WORKS

 
 

MAKING

red dirt glitter / harrow

working titles, est. premiere 2027

Indulges in color and saturation—Ultra-black, thick, earthy, quicksilver action with a guttural, mystic-warrior Fauvism. Subterraneanly driven by an interest in the materiality of aesthetic… constellatory, compost-driven...

VIDEO: In-process / dueting , soloing


Support: UMD-ARHU Junior Faculty Summer Research Award and the Maya Brin Endowed Professorship in Dance.

Heed / Howl / bannish

working titles, Fall 2026, University of Maryland

Educational color study in connection with red dirt glitter research.

 

COLOR STUDIES

A transdisciplinary, multi-installment study of color, ecology + choreography. The experience and sensorium of Color - what it elicits, conjures, and conveys in, around, and beyond language. Stories and memories hidden in bones and flesh, tucked in the corners of homes long-since lived in. Vibration, frequency, afterimage, ephemeral, spilling surfaces, structure without containment - expansive, expressive, limitless, and pulsing.

  • Responds to the perilous consequences of progress and individualism, tracing the colossal beauty and profundity of the natural world. From calving glaciers to geologic time, the work seeks kinship with Nature’s structures, intelligence, and capacity for change.


    Performers: Candace Scarborough (Marielis Garcia in performance), Kaitlin Fox, Christina Robson, Sydney Lemelin. Original live sound by Adam Crawley aka DJ Plié.

    Performed as part of District Choreography Festival 18 September 2021. This work is created  with support from DancePlace (DC) and the Maya Brin Professorship in Dance at the University of Maryland.

  • Commissioned by The Wooden Floor (Santa Ana, CA, ages 14–17). A movement painting of geologic mechanization—majestic, cataclysmic, poetic. Dancers cascade, careen, and skitter through quicksilver rhythms and simmering pools of patience and care. Patterns emerge like hills shaped by time, rivers, and wind; performers become architects, painters, creators of a shared world.

  • “I am six years younger than my mother’s death.” Shadow, chorus, haunting, reckoning. Through movement, text, and elemental light, the work recounts a familial event—embodied, reshaped, and felt across time. A study in dis/re/orientation, it situates the present and future in the wake of the past.

    Presented by Lion's Jaw Festival at Green Street Theater, Boston MA.

  • A ballet-based study of color created with graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Maryland. Performed at the Faculty Dance Concert (The Clarice Performing Arts Center) and ACDA (Slippery Rock University).

  • Building, climactic, flirtatious, ecstatic, melancholic phrases. A choreographic study of magenta, driven by elliptical rhythm. Six performers yield to the experience of Color.

    Created and performed by Kaitlin Fox, Laurel Snyder, Sarah Beth Oppenheim/Marion Spencer, Candace Scarborough, Anna Adams Stark, Jasmine Hearn/Kendra Portier.

    Music: Adam Crawley

    Lighting: Chris Brusberg

    Design and Production by UMD MFA Candidates in Design: Kiana Vincenty (Costume) and Alex Shiryaev (Set)

    Locations: Bates Dance Festival, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and the University of Maryland.

    Burnish is supported (in part) through the Summer Dance Residency Festival at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Emory University and Bates Dance Festival. 

  • Initial exploration of magenta and afterimage.
    Performers: MK Ford, Leah Wilks, Kaitlin Fox, Lindsey Jennings, Alexis Miller, Natalie Stehly, Phoebe Ballard. Venue: Studio One Theater, Krannert Center, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

  • Footage courtesy of the School of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. 

    Educational commission. Performed, collaboratively designed, and produced by undergraduate and graduate students in TDPS.

    December 7-9, 2018 / Dance Theater, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. October 20, 2019 / Millennium Stage, the Kennedy Center.

  • Created with and performed by Emory Dance Company. Performed at Schwartz Center for Performing Arts (GA).

  • Nostalgia and disorientation of color—yard sale items bleached by the sun.

    Commissioned by Zenon Dance Company. Choreographed by Kendra Portier in collaboration with the Zenon Dance Company.

    "Glorious Discoloration" explores the desire to reshape memory in order to make our personal histories more palatable. Like disjointed photographs or family relics left to grey in the sun, this work pieces together corporeal retellings of past events and the desire to make sense of it all.

    Performed by Mary Ann Bradley, Patrick Jeffrey, Alyssa Mann, Scott Mettille, Leslie O’Neill, Sarah Steichen, Gabriel Mata (in for Tamara Ober). The creation of “Glorious Discoloration” was made possible with the generous support of the Jerome Foundation. 

    November 11-20, 2016 / Cowles Center (MN). 

 

PANTONE VARIA-TIONS

That we are shifted, subtly and profoundly, is the thing.

