship and maintains a deep commitment to collaboration with a diverse community of dancers, performers, artists and cultural institutions.
Rashaun Mitchell is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the 2012 NY Dance and Performance Award (Bessies) for “Outstanding Emerging Choreographer”. His work has been presented by New York Live Arts, Danspace Project, Baryshnikov Arts Center, REDCAT, ICA Boston and Summer Stages Dance, La Mama Moves Festival, Mount Tremper Arts, Skirball Center at NYU, the Museum of Arts and Design, The Lab, ODC, and at various site-specific locations. Other awards include a 2007 Princess Grace Award: Dance Fellowship, a 2013 Foundation for Contemporary Art “Grant to Artist,” and a 2011 New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) for “Sustained achievement in the work of Merce Cunningham 2004-2012.” Mitchell is a Cunningham Trustee and licensed stager of the repertory. Since graduating with a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, he has collaborated with many artists, including Anne Carson, Stephin Merrit, Carla Fernandez, Charles Atlas, Xavier Cha, Davison Scandrett, Mas Ysa/ Thomas Arsenault, Jodi Melnick, Sara Mearns, Moriah Evans, Phillip Greenlief and Claudia LaRocco. Mitchell teaches workshops and classes throughout the country. He has staged work at CalArts and Connecticut College and has been on faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, Princeton University, and NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
Silas Riener is a graduate of Princeton University and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 2007-2012. He has performed with Chantal Yzermans, Takehiro Ueyama, Christopher Williams, Joanna Kotze, Jonah Bokaer, Rebecca Lazier, Tere O’Connor, Wally Cardona, and Kota Yamazaki. His own work has been curated at EMPAC, The Chocolate Factory, LMCC’s River to River Festival, The Serpentine Pavillion, and Danspace Project. His ongoing collaboration with artist Martha Friedman has resulted in works at Andrea Rosen Gallery 2, The Henry Museum, Locust Projects Miami, and Jessica Silverman Gallery.
Mas Ysa is the stage name of Thomas Arsenault, an artist. A native of Montreal, Mas Ysa began writing electronic music in high school while living in São Paulo, Brazil and later attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he studied Modern Composition. Mas Ysa is managed by Rich Zerbo, founder of the NYC-based record label The Social Registry.
Charmaine Lee (b. 1991) is an Australian vocalist based in New York. Using the voice, feedback, and live processing, Lee’s practice is primarily concerned with risk-taking, playfulness, and improvisation. She has been recognized as “extraordinary” by New Yorker and has been featured in New York Times, Washington Post, and Wire Magazine. As a composer, Lee has collaborated with leading ensembles including Kronos Quartet and the Wet Ink Ensemble. Her long-standing collaborators include Conrad Tao, Eric Wubbels, and Ikue Mori (MacArthur Fellow). Lee frequently guest lectures on building a personal language and creative agency at undergraduate and graduate-level composition programs including Princeton University, Stanford, and the New School. Lee serves on the Artistic Advisory Council at ISSUE Project Room and co-runs a record label with Randall Dunn, Kou Records, dedicated to artists who have developed singular musical languages.
Lee is a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow (2025), Emergent Ventures winner (2024), ISSUE Project Room Artist-in-Residence (2019), and a Roulette Van Lier Fellow (2021).
Jesse Stiles (b. 1978, Boston, MA) is an electronic composer, performer, installation artist, and software designer. Stiles’ work has been featured at internationally recognized institutions including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Lincoln Center, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Park Avenue Armory. Stiles has appeared multiple times at Carnegie Hall, performing as a soloist with electronic instruments.
In his music and artwork, Stiles creates immersive sonic and visual environments that encourage new methods of listening and looking. His musical output ranges from highly experimental, using texture and spatialization to create abstract clouds of sound, to borderline danceable, exploring the sounds of electronic dance and rock music to create avant-garde performances and recordings. Stiles’ installation artwork makes use of generative algorithms to control sound, video, light, and robotics – combining these mediums to create synaesthetic compositions that transform museums and galleries into evolving audiovisual environments.
Stiles has collaborated with many leading figures in experimental music including Pauline Oliveros, Meredith Monk, David Behrman, and Morton Subotnick. He has been featured as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony and the New World Symphony, performing with electronic instruments. Stiles’ recordings have been published by Conrex Records, Specific Recordings, Gagarin Records, and Araca Recs. Stiles has worked as a sound designer and composer on a wide variety of award-winning films, museum exhibitions, and video games.
Starting in 2010, Stiles served as the Music Supervisor for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Working with the company during their precedent-setting “Legacy Tour,” he produced and performed in more than 200 concerts featuring compositions by groundbreaking composers including John Cage, David Tudor, Brian Eno, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, and John Paul Jones. Stiles’ compositions were featured in many of the company’s site-specific “Event” Performances.
