Recent Work
Tilt-A-Whirl (Work in progress, Triphammer Arts, Lansing, NY, 2026)
Dance Cello Circus Song Saplings (The Soil Factory, Ithaca, NY, 2025)
Alaria (Moving Landscapes, Triphammer Arts, Lansing, NY, 2024)
Curious Creatures (CSMA, Ithaca, NY 2024)
Night Life (F.R. Newman Arboretum, Ithaca, NY, 2023)
Small Catastrophes (Indoor version, BMCA Conference, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY, 2023)
Small Catastrophes (Site version, Mulholland Preserve, Ithaca, NY, 2019)
Understory (Smith Woods, Trumansburg, NY 2018)
InLet TreeOh (Cayuga Inlet, June Dance, Ithaca, NY, 2018)
SOURCE This body of work grew from a practice of dancing and vocalizing through all the seasons in Six Mile Creek, Ithaca, NY over three years.It encompasses three site-specific performances (solo, trio, and septet, Whirligig), a solo performance for stage with live music; and a video (work-in progress). The pieces play off the ecology, form, and processes of the waterscape and it’s inhabitants, interconnecting the fluid systems of body and Earth. The performance and pre-performance audience activities were created to build a sense of community around the water source for Ithaca.
Performers: Arwen Wilder, Anna Shogren, Audrey Pincus, Cynthia Stevens, Regi Carpenter, Sarah Baumert, Shaina Ung, Yelena Sedochenkova. 2010- 2016.
BIG TREES small dance A site-specific performance celebrating the Centennial of Muir Woods National Monument. Dancing, singing and the words of John Muir invited the audience to sensually connect to this unique time in the life of Muir Woods. The tranquility of this Redwood forest ecosystem and its historical role in movements for peace were central to the performance. The audience was guided to a series of 13 pieces throughout the woods performed by six dancer/vocalists. Opportunities for audience participation were interwoven through the event.
“My vision is that as performers and audience we can leave with a growing sense of what it means to be in community and at peace with the Earth, and that the performance will bring us new motivation to appreciate and preserve Muir Woods for generations to come.” C. Stevens
Performers: Arwen Wilder, Megan Flood, Denise Gagner, Melissa Kennedy, Melissa Birch and Cynthia Stevens. 2008.
LEONORA’S DREAM is a concert-length performance inspired by the life and work of surrealist visual artist, writer and feminist, Leonora Carrington. The audience travels to five performance sites and to a “gallery” of visual art with music. The piece features whimsical, off-kilter dance; vocal music; text and lyrics created in collaboration with writer William Reichard; costumes by Mary Claire O’Brien; and sound collages created in collaboration with composer Carl Witt. It has been performed at Wirth Park in Minneapolis and was remade for the Kröller-Müller Museum Sculpture Garden in the Netherlands. Sextet (2002/2006)