I'm searching for inventive, deep, and technically strong dancers for a long-term collaboration on a new evening-length work. The choreography is layered, structurally rigorous dance-theater, and the process will suit dancers attuned to subtlety, open to deep research, and comfortable working in physically complex, and psychology-themed territory.

About the work: A choreographic exorcism staged on live grass growing inside an abandoned church, accompanied by a live choir making bird sounds and a harpist playing lullabies under lighting design that emulates time-lapse solar cycles. Drawing on biomimetic systems, animist cosmologies, and posthuman theory, the work frames nature as both archive and agent: a field that stores memory, rewrites bodies, and dissolves individuality into cycles of time, fertility, and entropy. The result is a pastoral that turns unstable—simultaneously ritual, contagion, and perceptual landscape. The movement blends legible signs from medieval portraiture gestural symbolism to sign language and infused with somatic triggers (yawning, hypnotic loops, itching) designed to entrain the audience into a shared trance state. Folk dance notation provides the structural DNA for this exploration of how movement is archived, transmitted, and ultimately reclaimed by the earth.

You can view a draft of an excerpt here: https://youtu.be/0jLamTnVKbw?si=gdX62q8KSdJ6iV1p

 

About You: Movers grounded in strong technique and non-mainstream vocabularies, with a deep commitment to their craft, extensive performance experience, and a sensitivity to choreographic detail. Advanced-level dancers trained in modern forms (Limón, Graham, Duncan, etc.), dance notation systems, or backgrounds in traditional/experimental vocabularies (Butoh, Bharatanatyam, Flamenco, Mime, folk dances, Tango, Hula)

All genders, identities, backgrounds, and older dancers are all very welcome.

 

About Me: Mark Bankin is a choreographer and dance notation specialist whose work reconfigures historical movement systems into contemporary performance. Trained at the Conservatoire de Paris and influenced by German Ausdruckstanz and Tanztheater, his choreography draws from archival practices, extinct dance forms, and diagrammatic composition. His work has been presented internationally at Fondation des États-Unis (Paris), Hošek Contemporary (Berlin), and the Power Station of Art (Shanghai), and commissioned by organizations including notAmuse Theater and The Why Collective. His recent evening-length work Scarecrow (The Tank, NYC) was described as “grotesque and beautiful—sometimes both at once” (Theatre Beyond Broadway). As a notator, he is a member of the International Council of Kinetography Laban (ICKL).

Sample work: https://youtu.be/ds_9uSE2bDM?si=bldMKRK-JwwnaObD&t=230

Choreography Reel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43uLMUyY9rk

Portfolio: www.markbankin.com

IG: @mark.bankin
 

Compensation & Commitment: This is so far an unfunded opportunity. We are a group of friends self-producing ambitious passion projects. We are in the early stages of building the company and pursuing funding, co-productions, and touring opportunities. I am looking for serious collaborators who want to build something powerful together and grow with the work. We rehearse approx. twice a week for 3 hours. Dancers receive footage and priority casting in paid projects. For externally produced performances, dancers receive stipends. Dancers also get company classes in resurrected Wigman, Jooss, and Cebron repertoire, as well as optional training in movement notation.

 

Join Us: Send a CV and Reel to info.markbankindance@gmail.com

Auditions: June 9th and 16th, 6:30PM-9PM