Through five dance works newly created or reimagined, Stephen Petronio Company presents a digital program expressing our collective longing for human connection and the unique ways a body in motion can transcend our current moment. All works were filmed on site at the Petronio Residency Center and Hudson Hall in upstate New York during a series of ‘bubble residencies.”

In two versions of a new duet set to Elvis Presley’s timeless song, Are You Lonesome Tonight toys with space and time as the two performers, Ryan Pliss and Mac Twining, dance through memories of being together. Experience the duet as both a dance film co-directed by Petronio and Blake Martin and its stage adaptation. 

Set to another iconic Elvis tune, a restaging of Petronio’s Love Me Tender (1993) stars Nicholas Sciscione and was originally created as a prelude to a collaboration with Cindy Sherman called The King is Dead. 

A work-in-progress debut, New Prayer For Now, features music by Monstah Black, inspired by Balm in Gilead by Harry Thacker Burleigh and Bridge Over Troubled Water by Paul Simon. This in-the-round work, adapted for both virtual and live performance, will eventually allow for virtual participation of dancers from multiple locations.

Rounding out the program, the company performs Trisha Brown’s Group Primary Accumulation (1973), marking the 12th restaged work and 7th season of Petronio’s Bloodlines. This autobiographical project not only honors the lineage of American postmodern dance, but also traces the influences and impulses that have shaped choreographer Stephen Petronio, an artist uniquely positioned to preserve this postmodern tradition. This variation of Brown’s Primary Accumulation is performed in unison by four dancers placed equidistant from each other in a diagonal from downstage to upstage.

Streaming On-Demand Thursday, May 13 at 8pm ET through Wednesday, May 26 at 11:59pm ET