Stiles is currently Associate Professor in the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan.
Davison Scandrett is a production manager and lighting designer specializing in experimental performance collaborations across dance, architecture, visual art, poetry, music, information science, criticism, theater, and responsive media. Scandrett spent two decades working in the New York dance and performance community, most notably as Director of Production for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 2008-2012. Other production management credits include: Goldberg, Deep Blue Sea, Euphoria, and Land of Broken Dreams for the Park Avenue Armory; Kafka on the Shore, Reich/Reverberations, and National Ballet of China for Lincoln Center Festival; Heart of Brick and Sara Mearns: Piece of Work for Joyce Theater Productions; and international tours of An Iliad, Parable of the Sower, Night of 100 Solos, Wendy Whelan: Restless Creature, L.A. Dance Project, Gibney Company, BalletBoyz, Lyon Opera Ballet, Miguel Gutierrez, Jennifer Monson, and Silkroad Ensemble.
With designs in the repertories of Dance Theater of Harlem, Miami City Ballet, New York City Ballet, and Paris Opera Ballet, Davison has also created lighting for independent artists including Pam Tanowitz, Sonya Tayeh, Beth Gill, Liz Roche, Jodi Melnick, Moses Sumney, Jason Moran, Simone Dinnerstein, Charles Atlas, Anne Carson, and Mike Birbiglia, among others. In 2007 he jk was the recipient of a Bessie Award for his collaboration with Sarah Michelson and Parker Lutz on the visual design of DOGS at Brooklyn Academy of Music and more recently spent two years as lighting consultant for virtual reality research at the Oculus lab in Pittsburgh.
Scandrett created and performed the evening-length works Way In at Danspace Project and Taste at O Miami Poetry Festival with longtime collaborators Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener and poet/critic Claudia La Rocco. He was also featured in Performance, Mitchell’s collaboration with musician Stephin Merritt and visual artist Ali Naschke Messing at the ICA Boston and REDCAT in Los Angeles.
Prior to his career in dance and performance art, Scandrett was the head electrician for the World Tour of Rent and the First National Tour of The Drowsy Chaperone. He holds a B.F.A. in Design and Production from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and currently serves as Touring Consultant for the Park Avenue Armory and Design & Production Consultant for the Merce Cunningham Trust.
Scandrett joined the faculty of Bennington College in Spring 2024.
Morgan Amirah Burns, originally from Atlanta, GA is a multidisciplinary faith based artist. Her work acknowledges the human experience as necessary and valuable in understanding the greater than, making way for spiritual purity. A 2020 graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts Department of Dance, she’s trained in various styles ranging from ballet to contemporary floorwork. Composing site-specific scores, filmmaking, choreographing and performing have allowed for Morgan to create in residence with Gallim in their Moving Women Residency and more recently with New Dance Alliance as a Liftoff Artist. Here, she planted the seeds and developed Black Girls Who Don’t Like Watermelon Unite (2023). Her work has premiered internationally at the Agropoli Dance Festival (IT) , with the collaborative work Spring Promises Future made alongside Ontario, Canada based poet premiering both in the U.S. and Canada with major support from the Canadian Consulate. She is the Inaugural Recipient of the Merce Cunningham Trust Barbara Ensley Award. As a performer, Morgan performed works by Wayne McGregor, Pam Tanowitz, Sidra Bell, Ohad Naharin and many others. More recently, she has worked both as collaborator and performer with artist Kilo Kish creating i the site-specific performance work “Still Dreaming” as a part of Time Square Arts Council x Woman in Windows Midnight Moment, Natural Resources at LA MOCA and working as movement director on her newest EP.
Savannah Gaillard is a multidisciplinary artist interested in how the Black body is represented, constructed, and expressed in physical and digital spaces. Savannah’s early training began at Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington, D.C., the Ailey School, and Future Dancers and Dancemakers (NYU Tisch). At the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., she was featured in the Nutcracker with Ballet West and American Ballet Theater. She received her BFA in Dance and a minor in Public Health from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Savannah has performed works by Wayne McGregor, Ronald K. Brown, Sidra Bell, Rodney Hamilton, Mathew James, and Nicole Mannarino. She performed Off-Broadway in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma Dream Ballet (2018) and Nevermore Immersive’s Dreams of Dracula (2023). Savannah has been the Lead Administrator and Company Manager for NYC-based, non-profit dance company Eryc Taylor Dance (ETD) since 2022 and currently performs works by Rashuan Mithell + Silas Riener, and Mathew James. She is a dancer with the Trisha Brown Dance Company.
Jennifer Gonzalez began her dance training at New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida. She received her BFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she performed works by Bobbi Jene Smith, Crystal Pite, and Loni Landon. In 2017, she began working with Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener on Desire Lines, and later premiered Switch at The Joyce Theater as part of the NY Quadrille. She has also performed with Kota Yamazaki at New York Live Arts.
