Danspace Project

NEXT WEEK! On Thursday, October 15 at 7:30PM, Danspace Project and FourOneOne present an evening with Sreelakshmy Govardhanan in performance and conversation with Marina Harss.

To watch Govardhanan perform is to witness a body surrender to, and simultaneously command, the extraordinary demands of Kuchipudi. “Surrender, unlearning and absorption” is how Govardhanan describes the development of her practice: a state in which rigorous technique unfurls into something far more elusive and expansive. For The Journey of Kuchipudi, Govardhanan will present a solo performance interspersed with historical and cultural context, followed by a conversation with dance critic and writer Marina Harss and the audience.

Born and raised in Kerala, Sreelaksmy Govardhanan encountered Kuchipudi as a teenager and became a disciple of the distinguished guru Pasumarthi Rattaiah Sarma at twenty-eight. To immerse herself more fully in the form, she learned Telugu in order to speak with her guru in the language of his tradition and to connect more deeply with the cultural world from which it emerged. Govardhanan is now widely recognized for her virtuosic footwork, extraordinary expressive range, and profound engagement with Kuchipudi’s transmission and evolution. Her abhinaya is particularly celebrated: an ability to make the smallest gesture carry astonishing emotional and narrative weight.

📢 This week! Performances of “a sign, a signal, a delivery, a deliverance” by Anh Vo premiere at Danspace Project from October 8–10.

Anh Vo (They/He) is a Vietnamese choreographer and writer working primarily in New York City, with a second base in Hanoi. Their practice fleshes out the body as a vessel for apparitional forces. Their work is situated in the unlikely lineage convergences between Downtown New York experimental dance, q***r and feminist performance art, and Vietnamese folk ritual practices. Their formal training is in Performance Studies, studying with theorists and practitioners at Brown University (BA) and New York University (MA).

📷: Photo by Maria Baranova

Danspace Project presents the premiere of “Bound”, a new work by Kyle Marshall Choreography.

🪢 Thursday, November 5 at 7:30PM
🪢 Friday, November 6 at 7:30PM
🪢 Saturday, November 7 at 7:30PM

Moving beyond the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, “Bound” is a dance choreographed by Kyle Marshall to manifest a new destiny recalling Black Americans’ history of covert strategies for liberation. Using text by Fredrick Douglass and visual design by KMC Creative Director Edo Tastic (set, costume, and projection), this cast of five performers; Justin Daniels, Khalid Dunton, Kyle Marshall, Kellye Smith and Syd Worthy, will explore (sub)text and subversive actions by embodying words, gestures, and rhythms that examine American ideals and realities. Live sound design by Cal Fish and Kwami Winfield will blend traditional western instruments with electronics to encode the sonic pulse and cultural legacy of the USA.

📷: Photos by Sabrina Palko // Creative Director Edo Tastic

This year we are beyond thrilled to welcome two incredible artists and leaders to the Danspace Project Board of Directors — Stacy Matthew Spence and Peggy Cheng.

Both Stacy and Peggy have long been a part of the Danspace community and we are endlessly grateful to have them join us in this new capacity!

📷: Photo of Stacy Matthew Spence by Michael Argilla
📷: Photo of Peggy Cheng by Nissa Feng Morrow

The Journey of Kuchipudi: From Yakshaganam to the Solo at Danspace Project Off-Off-Broadway (Oct 15, 2026) Complete Information About The Journey of Kuchipudi: From Yakshaganam to the Solo in Off-Off-Broadway at Danspace Project (Oct 15, 2026). To watch Sreelakshmy Govardhanan perform is to witness a body surrender to, and simultaneously command, the extraordinary demands of Kuchipudi. “Surrender, unle...

🌌 This fall, we are reintroducing a feature on our Online Journal titled “Constellations & Lineages”, in which we invite our artists to think about the following questions:

Who is in your art/dance/cultural history constellation? Who are some of your artistic influences?

Anh Vo writes, “I often attribute my luck to spirits inviting the right people into my life. I like to think that spirits weave my artistic constellation, bringing me into proximity with people whose practices teach me how to be in the world with others. In New York City, I’ve been lucky to have many artistic mothers: Jennifer Monson, Daria Faïn, Julie Tolentino, Juliana F. May, Moriah Evans. My work is also unimaginable without the Vietnamese pioneers who opened up possibilities for experimentation before me: Ngọc Đại, Lê Vũ, Lại Diệu Hà, Vũ Đức Toàn, Ngô Thanh Phương. I’m situated somewhere inside this strange, transpacific family tree.”

Don’t miss Anh Vo’s performances of “a sign, a signal, a delivery, a deliverance” from October 8–10 at Danspace Project! Tickets are available now.

📷: Photo by Rachel Keane

Join us for a FREE DraftWork at Danspace Project on Saturday, October 24 at 3PM, featuring performances by Victoria Lynn Awkward and JOYBOY!

Facilitated by Ishmael Houston-Jones since the ’90s and currently co-curated by Houston-Jones with Danspace curators, DraftWork presents work-in-development showings by artists at all stages of their career.

DraftWork is free, open to all, and followed by questions and conversation between the artists, curator, and audience.

📷: Photo of Victoria Lynn Awkward by Maria J Hackett | Photo of JOYBOY by Whitney Browne

📢 Danspace Project opens the Fall 2026 season with performances of “a sign, a signal, a delivery, a deliverance” by Anh Vo from October 8–10.

“a sign, a signal, a delivery, a deliverance” revisits Anh Vo’s upbringing in Vietnam to channel the strange poetics of living under the spell of authoritarianism. Vo writes, “There will be fabulous and sexy uniforms. There will be drum beats, though they might or might not sound barbaric. There will be words and gestures repeated monotonously, looping and looping at the edge of the voice’s breaking point. What happens when mechanisms designed to manufacture submission are pushed past their intended function and toward another kind of surrender: to the immanent unknowability of the body and the transcendent omnipotence of God?”

Supported by three improvisational exercises in channeling, each performance begins with an opening act by a different interdisciplinary artist: C. Spencer Yeh (Oct. 8), yuchen chang (Oct. 9), and Alex Tatarsky (Oct. 10).

This performance is made possible, in part, through a grant from the Jerome Foundation.

📷: Photo of Anh Vo by Albert Yee