Every day is opening night.

Press Contact:
Rick Miramontez / Lee Abrahamian / Briana Sanchez / Gerilyn Shur / Ellie Detweiler
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

LITTLE ISLAND
ANNOUNCES COMPLETE CAST & CREATIVE TEAM FOR
PAM TANOWITZ’S
“DAY FOR NIGHT”
AT THE AMPH

PERFORMANCES BEGIN ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 17
OPENING NIGHT SET FOR THURSDAY, JULY 18

New York, NY (July 10, 2024) – Little Island announced the compete cast and creative team for Pam Tanowitz’s Day for Night which begins performances on Wednesday, July 17 at The Amph, with the official opening set for Thursday, July 18. Performances of Day for Night will run on Little Island through Saturday, July 21.

The cast for Day for Night includes Morgan Amirah Burns, Marc Crousillat, Lindsey Jones, Brian Lawson, Victor Lozano, Sarah Miele, Maile Okamura and Melissa Toogood.

Alongside Tanowitz, the creative team includes Reid Bartelme & Harriett Jung (costume design), Davison Scandrett (lighting design), and Justin Ellington (sound design and composition).

“I make my dances in response to everything contained in the frame, like a film still, turning things over and over to discover what I haven’t yet found,” Ms. Tanowitz said. “Little Island is the exact right place for me to examine the way something can be seen and re-seen. When we look at something long enough it reveals what’s been forgotten, or taken for granted, or not yet noticed, and rewards us with new discoveries.”

As previously announced, concurrent with this run at The Amph, Melissa Toogood will also be performing an intimate epilogue to Day for Night in Little Island’s 200-seat venue, The Glade.

To download Day for Night cast and creative headshots, please click here.

Day for Night runs July 17-21 at Little Island’s Amph. Epilogue: Day for Night runs July 17-21 at Little Island’s Glade.

Little Island’s first annual, four-month-long summer season of world premieres, which kicked off on June 1, features a total of nine newly commissioned pieces. Little Island’s new arts program moves towards the future with a commitment to a multi-year roster of original work, all commissioned by and developed at Little Island. Bookended by the premiere of choreographer Twyla Tharp’s newest work How Long Blues and a 90-minute remix of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in which outré opera diva Anthony Roth Costanzo sings every leading role, the season offers premieres of varying scales across all areas of performance – including music, dance, theater, opera, comedy, jazz, pop, and funk, all outdoors and directly sited on the Hudson River at 14^th Street in New York City. The Amph, the park’s 700-seat amphitheater, will house larger scale performances at a $25 ticket price, while The Glade, the park’s 200-seat venue, will be home to more intimate works, all of which will be completely free to the public.

KEY ART FOR SUMMER SEASON AVAILABLE HERE

IMAGE OF LITTLE ISLAND AVAILABLE HERE

Tickets to Little Island’s summer season of performances are available for purchase on littleislandtickets.com, TodayTix.com, or by downloading the TodayTix app.

CAST & CREATIVE BIOGRAPHIES

Pam Tanowitz (Creator and Choreographer) is a celebrated New York-based choreographer and collaborator who has steadily delineated her own dance language through decades of research and creation. She redefines tradition through careful examination, subtly questioning those who came before her yet never yielding to perceptions stuck in the past. And now, the world’s most respected companies—Martha Graham Dance Company, Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, among others—are proudly integrating Tanowitz’s poetic universe into their repertories. Her combination of intentional unpredictability, whimsical complexity and natural drama evoke master dance makers from Cunningham to Balanchine through the clever weaving of movement, music and space. Tanowitz holds degrees from Ohio State University and Sarah Lawrence College, where she clarified her creative voice under former Cunningham dancer and choreographer Viola Farber. In 2000, she founded Pam Tanowitz Dance to explore dance-making with a consistent community of dancers. She has since been commissioned by Fisher Center at Bard, The Joyce Theater, The Kennedy Center, and many other leading arts institutions, and has received numerous honors and fellowships from organizations ranging from the Bessie Awards, Guggenheim Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Herb Alpert Award, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation among others. ”Her dances have been called a “rare achievement” (New York Times) and her 2018 work, Four Quartets, inspired by T.S. Eliot’s literary masterpiece, was called “the greatest creation of dance theater so far this century” (New York Times). Tanowitz is an assistant professor of professional practice at Mason Gross School of the Arts/ Rutgers University and is the first-ever choreographer in residence at the Fisher Center at Bard.