Michael Greenberg is a dancer and choreographer from New York City. He began his training at the Ailey School in 2004 and went on to study dance at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School. Michael received his BFA from NYU Tisch in 2017 and in 2019, he joined the First National Tour of Fiddler on the Roof with choreography by Hofesh Shechter. Then in 2023 he joined NW Dance Project and performed original works by Joseph Hernandez and Ihsan Rustem. In 2024 Michael joined two new productions at the Metropolitan Opera: Aida directed by Michael Mayer and Salome directed by Claus Guth. During his time in New York City he has performed with Nicole Von Arx (NVA & Guests), Liz Gerring Dance Company, Jody Oberfelder Projects, Loni Landon Dance Projects and Obremski/Works. He has been choreographing professionally since 2018 and received multiple commissions and residencies. Most recently he premiered a work through the Cuny Dance Initiative (CDI) and presented it at City College of New York.
A Chicago native, Claude CJ Johnson is a dancer, choreographer, and movement director. After finishing his studies at The Chicago Academy for the Arts and Suny Purchase College, where he was awarded the Adopt-A-Dancer Scholarship, Claude then became a full-time company dancer with A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham from 2017-2022 where he became a Princess Grace 2021 nominee. Claude has gotten the opportunity to perform works by Kyle Abraham, Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown, Twyla Tharp, Aszure Barton, Johannes Weiland, Doug Varone, Kevin Wynn, Nicole Von Arx, Keerati Jinakunwiphat, Princess Madoki , and many more. As a performer, choreographer and black queer artist, Claude dances to translate the human experience to audiences to recognize the art form of dance as the best catalyst to motivate self-expression and social change. In any artistic space he believes his responsibility is to increase the knowledge and perspective of his community’s vast experience.
Catherine Kirk (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, and educator raised on the unceded land of the Kiikaapoi and Wichita peoples, known as Dallas, Texas. With a BFA in dance from New York University, a yoga certification through The Perri Institute for Mind and Body, and a Reiki certification, Catherine’s research and interests have led her to dance and collaborate with Ogemdi Ude, Rochelle Jamila, Sidra Bell Dance New York, Jasmine Hearn, Jodi Melnick and Burr Johnson. She has been featured in the Netflix series, Halston, the Showtime series, Ziwe, and performed works by choreographers including Bebe Miller, Sharon Eyal, Doug Varone, Keerati Jinakunwiphat, and Andrea Miller. Catherine has created work for installation spaces and commercial short films, curated an evening for Chez Bushwick’s RECESS, and presented solo works as an Artist-in-Residence at Art Cake Brooklyn and Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation. She danced for A.I.M by Kyle Abraham for eleven years while working as the company’s Marketing Associate, and continues to restage A.I.M company works across American companies and universities. Catherine currently works with Rashaun + Silas and is in her third year with Trisha Brown Dance Company.
Cori Kresge is a NYC based dance artist, licensed massage therapist, writer, and teacher. She has been a member of José Navas/Compagnie Flak, Stephen Petronio Company, the Merce Cunningham Repertory Understudy Group, and is an authorized teacher of Cunningham technique. She currently collaborates and performs with various artists including Rashaun Mitchell+Silas Riener, Liz Magic Laser, Rebecca Lazier, Sarah Skaggs, Wendy Osserman, and Esmé Boyce. Cori’s choreographic work has been presented by Goethe in the Skyways, Elevation 1049, Beach Sessions, Dance Roulette, and other venues. She is the author of two poetry collections, isn’t devotion (No, Dear/Small Anchor first chapbook prize, 2019) and Combustion Suite (Bored Wolves, 2023). In 2020 she founded Play With Matches Workshop, pairing artists of different disciplines together to co-mentor one another.
Chaery Moon embarked on her dance journey with the Korean National Ballet and the Korea National Institute for the Gifted in Arts, earning early recognition by winning the Tanzolymp in Berlin. She received her BFA at The Juilliard School and later joined Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon. Upon returning to the U.S., Moon pursued an MFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Since then, she has been creating works that merge physical movement with the intricacies of human experience through collaborations with artists across disciplines. She creates works for stage, film, and site-specific performances, which have received recognition and support from NYFA, LMCC, the Korean government, the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, Downtown Brooklyn, and the Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation. She is currently developing new work as a 2025 Fall Artist-in-Residence at the Baryshnikov Art. Moon’s writing has been published in Dance and People and Dance magazines in South Korea. She is a certified Cunningham Technique® instructor and frequently participates in projects affiliated with the Merce Cunningham Trust.