The Pantone Variations is one installment of Color Studies, an extensive series of interconnected variations developed in collaboration with dance artists across the U.S. Conceived during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, the project emerged as both a choreographic experiment and a community-based practice, initially shaped for virtual platforms. Like the Pantone color-matching system, the project functions as a comparative study: each variation distinct, yet connected through a shared foundation.

At its core is a ten-minute unison choreography composed of familiar steps—box step, step-touch, pony, grapevine, marching—sequenced into intricate syncopations and spatial patterns. The rigor of the choreography demands virtuosity, but uniformity is not the goal. Instead, its rigor lies in how performers stretch the material through rhythm, embellishment, suspension, or pleasure, and in the sustained attention and presence required to perform it. It is in this state that what I call psychic physics can emerge, transforming the material into poetic resonance—into color..

In this project, variation is not only a choreographic device but also a redistribution of authorship, positioning choreography as a site where difference, connection, and shared presence generate meaning.

  • Adriane Fang + Colleen Thomas

    Been wanting to do this for a long time.

    Daniel Miramontes + alexx schilling

    Also been wanting to do this for a long time.

  • Candace Scarborough + Kendra Portier

    Returning to previous material as a site of intentional change, repositioning, and renewal. The collaboration emphasizes sustained relationship as asset and purpose, fueling support, delight, and encouragement.

    Music: Regular Step on Snake River from Mind Over Mirrors' “The Voice Calling” (used with permission)

    Presented as part of CRACE at Roehampton University.

  • Friday, Sep 27 & Saturday, Sep 28, Connecticut College

    skies we’ve yet to see X All Tomorrows

    In process (experiment) showing overlapping two Pantone variations into one quartet.

    . Performers/collaborators: Emilia Bruno, Tristan Koepke, Christina Robson/Allie James, and Kendra Portier

    Opening for “Reveries,” a dance concert highlighting the work and teaching of Lisa Race and the vibrant entanglements of training histories, lineages, and creative relationships through choreography.

  • The choreography draws each dancer’s individual contributions and stories into the overall poeticism of the piece. Through rhythm, speed, and intensity, the movement is vibrant and expressive—saturated and brimming with color. 

    Created with Performers: (UMD graduate students) bree breeden, Emilia Bruno, Brit Falcon, MK Ford, Daniel Miramontes, Rebecca Steinberg, and Zoe Walders. Lighting by Chris Brusberg. Sound collage created by Kendra Portier in consultation with Sam Crawford (UMD faculty), featuring original and sampled sound. Conceived and directed by Kendra Portier.

    Saturday, May 11, 2024 at Dance Place in Washington D.C.

    Supported by Faculty Student Research Award (UMD), ARHU Advancement Grant (UMD), the Maya Brin Professorship in Dance (UMD).

    Overview features original and sampled music by from Adam Crawley, Sam Crawford, and Kendra Portier.

  • Created with Allie James and Tristan Koepke

    Research residency and support from Bates College (ME).

    Title inspired by Kim Deal / The Breeders

  • Originally performed and created for educational purposes as part of the Faculty Dance Concert at the University of Maryland, College Park. March 10-12 2023 at the Clarice Performing Arts Center. 

    This digital version is made in collaboration with performers and features...

    Performers: Brit Falcon, MK Ford, Daniel Miramontes, and Rebecca Steinberg. 

    Lighting Design: Scott Monnin

    Costume Design: Channing Tucker

    Sound Design Support: Roni Lancaster

    DRAFT Sound Collage: Kendra Portier

    DRAFT Original sound and samples by Adam Crawley/DJ Plié, Kendra Portier, and Kayleigh Gallagher, and from Reveries in the Rift by Joe Westerlund: "Pattern Return" and "Two Symbols/One" 

    Additional contributions from Javi Padilla, Christina Robson, and Tristan Koepke

    This variation and the larger Pantone project made possible with support from The Maya Brin Endowment in Dance, The Maya Brin Institute for New Performance, UMD Graduate School's Faculty Student Research Award, and an ARHU Advancement Grant. Made in connection with Portier's Pantone project - an extensive series of interconnected choreographic variations. 

  • Created with Bree Breeden + Jessie Young

    Beginning in quarantine, the necessary variations, practice, and togetherness: summer in Pantone.Beginning as a virtual process during the COVID-19 pandemic, a duet created to support us dancing together despite quarantine, the necessary variations, practice, and togetherness, became a support of returning. Summer in Pantone.

  • Supported by a UMD Graduate School Faculty Student Research Award, ARHU Advancement Grant, and the Maya Brin Institute for New Performance, Pantone was furthered with TDPS graduate students in Dance and Design. Our creative experiments culminated in solo, duet, trio, and sextet process-forward variations; developed and filmed in collaboration with (performers) Brit Falcon, MK Ford, Tristan Koepke, Javi Padilla, Christina Robson, Rebecca Steinberg, (UMD faculty, sound) Sam Crawford, and (sound) Adam Crawley/DJ Plié.