Morgan Amirah Burns (Cast) is based in Brooklyn, NY. Morgan is a faith based artist excelling in dance, choreography, and filmmaking. Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, she earned a BFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2020. Morgan’s choreographic works, honored by Gallim, the Canadian Consulate of New York, and the Times Square Arts Council, delve into themes of reciprocity and interconnectedness. With training in Ballet, Tap, Modern, and Hip-Hop, she integrates dance with cinematic storytelling. Morgan has performed works by acclaimed choreographers such as Rashaun + Silas, Merce Cunningham, and Sidra Bell, showcasing her versatility and artistic depth.

Marc Crousillat (Cast) has performed in the works of Tere O’Connor, Netta Yerushalmy, Moriah Evans, John Jasperse, Jon Kinzel, Wally Cardona & Jennifer Lacey, and Rashaun Mitchell & Silas Riener among others. With the Merce Cunningham Trust, he has performed in the Bessie award-winning Night of 100 Solos (2019) at BAM and in Beach Birds (2023). He made his Broadway debut in Ivo van Hove and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s West Side Story (2020). As a member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company (2014-2022), Marc has performed, taught, and restaged repertory spanning 50 years, both domestically and internationally. For his work with the company he received a Princess Grace Award for Excellence in Dance and a Bessie Award nomination for Outstanding Performer in the revival of Watermotor. He has trained in acting under Terry Knickerbocker, Heidi Marshall and Anthony Abeson Studio and made his acting debut in Burrow (2023) by Leaf Lieber at Tribeca Film Festival. BFA: The University of the Arts (2013).

Lindsey Jones (Cast) is a Brooklyn-based dancer and herbalist, originally from St. Louis, MO. A SUNY Purchase alum, she has been a longtime member of Pam Tanowitz Dance and Dance Heginbotham. Lindsey has also performed with the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Kimberly Bartosik, Sally Silvers, Bill Young, Caleb Teicher, and others. Since 2012, she has collaborated with the Merce Cunningham Trust, performing Merce’s repertory. Certified to teach Cunningham Technique® and Dance for Parkinson’s, Lindsey was a 2022 New York Public Library fellow, researching Dance & Ecology. She is also a graduate of the Arbor Vitae School of Traditional Herbalism. www.lindseycjones.com

Brian Lawson (Cast) is a dance performer and educator who began dancing in Toronto, Canada. In 2005, he spent a year at Codarts in Rotterdam and subsequently began his degree at SUNY

Purchase. He graduated summa cum laude from Purchase in 2010 with a B.F.A. in dance performance and received the President’s Award in Modern Dance.

Brian worked for Douglas Dunn and as a member of Dance Heginbotham before becoming a member of the Mark Morris Dance Group in 2011. With MMDG he had the great pleasure of touring the United States and the world performing Morris’ dances.

Brian left MMDG to earn his M.F.A. from the University of Washington, where he graduated in 2020. Lawson enjoys teaching dance to diverse populations and has given masterclasses at Purchase College, NYU Tisch, and the American Dance Festival among others. He has taught ballet classes to the Jose Limon Dance Company, Mark Morris Dance Group, and at Gibney Dance.

At present, Lawson serves as an assistant professor of dance at Skidmore College. His artistic research is collaborative in nature and focuses on queering the ballet canon (with Adele Nickel) and exploring queer masculinities (with Aaron Loux.) He also engages in pedagogical research with regards to contemporary balletic practices. Brian is currently a member of Pam Tanowitz Dance, which he rejoined in 2019, and continues to dance with MMDG.

