Choreographer Sally Silvers, Guggenheim Fellow recipient and Bessie Award-winner, returns to the stage this Sunday at Flow Chart Space, 348 Warren Street, Hudson, New York, with a new work, EXWHYZEE, performed by dancer Jeremy Nelson. A poem written and read by Bruce Andrews and music by Michael Schumacher on piano accompanies the piece. The free performance runs from 3 to 4 p.m. and offers audiences an intimate view of Silvers’ creative process.
Silvers has long collaborated with experimental poet and sound artist Andrews, but this project marks the first time she has approached his writing “head-on.
“The main way Bruce and I have collaborated is with him reading and me improvising. We’ve done that many times, for benefits, memorials, many of my programs, and his readings,” she explains.
“Sometimes I try to know something about the poem and have signposts to connect with it. Other times I let it wash over me and respond physically, trying not to be too ‘Mickey Mouse’ with the literal meanings.”
By “Mickey Mouse,” Silvers refers to responding overly literally to text or music, illustrating a word or concept in a way that leaves no room for interpretive contrast.
“It’s often used in reference to music, when choreography goes too well with the music and doesn’t provide contrast or an alternative way of looking at or hearing it,” she clarifies.
In the past, Silvers has also worked with Andrews’ texts by aligning choreography to thematic content. “I’ve done pieces where I had a theme, and Bruce wrote a text to go with it. For instance, I did a big piece on nuns and cyborgs using Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the seventeenth-century poet nun from Mexico. He wrote a piece as if Sor Juana were writing, and that became context for the movement,” she says. Silvers has also conceptualized movement to match poems and even adapted one poem into 30 movement sections that became a standalone work.
For this program, Silvers takes a more direct approach. She selected Andrews’ early poem Pronouns, divided into 22 sections, and developed movement responses to correspond with each. “I chose this poem for all those reasons. It also reminded me of Gertrude Stein, John Ashbery, and Samuel Beckett—in that mood. It was appropriate because we’re performing at Flow Chart, dedicated to Ashbery’s work. It just fit,” she says. (Ashbery is considered one of the most influential poets of the 20th century.)
Silvers is working closely with dancer Jeremy Nelson, formerly of the Stephen Petronio Company, who helped develop and refine these movements. Nelson, an accomplished improviser, choreographer, and master technician, collaborates with Silvers in ways that balance structure and spontaneity. “It’s hard to identify the subtleties of interaction.
I’m the outside eye, molding things to go with the key words. I was concerned about ‘Mickey Mousing’ the text, so I’d often have him anticipate an upcoming phrase. It gives the audience a memory before there’s a memory,” she explains. This layering allows the audience to experience a nuanced connection to the text, both in sound and meaning.
Silvers treats words as music, reflecting the ‘Language Poets’ of the 1970s approach, of which Andrews was a member, who considered text for its sound and rhythm rather than literal interpretation. This allows multiple expressive layers, as sections of the poem can be experienced as sound alone or explored for their significance.
The music, composed and performed live by Schumacher, is a longtime collaborator of both Silvers and Andrews. “I’ve worked with him for decades. He and Bruce have collaborated on my last 10 or 12 group dances. The three of us have worked together that long. Jeremy is the wild card. It’s intuitive. I’ll say if something’s not working, but I trust my collaborators, and that’s why I chose them,” she notes. In this program, Schumacher performs on solo piano, a departure from his usual electronic compositions, further expanding the collaborative possibilities.
Audiences will also witness a “live choreography” segment, in which Silvers completes a section of the dance in real time, unrehearsed, alongside Nelson, Andrews, and Schumacher. “It’s a spotlight on process—how dancers, choreographers, and directors work. Audiences often think the choreographer tells dancers what to do.
They don’t see dancers asking questions, making mistakes, or doing things differently, and sometimes the choreographer likes that better. Making that interaction visible is interesting,” Silvers explains.
In addition to the performance, a panel discussion and audience Q&A will be moderated by local artist and curator Richard Colton. Colton enjoyed an illustrious career as a dancer with Twyla Tharp, American Ballet Theatre, and the Joffrey Ballet. Silvers and Colton go back decades, having worked together on a duet with Harry Sheppard, a favorite, impish postmodern dancer who died of AIDS.
Sunday’s performance promises not only a rare collaboration across dance, poetry, and music but also an opportunity to witness Silvers’ innovative approaches to live performance and improvisation. From structured movement responses to spontaneous composition, from poetic sound exploration to collaborative piano accompaniment, audiences at Flow Chart Space will experience a vibrant, multilayered artistic conversation.
Finally, the program concludes with a jam session in which all participants improvise together, blending text, movement, and sound freely. “Bruce will bring the anthology containing his poem and riff on different sections. Michael might bring sound files and go electronic. Jeremy and I will do whatever sounds fun,” Silvers says.
Catherine Tharin is a choreographer, writer, curator, and educator. Her writing on dance has appeared in The Dance Enthusiast, Interlocutor, Side of Culture, and the Boston Globe. Tharin currently curates The Dance Series at the Stissing Center in Pine Plains, NY, and dance film at The Moviehouse in Millerton, NY. Throughout her career, she has championed both innovative and legacy choreography, supported the work of artists across the field, and brought critical attention to the art form. Her latest dance, In the Wake of Yes, was noted as "powerfully animated, positively fizzy, full of droll wit" (Fjord), “The piece blended dance, art, and language into a layered meditation on love and emotional vulnerability." (Eye on Dance).
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