Kalliope Piersol is a dancer from Brooklyn, NY. Her early dance training began at the Brooklyn Ballet School and later continued at the JKO School at American Ballet Theater. She is a graduate of SUNY Purchase, earning a BFA in dance with a concentration in composition. She has had the pleasure of working with artists including Alan Good, Jade Manns, Evvie Allison, Jeremy Nelson, and Luis A Lara Malvacias. Her own work has been presented by Women in Motion, Center for Performance Research, and PAGEANT. Outside of dance Kalliope works in the fashion industry assisting set designers Nicholas Des Jardins and Caz Slattery.
Rashaun + Silas would like to thank the wonderful community of people that supported us in so many ways during the making of this work: Martha Friedman and Alan Oxman, Tonya Lockyer, Philip Bither, Rebecca Lazier and Price Waldman, Audrey Banks and Ned Rosenman-Banks, Catie Cambria and Dan Pugliese, Tere O’Connor, Pam Pietro, The team at BAM, Christy Bollingbroke, Michelle Yard, Irene Hultman, Olga Dekalo, Linda Badami, Garrett Gharibeh and Misko Lencek-Inagaki, Lee Rowland, Marco Carbone, Bob Thurman, James Baker and Lissy Vomacka, Alice Lloyd-George, Patrick Needham, Josh Connors, Cathy Reilly and Joe Riener, Vicky and Greg Mitchell.
We are so grateful to the dancers in this work for being on this journey with us.
Thank you to Maciej and Alexis for your ease and grace. Thank you to Jesse, Davison, Charmaine, and Thomas for your tremendous contributions.
This project is made possible in part with support from the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation, The Samuel Scripps Foundation, The Princess Grace Foundation, The New York State Council for the Arts, Creative Capital Foundation, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance. Open Machine received residency and creation support at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts, Pillow Fort Art Center, Al Held Foundation and River Valley Arts Collective, Headlands Center for the Arts, The Barnard Movement Lab, and The Bogliasco Foundation underwritten by Van Cleef & Arpels.
NYU Skirball’s programs are made possible in part with support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the Howard Gilman Foundation; Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels; Culture Ireland; The Shubert Foundation; Collins Building Services; General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA; Goethe Institut New York; Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; New England Foundation for the Arts; Harkness Foundation for Dance; and Marta Heflin Foundation; as well as our valued donors through memberships, commissioning, and Allies for Arts Access Fund support.
NYU Skirball holds close James Baldwin’s dictum that “artists are here to disturb the peace.” Our mission is to present adventurous, cross-disciplinary work that inspires yet provokes, confirms yet confounds, and entertains yet upends. We proudly embrace renegade artists who surprise, productions that blur aesthetic boundaries, and thought-leaders who are courageous, outrageous, and mind-blowing. We are NYU’s largest classroom. We want to feed your head.
NYU Skirball’s programs are made possible in part with support from the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the Howard Gilman Foundation; Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels; The Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater; Collins Building Services; Harkness Foundation for Dance; Villa Albertine; Polish Cultural Institute; General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA; Québec Government Office in New York; Goethe Institut-New York; Austrian Cultural Forum New York; and Marta Heflin Foundation; as well as our valued donors through memberships, commissioning, and Allies for Arts Access Fund support.
NYU Skirball Members are friends … with benefits. Members receive discounted tickets to productions, events, pre-sale opportunities, exclusive invitations, and special access to innovative artists, academics, and thought-leaders. More importantly, members support a broad range of cutting-edge performances to New York City. Memberships start at $75.
Director Jay Wegman
Supervisor, Lighting And Sound Emily Anderson
Ticket Operation Specialist Cliff Billings
Engagement Director J De Leon, PhD
Theater Technician Brian Emens
Company Manager Tayler Elizabeth Everts
Theater Technician George Faya
Theater Technician Angie Golightly
Operations Manager Jenny Liao
Marketing Manager Clare Lockhart
Box Office Manager Craig Melzer
Development Director Kimberly Olstad Piegaro
External Affairs Associate Sabrina Yvellez
Front of House Supervisor Jordan Peters
Production Manager Alberto Ruiz
Senior Supervisor, Lighting And Sound Don Short
Finance and Administrative Manager Caroline Grace Steudle
Administrative Coordinator Zakiya Rowe
Operations Director Ian Tabatchnick
Press Representative Blake Zidell & Associates
Rimini Protokoll: All right. Good night.
Sep 25 – 27 | North American Premiere
Acclaimed docu-theater artist Helgard Haug interweaves the vanishing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 with the slow decline of a mind with dementia, mirroring globally and personally experienced forms of ambiguous loss. How do we make the missing tangible? What remains when presence disappears? On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished mid-flight—an event that remains one of aviation’s greatest mysteries. In All right. Good night., Haug interweaves this unfathomable disappearance with a deeply personal story: her father’s slow fading into dementia. Through documentary storytelling, and a live score by Barbara Morgenstern and the Zafraan Ensemble, the production transports audiences to a realm unreachable by research, transforming loss into an evocative theatrical experience.