Endangered Species
Supported by: Baryishnikov BAC Open Residency and the Gibney Company Moving Toward Justice Fellowship (MTJ) project developed and curated by Artistic Associate Kevin Pajarillaga.
In the not-so-distant future, today's most plentiful creatures are now endangered and fighting for financial aid to protect their kind. An extravagant pageant-styled competition gives the audience the power to make a life-altering decision for these species.
Creator/Director/Choreographer: Kelly Ashton Todd
Story Developer: Ria Meer
Performers/CoChoreographers: Truth Colón, Stephanie Crousillat, Ingrid Kapteyn, Tori Sparks
Mask Designer: John Pete Hardy
Lighting Designer: Beaudau Banks
Music: Designed by Kelly Ashton Todd featuring: Johann Johannsson, Biosphere, Matthew Herber, Laurie Johnson, Tony Kinsey, Ian Willian Craig, Uther Moads, Alan Braden, Harold Budd, Klaus Schulze
Director’s Note:
What if we could interview an animal?
What would they say?
Who would get to interview them?
Would they be concerned about appearances, about being ‘likeable’?
Would they burn the building down?
Would they look out at us in despair?
Would they attack?
Would they come near us?
Would they tell us about the catastrophe they have witnessed and all the loved ones they have lost?
Would they not give us that pleasure?
Would they know pleasure?
Would they sit in our lap, gain our love, tell us their most truthful, brutal story, and then leave?
Would they speak?
Would we listen?
The Endangered Species Act was enacted in 1973 as a response to the declining populations of many species of animals and plants. The Act was designed to protect and recover species at risk of extinction and to promote the conservation of ecosystems and habitats necessary for the survival of those species.
It all started with our society needing to create a law to protect species. That is where our consumption and power has taken us - needing to be under the law to protect a living being.
It may seem obvious. But this act is consistently under attack due to the demands of agriculture, cattle farming, logging, drilling and more. The Endangered Species Act has a long history of being brought to Congress in hopes of removing certain species to further commercially develop the land and water.
There are even some states that don’t recognize insects as species, and thus will not be protected by the state.
In 2023, 21 animals and plants were declared extinct in the United States alone.
I am so deeply in love with a vanishing world. And I believe you are in love too.
The above questions were stimulated by years of research regarding biodiversity and the protection of land. Information that the Indigenous Peoples have carried and shared forever, but we haven’t listened. It also took me through the undergraduate classroom led by a white man to hear.
For me, these questions and realizations stir up grief, rage, deep love, absurdity, nausea, anxiety, hope, humiliation, betrayal, bliss, and admiration - emotions I strive to bring into the process and the characters.
Though these emotions seem contradictory to one another, they are held in the same body. They are intertwined like we are intertwined with all species, the planet, and the atmosphere.
I am left with more questions than answers. With more feelings than stillness. But that is what I adore about art and activism - we lean into the “what if” and we let ourselves dream. These dreams become our protest and our action.
Kelly Ashton Todd
Director/
Choreographer
Kelly Ashton Todd (she/her) is a director, choreographer, performing artist, and environmental activist who makes work for both live theater and film. Her work explores land and human exploitation, environmental politics, and surrealism.
She received a BFA in Modern Dance from Texas Christian University and a Double Minor in Biology and Environmental Science (2011) along with a Master’s in Sustainability Leadership from Arizona State University (2021). Todd performed with the off-Broadway show Sleep No More from 2015-2022.
Todd’s choreography has been showcased globally. She has presented work at Kaufman Hall at the 92nd st Y, Dixon Place, NOoSPHERE Arts, ‘T’ Space Rhinebeck, Usine C, and Meow Wolf Santa Fe. She has been awarded the Brooklyn Arts Council Grant, Jerome Hill Foundation Finalist, F21 NYSCA in Media Grant, LEIMAY Fellowship, Human Impacts Institute Environmental Health Fellowship, NYFA Fellowship in Choreography, Emerging Choreographer for Springboard Danse Montreal 2022, and the Baryshnikov Arts Center BAC Open Residency 2023. She was a panelist for the United Nations in 2023 where she spoke to the intersection of climate change, female empowerment, and technology. Her award-winning environmental dance film series, Under Review, has attended over 20 film festivals nationally and internationally.
Ria Meer
Story Developer
Ria Meer (she/they) is a first-generation Filipino-American actor, visual artist and storyteller based in Brooklyn. A true multidisciplinarian, Ria has worked in sex worker advocacy, graphic design, cultural archival and social justice spaces. Ria’s creative work concentrates around the pursuit of healing from and within the grip of capitalism via kinship connection. Ria trained at the William Esper Studio and American Conservatory Theater and graduated with a degree in Gender Studies and Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Ria has performed in various theater productions in the San Francisco Bay Area, and most recently, completed work on an upcoming web series, An Astute Woman, directed by Marc Theobald.