    • Trio: Tristan Koepke, Rebecca Steinberg, + Brit Falcon.

    • Duet: Mary Kate Ford + Christina Robson.

    • Solo: Javi Padilla.

    • Palette: All

  • Original experiments in virtual and distant processes. Some of which led to multimodal showings during and in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    • Kristen O’Neal + Greg Catellier: The first, the OGs / Emory University (GA)

    • Stevie Oakes + Adriane Fang (I think the first to return to in-person practice?) / SUNY Brockport and International Association for Dance Medicine and Science (IAMDS) Conference

    • Candace Scarborough + Sarah Beth Oppenheim: The first to return to fully in-person / Showdown at Gibney Dance Center

    • Candace Scarborough + Kendra Portier: First in-person summer festival / Bates Dance Festival

 

MORE

  • We’ll live in a lovely way…
    Landing, falling, orbiting prior selves—and a prior collaboration with Launch Movement Experiment—as both time capsule and departure.


    Created in collaboration with Aya Wilson, Katie Stehura, Sydnie Liggett, and Launch Movement. Sound design by Kendra Portier with Albert Mathias and samples from Nirvana, Melt Banana, and I’ve Lost. Lighting: The People Movers. Supported by The People Movers’ CRAWL at Gowanus Loft and NYU’s Tisch Summer Dance Residency. Presented at Gowanus Loft (NYC) and Jack Crystal Theater at Tisch (NYC).

  • “Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost” (M. Kudera). An Expressionist love-letter to NYC, HORSE investigates the containment of personal breakdown inside the spectacle of moving forward. Ambition and love serve as both conceptual desires and social behaviors—emblems of success and failure, entangling and liberating the performers in equal measure.

    Created with Anna Adams Stark, Edward Rice, Aya Wilson, Simon Thomas-Train (2013), Patrick Needham (2015). Sound design: Kendra Portier with music by Mike Wall, Darren Morze, Johann Strauss II, plus samples from Four Tet, Direwires, Murcof, Odd Nosdam. Support: Dixon Place, Arts for the People, Tisch Dance Residency, Gowanus Art + Production. Presented at Dixon Place (NYC), Gowanus Arts + Production (NYC), and Jack Crystal Theater at Tisch (NYC).

  • Identity as a manufactured response to the world underpins this ongoing solo practice. A movement study designed to soften forward drive and self-expectation. Daily reactions become character studies—distilled into qualitative rhythms, clipped and collaged into a nonlinear autobiography: equal parts communion and deep audit.

    Performed by Kendra Portier. Music: Mike Wall and Kendra Portier. Support: DanceNowNYC and Bates College residency (ME). Presented at Salem University, RoofTop Dance (NYC), Dancing Literate Project at Judson Memorial Church, and Gowanus Arts + Production’s Green Building (NYC).

  • An exploration of unison, generosity, and agency within a group—made possible by the generosity of the people themselves.


    Created with Meghan Frederick, Sydnie Liggett, Meg Madorin, Molly McSherry, Christina Jane Robson, Laurel Snyder. Support: Gowanus Art + Production, DanceNowNYC. Presented at Gowanus Arts + Production’s Green Building (NYC).

  • “One for sorrow, two for joy… ten for a bird you don’t want to miss.” Aimed at the gaps between language, subjective experience, and felt reality, the work overlays multiple perspectives of a singular event.

    Created with Laurel Snyder, Simon Thomas-Train, Christina Jane Robson, Leighton Lachman, Tristan Koepke, Dante Brown, Kendra Portier, Sara Gibbons.


    Also performed by Jasmine Hearn, Sara Gibbons, Marcos Durant, Rebecca Lubart, Emma Judkins. Support: Emerging Choreographer Award at Bates Dance Festival, Tisch Dance Residency. Presented at Jack Crystal Theater at Tisch (NYC), Gibney Dance Center, Triskelion Arts, and Schaeffer Theatre at Bates Dance Festival.

  • “My sisters,” and a story my Oma told of her own sisters in Jakarta. A rumination on embodied grief and grace, the work acknowledges the imagination’s ability to conjure what is absent, resolve the illogical, and sweeten what is harsh. Performers inhabit a billowing world both raw and determined, yet luscious and exposed.


    Created with Sydnie Liggett, Emma Judkins, Laurel Snyder, Megan Bascom, Christina Jane Robson, and a chorus of community friends. Costumes: Casey Loomis. Support: Dance New Amsterdam’s Splice Commission 2012. Presented at Dance New Amsterdam (NYC), WiredArts Fest at The Secret Theatre (NYC), Center for Performing Research (NYC).