‘Vessels’ both challenges and delights with its structure and regimen.. There’s a deceptive simplicity about ‘vessels’: the precision, variance of speed coupled with stillness, a compelling display of balance, straight lines, geometric shapes. Even the hands hold my attention—fingers in a subtle arrangement, as if they might be read as runes. Standing with their backs to me—hands on waist with elbows akimbo, knees flexed—the dancers create diamonds of empty space that remind me of the vintage Hull vases my grandmother used to collect. Is this the kind of vessel they have in mind? Or is their referenced container the human body itself, filled with experiences and beliefs?
- Karen Hildebrand: writer Brooklyn Rail


Distorting and repeating shared forms, however horrific or ecstatic, in the pursuit of something that feels like transformation or preservation or simply just aliveness. vessels is a dance of desperate meanings unraveling unto some queer itch that feels like home.

Commissioned & Presented by: Out-FRONT! Festival 2025 by Pioneers Go East Collective
Produced by: Pioneers Go East Collective in partnership with BAM and Judson Church
Performers: Hollis Bartlett and Nattie Trogdon
Sound by: Michael Wall
Lighting Design: Philip Treviño
Photography: Steven Pisano

PERFORMANCE HISTORY
Out-FRONT! Fest. (PREMIERE) / Pioneers Go East Collective / Judson Church NY, NY January 7 + 10, 2025
The Dance Deck / The Croft / Horton Bay, MI September 25, 2024


This work was developed in part through residences at The Croft, Kestrels and The Floor, produced and presented as part of the Out-FRONT! Festival 2025 by Pioneers Go East Collective in partnership with BAM and Judson Church. Pioneers Go East Collective's programs in 2024/25 are made possible with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts; The New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; New York City Council's discretionary funding provided by council member Carlina Rivera and 2nd District; SU-CASA (DCLA); The Howard Gilman Foundation; The Jerome Foundation; Mertz Gilmore Foundation; Harkness Foundation for Dance; The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation; and the Mosaic Network and Fund in The New York Community Trust.