MoonFall 2023-2024
An immersive and interactive contemporary ballet with chamber orchestra
Choreographer, Artistic-Director
Preview Performance - KMFA Draylen Mason Theatre, April 2023
Austin Premiere - dadalab, May 2024
Barnstorm Dance Fest, MATCH Theatre, Houston, Texas - May 2024
Co-designer of Costumes (with Tikiri Shapiro) and Co-Creator of Interactivity (with Kenzie Slottow)
Music & Story by Sam Lipman • Producer, Story Consultant, Interactivity Designer - Kenzie Slottow • Projection Design by Yuliya Lanina • Set Design by Navaji
MoonFall is a co-production of Red Nightfall Dance Theatre and Density512
Photos by Sarah Annie Navarette
BEAUTIFUL WORLD 2021-2022
Co-Choreographer and Co-Producer (with AJ Garcia-Rameau)
Original Composition “A Million Alien Gospels'“ for string quintet by Michael Alec Rose
Premiere with Ventana Ballet & Austin Camerata, KMFA Draylen Mason Theatre, June 2022
Choreographer of Workshop Performance, UT Dance Repertory Theatre, B. Iden Payne Theater, April 2022
Performance Photos by Lyn Lane
Group Press/Poster Photos by Farid Zarrinabadi
UT Production photography by Thomas Allison, Courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin
UT Production Lighting Design by Sarah Elliott, Projection Design by Benjamin Randall, Costume Design by Aaron Kubacak
CRONE 2017 - present
Premiere of Original Score from the Upcoming Film - Bates Recital Hall UT Austin, March 2017
Premiere of Dance-Theatre work - B. Iden Payne Theatre UT Austin, November 2017
Film Trailer in production - November 2020
rednightfallproductions.com
SINFONIA 2018-2019
Long Center Rollins Theatre, Austin Camerata, 2018
Dance Repertory Theatre, UT Austin, B. Iden Payne Theatre, 2019
This work honors the life and legacy of composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who, like countless artists throughout history, pursued his life’s work in the context of a socially, politically, psychologically oppressive environment. Throughout his career, Shostakovich fell in and out of favor with the Soviet State. Friends, relatives, and family members were imprisoned and executed during the Great Terror of 1936, the same year Stalin personally denounced Shostakovich for an opera which was non-traditional in style. As this composition translates fear and uncertainty in to music of unmitigated beauty, the dancers meditate on the journey from oppression and isolation to community and freedom.
Sinfonia was first performed at The Rollins Theatre at the Long Center in May of 2018 in a collaborative performance with the chamber music group Austin Camerata. Initially staged for a conductor-less chamber orchestra of 16 musicians and 5 dancers, the experience of the first performances was profound. The musicians and dancers shared the stage, entering one another’s space and relating physically and emotionally. Sinfonia was restaged at the University of Texas at Austin’s B. Iden Payne Theatre in November of 2019 for an ensemble of 9 musicians and 9 dancers.
Après un Rêve 2019
Disrupt - Ventana Ballet, Mexican American Cultural Center, Austin
A collaboration with pianist and composer Kamila Swerdloff and cellist Daniel Kopp, this exploration of alternate realities and states of being, set to the music of French composer Gabriel Fauré.
Photos by Lawrence Peart, Courtesy of UT Austin Dept of Theatre and Dance
STRING CIRCLE 2016
SXSW 2016 (Unofficial Event)
Pop-Up Performances, Downtown Austin, Various Locations
Bates Recital Hall UT Austin
In 2016, Dorothy worked as a choreographer, dancer, and producer in a multi-fielded collaboration at UT’s College of Fine Arts. Involving the Butler School’s Cordova Quartet, Faculty, BFA, and MFA dancers from the Dance Department, Integrated Media and Costume design from the Theatre Department, and filmmakers from Radio-Television-Film, String Circle was performed at Austin's SXSW Music Festival, University of Texas Bates Recital Hall, and The Blanton Museum of Art.
Echoing the real-life process of collaboration, String Circle evolved in to a poignant narrative, watching the evolution of the relationship between musician and dancer on stage. Beginning as two disparate groups, the dancers and musicians eventually intertwined, physically and emotionally. A meaningful experience for all involved, the relationships built by this collaboration remain as playful and poignant as the performances themselves.
PRELUDE
Dorothy began work as a choreographer while studying in the BFA Dance program at SMU, 1995-1999. Set to a wide range of musical scores by Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Claude Bolling, and Astor Piazzola among others, her works were performed at concerts presenting student work, as well as at SMU’s Commencement Ceremonies in 1999. The following year, while dancing as an Apprentice for Colorado Ballet, her work was performed by Colorado Ballet II. After a number of years concentrating on her performing career, Dorothy returned to choreographic work in the Fall of 2015, performing Prelude Variation at the B. Iden Payne Theatre, and directing/choreographing the film Prelude.