Kevin Pajarillaga
Curator
Filipino American artist Kevin Pajarillaga is most curious about the process of sharing the lived experiences of the body through time and space fused with a little bit of fantasy and imagination. Pajarillaga has performed with artist Doja Cat at MTV VMAs 2021, Banana Republic’s “Art of Work campaign”, GAP’s 2018 spring campaign “Experiment in Color”, Celia Rowlson-Hall’s short film “First Snow” featured on NOWNESS and Times Square Arts’ “Midnight Moment”, and “SPACE END” by Wilder Yari and Maddy Talias. He has danced for events including H&M x Rabanne 2023 Collection Launch, Sky High Farm x Black Trans liberation Gala, and “Kiss My Face” NYC. He danced with companies including Gibney Company, NW Dance Project, Yin Yue Dance Company, and Sonya Tayeh Dance. He guest performed with Parsons Dance Company, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. Pajarillaga has performed original roles for Choreographers such as Alan Lucien Oyen, Felix Landerer, Gustavo Ramirez, Ihsan Rustem, Yin Yue, Michaela Taylor, Maleek Washington and others. He has performed works by choreographers such as Ohad Naharin, Sharon Eyal, Johan Inger, Alejandro Cerrudo, and others. He has choreographed for Gibney Company’s “Company Created’, NW Dance Project’s “In Good Company”, The Juilliard School’s senior concert, and the DREAMscape Gala. He co-choreographed “The Executioner” with painter/sculptor Dan Colen and Claude Johnson.
Truth Colón
SHEEP
Performer/
Choreographer
Truth Colon (she/they) is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her movement explores embodied sensations of emotional states, physical and psychological thresholds along with shared narratives of intersectional communities. She received her education from Las Vegas Academy of the Arts and her BFA from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts. In 2021, Truth collaborated with NYC Street Artist Zbigniew Zolkowski to create an improv score to be shown at his Trocha Gallery Closing. Most recently she performed her work in progress solo and dance film, ‘a delicate displacement’, at Philips Action House through art collective Textured Memos.
Upon graduating Truth attended Springboard Danse Montreal and toured with the Liz Gerring Dance Company to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Since then, she has had the opportunity to work alongside choreographers Marla Phelan, Stefanie Batten Bland, Kelly Aston Todd, and Kayla Farrish, and has been featured dancing in campaigns for NOAH NYC and Wiederhoft. Truth is a volunteer at organizations such as La Plaza Community Garden, Arts on Site, and Groove with Me.
Stephanie Crousillat
PILOT WHALE
Performer/
Choreographer
Stephanie (she/they) is a New York City-based performer & photographer. Performance credits include Punchdrunk's Sleep No More [NYC & Shanghai], Johannes Wieland Company - Staatstheater Kassel, West Side Story - 2020 Broadway revival. Beyond live performance, Stephanie has been featured on camera in film & tv like television spots for CoverGirl, Cadillac, Dior, Target, Lee Jeans, and Saturday Night Live. She has also been featured in music videos with Alicia Keys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Paul McCartney, and was a part of the workshop process for Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour. And most recently performed in In The Heights, Tick Tick…Boom! & Hulu’s Up Here. Currently she is training in the two year acting program at the William Esper Studio.
Ingrid Kapetyn
RAVEN
Performer/
Choreographer
Ingrid Kapteyn (she/her) is an international performer and collaborator with a BFA in Dance and The Martha Hill Prize from The Juilliard School. She was a member of the cast of Punchdrunk's The Burnt City in London; she has also played eight roles in Punchdrunk's Sleep No More NYC and was an original cast member of Sleep No More Shanghai. Ingrid has performed with The Metropolitan Opera, Brian Brooks Moving Company, Danielle Russo, and Wally Cardona, and she was an actor in MacArthur Fellow Martha Clarke’s God’s Fool at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club and Angel Reapers at The Signature Theatre. As a choreographer and director, Ingrid has co-created, produced, and performed eight immersive productions across New York, Shanghai, and London with HEWMAN and with Welcome to Campfire, whose recent London performances of their 2020 danceplay The Pigeon & The Mouse are nominated for an OFFIE (The OffWestEnd Theatre Awards). Ingrid has taught around the world, including for Juilliard Global Ventures/Nord Anglia Education (in Shanghai, Dubai, Switzerland, Qatar, and NYC), New York University’s School of Medicine, UNCSA, and Princeton and Bucknell Universities.
Tori Sparks
CATHY
Performer/
Choreographer
Tori Sparks (she/her) is a New York-based performing artist with a decades-long career in site-specific, modern dance and Immersive Theater. Credits include: Noemie LaFrance (Descent and Noir), AMDaT, Beppie Blankert, and Johannes Weiland, who collaborated with artists Julia Mandle and Michelle Handelman, for whom she choreographed the film Irma Vep, The Last Breath, and Movement Coached Kate Spade's Make it Mine campaign. As a long-standing member of Third Rail Projects, Tori originated the roles of Red Queen (The Looking Glass), and Mom (The Grand Paradise) and movement coached for Then She Fell. An original cast member for both the Boston & New York productions of Punchdrunk's Sleep No More, Tori originated the role of Lady Macbeth, which brought her critical acclaim, and devised the roles of Katherine Campbell, and Agnes Naismith, played Hecate, the voice-over for Tiny Town, and Rehearsal Directed during her tenure with the show. For the 2023 Theater for Young Audiences’ National Festival she presented the immersive children’s show Middlemist Red with Kate Douglas. Tori has performed with Oddknock Productions and currently collaborates with choreographer Kelly Ashton Todd (Under Review: Katahdin and VO Under Review: Gold Butte). She is a featured artist on Freakonomics, PBS' Shakespeare Uncovered: Macbeth with Ethan Hawke, and co-starred on Warner Brothers’ Gossip Girl. In the first episode of the Emmy Award-winning Immersive World, Tori is a representative for three immersive worlds: Punchdrunk, Third Rail Projects, and HERE.