(Sensate is a durational performance—you are free to come and go within the 3 hour performance time)
How do we create boundaries—and meaning- with so much freedom?
In Sensate, choreographer Carrie Ahern allows her audience to follow their whims and move to where they are compelled. The audience is free to come and go within two performance spaces anytime between three designated hours, experiencing the dance from anywhere they choose in each space. The dancers construct tense psychological zones as they attempt to find an exit. Rhythm is a compulsion and a cure, pushing to devour the ferocity of the mind. In Sensate, the private spaces become public as individual experiences are absorbed by others in the room. Dancers Carrie Ahern, Donna Costello, David Figueroa, Kelly Hayes and Jillian Hollis perform for the duration. Composer Anne Hege (voice/electronics) also performs live with an original score that will bleed through the space; costumes by Naoko Nagata; lighting by Jay Ryan.

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COVERS was a performance installation for the LAB, a storefront gallery, in Midtown Manhattan by Carrie Ahern and Olek. Three wearable sculptures, handmade by Olek of recycled synthetic materials using classic crochet techniques are entered, separated and transformed into evolving images by performers Carrie Ahern, Jillian Hollis and Agata Oleksiak. Midtown Manhattan surges at the force and speed of a high-octane New York sidewalk at rush hour. On the other side of the glass, the performers have the luxury of time. Carrie Ahern’s moving images range from the highly sensual to the sacred to the violent. Olek’s lush detail is evident in every corner of the space. Each of the 8 performances picked up where the last one left off, and was constantly being made and unmade. The culmination was a highly charged living performance sculpture and, through a window, a startling voyeuristic experience for the people on the street.

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The Unity of Skin plunges the viewer into a circular labyrinth of textures. Cyclic in character, it permits the imagination to distort form. It embraces the possibility of continuing indefinitely. Dizzily growing and fading, the line between audience and performers becomes blurred. Partly influenced by the fragments of text left by the group of philosophers called the Pre-Socratics, The Unity of Skin is an intimate trio with accomplished dancers David Figueroa, Kelly Hayes, and Jillian Hollis. It features a malleable crocheted set and costumes by Olek

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Red is a work of beautiful suffocation, a grand facade. Taking inspiration from Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" as well as the clean lines of St. Mark's Church, Red explores the machine of repression under the guise of supreme order and calm. At once aggressive and vulnerable, shrill and hushed, this timely piece exposes the chaos in the underbelly of every society. It recognizes every human being’s capacity both for violence and acts of tenderness. Featuring an all female ensemble of nine, Red is created and performed by Carrie Ahern in collaboration with Julie Betts, Donna Bouthillier, Christina Briggs, Jennifer A. Cooper, Eun Jung Gonzalez, Carolyn Hall, and Yoko Sugimoto. Composer Kristin Norderval and the dancers provide a live acoustic and electronic score, Naoko Nagata creates costumes, and Carol Mullins designs the lights.

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