Performace
July 20, 2025
1pm
Al Held Foundation
Boiceville, NY
Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener:
Open Machine (an intimate preview)
Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Outside Out performance in Domino Park, Brooklyn on June 11, 2025. Guest curated by Sasha Okshteyn, featuring media design by Jesse Stiles, live music by Charmaine Lee, and dancers Cori Kresge, Michael Greenberg, Chaery Moon (pictured). Photo credit: Maria Baranova.
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River Valley Arts Collective is pleased to present a newly commissioned performance by Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. Created with collaborators Morgan Amirah Burns, Savannah Gaillard, Michael Greenberg, Jen Gonzalez, Claude (CJ) Johnson, Catherine Kirk, Cori Kresge, Chaery Moon, Kalliope Piersol and vocalist and electronic musician Charmaine Lee, the work premieres at the Al Held Foundation on July 20, 2025 with a special open rehearsal preceding the premiere on July 17, 2025.
For the third staging of dance performances at the Al Held Foundation, RVAC's Olga Dekalo invited Mitchell + Riener to integrate choreography within the setting of Al Held’s former studio complex. The commissioned work stems from the choreographers’ ongoing performance series Open Machine which blurs the lines between brain, body, and machine and embodies a collective reckoning with the current world order. Featuring nine dancers and transportive electronic vocal composition by Charmaine Lee, Mitchell + Riener share a close-up, analog arrangement that responds to the Al Held Foundation site.
Inside the studio, the dance engages Al Held's large, multi-panel watercolor, Passing Through (2003), which measures 56 feet wide. This work was created as a maquette for a public commission with the Metropolitan Transit Authority at the Lexington Avenue / 53rd Street subway station. Both the painting and the choreography evoke the roving pace and energy of the subway through sound and movement. Visualizing the physical and pictorial space of this staging highlights the postmodern idiom of intersecting disciplines – particularly, that of the visionary choreographer Merce Cunningham – of allowing different mediums to be presented simultaneously and yet independently of one another.
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 over 25 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.
CHARMAINE LEE is a New York-based vocalist from Sydney, Australia. Her music is predominantly improvised, favoring a uniquely personal approach to vocal expression concerned with spontaneity, playfulness, and risk-taking. Beyond extended vocal technique, Charmaine uses amplification, feedback, and microphones to augment and distort the voice.
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 trained in various styles ranging from ballet to contemporary floorwork. Composing site-specific scores, creative directing, 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 was named the Inaugural Recipient of the Merce Cunningham Trust Barbara Ensley Award. Morgan has performed works by Wayne McGregor, Sidra Bell, Rashaun + Silas and many others. Morgan has an ongoing collaborative practice with Multi-disciplinary musical Artist Kilo Kish, in which they created the site-specific performance work “Still Dreaming” as a part of Time Square Arts Council x Woman in Windows Midnight Moment. As a performer, Morgan has been recognized by the New York Times for her work in choreographer Sidra Bell’s and visual artist Derek Fordjour’s immersive work “Arena”(2023) at Petzel Gallery in Chelsea, NYC, her work in Pam Tanowit’z Little Island premiere “Day to Night.”
SAVANNAH GAILLARD is a multidisciplinary artist interested in how the Black body is represented, constructed, and expressed in physical and digital spaces. Savannah began dancing at Manassas Ballet Theater and furthered her technique 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. In 2018, she debuted off-Broadway in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma “Dream Ballet,” directed by Daniel Fish and choreographed by John Heiginbotham. 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 Reiener, 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. Upon graduating from LaGuardia High School he received the Eleo Pomare scholarship in Choreography. Michael received his BFA from NYU Tisch in 2017. Michael has performed with Loni Landon Dance Projects, Nicole Von Arx (NVA & Guests), Kinesis Project Dance Theater, Obremski/Works and White Wave Dance company. In 2019 Michael joined the First National Tour of Fiddler on the Roof with choreography by Hofesh Shechter. Michael then joined NW Dance Project in 2023. His choreographic work has been shown at: INSITU Site-Specific Dance Festival (2018), WestFest Dance Festival (2018), Van Alen Institute: City Making from the Outside In (2018), the SoloDuo Festival (2018), and LaGuardia High School’s Senior Dancer Concert (2021 and 2022).
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 is a performing artist from Dallas, Texas. She cultivated her passion for dance at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts before graduating from New York University Tisch School of the Arts with a B.F.A. Catherine has completed programs with Springboard Danse Montreal, Movement Invention Project, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and the Gaga Intensive in Tel Aviv where she performed works by Fernando Melo, Sharon Eyal, Ohad Naharin, Andrea Miller, and Robert Battle. Since then, Catherine has worked and performed with Helen Simoneau Danse, UNA Productions, Burr Johnson, and Jasmine Hearn. In 2013, Catherine gained her yoga certification through The Perri Institute for Mind and Body and became a member of Kyle Abraham’s dance company, A.I.M where she continues to perform and work as their Education and Marketing Associate.
CORI KRESGE is a NYC based dance artist, bodyworker, 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, Xavier Cha, Wendy Osserman, Esmé Boyce, The School for Poetic Computation, and film makers Alla Kovgan, Zuzka Kurtz, and Charles Atlas. Cori’s choreographic work has been presented by Goethe in the Skyways, Elevation 1049, Beach Sessions, Dance Roulette, and other venues. She is a guest teacher at SUNY Purchase, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Princeton University, SFPC, CNDC Angers, France, and various institutions worldwide. Cori facilitates regular interdisciplinary workshops online.
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 collaboration with artists from various disciplines. In 2017, she founded Chaery Moon Dance, where she creates works for stage, film, and site-specific performances. Her creations have garnered recognition and support from NYFA, the Korean government, the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, Downtown Brooklyn, and the Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation. Her 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 and choreographer based in Brooklyn. Kalliope has performed for artists including Ariane Anthony & Company, Corinne Shearer and Dancers, and Alan Good. She has shown her own work at Greenspace, Women In Motion, and is a Fall Movement artist at the Center for Performance Research. She has reconstructed and performed multiple solos choreographed by her mother Rebekah Windmiller at University Settlement with The Construction Company. She regularly takes part in fellowship workshops with the Merce Cunningham Trust and has learned and performed various Cunningham works including Change of Address, Sounddance, Native Green, and Interscape.In their choreographic duet Kalliope+Symara, Kalliope and choreographer Symara Johnson have been a part of Gibney Work Up 6.2, Collab Fest at Triskelion Arts, CreatART x Arts on Site, and have self produced various productions while at Purchase College. Kalliope is a graduate of Purchase College at SUNY, earning a BFA in dance with a concentration in composition. While at Purchase she most notably performed works by George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, Hannah Garner, and Rena Butler.Kalliope currently works for set designer Mila Taylor-Young. She has built sets for and assisted on shoots with Re-Edition Magazine, Tamara Mellon, Rag and Bone, and Nike.
Over the past five years, River Valley Arts Collective has partnered with the Al Held Foundation to present exhibitions in Held’s former drawing studio, outdoor installations on the foundation's grounds and, more recently, performances in Held’s painting studio.