Sarah Miele (Cast) is a dance artist and comprehensively certified pilates instructor based in Jersey City, NJ.  She is a recent graduate of Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University and this is her first project with Pam Tanowitz Dance. Miele’s choreography has been presented at Triskelion Arts, The Ailey Studios and at The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. She has been under the instruction of artists Beth Gill, Noa Zuk, David Dorfman, Bennyroyce Royon, Luis A. Lara Malvacías, Ani Javian and Evelyn Wang. Miele is originally from Richmond, VA where she studied at the School of Richmond Ballet.

Maile Okamura (Cast studied ballet with Lynda Yourth in San Diego, California, and at San Francisco Ballet School. She danced with Boston Ballet II, Ballet Arizona, and for over 25 years with Mark Morris Dance Group. Maile Okamura has been dancing with Pam Tanowitz Dance since 2016. She also designs/constructs costumes for dance, music and opera, and is an ongoing creative collaborator with choreographer John Heginbotham.

Melissa Toogood (Cast) is a Bessie Award winning Performer who has danced with Pam Tanowitz Dance since 2006. She became Rehearsal Director in 2012 and has assisted Pam on numerous creations for companies such as the Australian Ballet, the Martha Graham Dance Company, Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, the Royal Ballet and many others. She was a member of Merce Cunningham’s final company, has taught Cunningham Technique internationally since 2007 and is an official Stager for the Cunningham Trust. As a freelancer she has worked with many choreographers including Kimberly Bartosik, Rashaun Mitchell, Stephen Petronio, Sally Silvers and more. Melissa is a regular at the Vail International Dance Festival.

Reid Bartelme & Harriett Jung (Costume Design) are the creative directors of Reid & Harriet Design. They have designed works for choreographers including Pam Tanowitz, Justin Peck and Kyle Abraham at dance companies including New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, The Australian Ballet, and The Royal Ballet in London. They’ve made commissioned performance works for Guggenheim Works & Process and the Museum of Art and Design (NYC) and completed research fellowships at The Center for Ballet and the Arts and the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the NY Library for the Performing Arts. Their Broadway credits include Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ (2023) and Justin Peck’s Illinoise (2024). Reidandharriet.com

Davison Scandrett (Lighting Design) is a Bessie award-winning lighting designer and production manager who has created lighting for more than a dozen projects by Pam Tanowitz during the past decade, including New Work for Goldberg Variations and Gustave Le Gray No. 1. Other design credits include works by Merce Cunningham, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Sonya Tayeh, Sarah Michelson, Beth Gill, luciana achugar, Liz Roche, Andrew Ondrejcak, Rebecca Lazier, and Mike Birbiglia, among others. Davison currently serves as Design & Production Consultant for the Merce Cunningham Trust and Touring Consultant for the Park Avenue Armory.  He recently relocated to Vermont to become the Technical Instructor in Lighting & Dance Production at Bennington College.

Justin Ellington (Sound Design and Composed by) is a highly acclaimed composer and sound designer whose work spans film, radio, theater, and dance, including Broadway and off-Broadway. A two-time Tony nominee, he has received numerous prestigious awards. He has worked extensively across the United States and internationally, collaborating with The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Old Vic, National Theatre of London, Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Windybrow Arts Festival, and Tweetakt Youth Festival. Awarded by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, his influence also extends into the recording industry. Additionally, Justin’s short film MOVE ACT FREE was featured at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, earning him a Cinema in Industry Award.

ABOUT LITTLE ISLAND

Little Island, the 2.4-acre park that sits along the Hudson River, opened in May 2021 and has since been enjoyed by 4.6 million visitors. In 2013, Barry Diller, in partnership with Hudson River Park Trust leadership, embarked on the unique opportunity to envision a solution for the repair and reactivation of Pier 54, which had been badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The park was designed as an entirely new type of public space for New York, one that would create an immersive experience of nature and art. Born from a collaboration of the UK-based Heatherwick Studio and the New York-based landscape architecture firm MNLA, led by Signe Nielsen, the park’s imaginative design offers all New Yorkers and visitors a new public space that is dynamic, captivating, and restorative.

Little Island is operated year-round by a 50-member staff co-helmed by Producing Artistic Director Zack Winokur and Executive Director Laura Clement.

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