Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2017
ABOUT BC + A
Founded in 2011, Bryn Cohn + Artists is a New York-based contemporary dance company comprised of unique
collaborative artists from diverse backgrounds. BC + A has been met with critical acclaim amongst artists, press and
audiences throughout New York, Boston, Seattle and Los Angeles.
Described as groundbreaking, primal, surreal and supernatural, (Brooklyn Buzz) the company has been presented
in premiere venues including Danspace Project in St. Marks Church in-the-Bowery, Kaatsbaan International Dance
Center, Bryant Park, Gibney Dance, Rutgers University,14th Street Y, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center,
Symphony Space, Judson Memorial Church, 92nd Street Y, The Martha Graham Theater, The Center for Performance
Research, The Theatre at Meydenbauer, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Abrons Arts Center, Baruch Performing Arts Center,
Manhattan Movement and Arts, Triskelion Arts, Salvatore Capezio Theater and John Ryan Theater among others.
BC + A has gained notable recognition for their educational and charitable initiatives within communities and
organizations across the country. The company has brought their teaching programs to institutions including
California Institute of the Arts, Cornish College of the Arts,City Ballet of Los Angeles, Velocity Dance Center, Nazareth
College, Rutgers University, Chop Shop Dance Festival and Renaissance Arts Academy. BC + A holds biannual
master workshops at Peridance Capezio Center. The company annually collaborates on site specific immersive
experiences with art galleries and fashion organizations including Artists & Fleas, Tribeca Art Night, Foley Gallery,
Castle Fitzjohns and Bene Rialto as a means of making dance more accessible within the public sphere.
The company has received awards and funding including from Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, The Alfred
Z Soloman Charitable Trust, SILO Residency through DanceNOW and The Emerging Artists Residency through
The Field. BC + A was named Inception to Exhibitions Fan Favorite and won a fully produced performance in
March 2016. The company was represented in The Gallery Roster at Pentacle Danceworks Inc. The company has
been invited to perform in ReverbDance (both in New York and in the Boston Echoes Tour), Chop Shop (Seattle)
WestFest, DanceNOW, Split Bill Series, Stuffed, Pentacles Fall Farther, Upstart, Underexposed, Dumbo, Cool and
Young Choreographers dance festivals among others.
ARTISTIC
DIRECTOR
Bryn Cohn
A dancemaker who does not shy away from much - DIY Dancer
Described as having a brilliant mind...people want to see more (The Dance
Enthusiast), Bryn Cohn founded and assumed the position of artistic director of
Bryn Cohn + Artists in 2011. She has been commissioned to create original works for
Missouri Contemporary Ballet, Billy Bells Lunge Dance Collective (formerly of Cedar
Lake Contemporary Ballet), The Big Muddy Dance Company, University at Buffalo,
Grand Valley State University, California State University, Fullerton, The Pushing Progress
Contemporary Training Program, Stockton University, the fashion designer Betsey Johnson
on a site-specific installation, The Youth America Grand Prix and Bayonne High School.
Cohn is on permanent faculty at Peridance Capezio Center and for the Pushing Progress
Contemporary Training Program where she teaches composition, improvisation and
contemporary techniques. She formerly directed the modern department at Greenwich
Ballet Academy.
As a sought after educator and lecturer, Cohn has participated in educational engagements
at Gibney Dance (NY), California Institute of the Arts (CA),Loyola Marymount University
(CA), Temple University (PA), Axis Connect (NY),Shenandoah University (VA),California State University, Fullerton (CA), Broadway
Dance Center (NY), Stockton University (NJ), California State University, Los Angeles (CA), 10 Hairy Legs (NY)and for the Michael
Susten Dance Company (NYC). She received a full feature profile in Dance Teacher Magazine in July 2016. Cohn created
C.O.N.N.E.C.T a goal-setting forum for dance artists, hosted at Gibney Dance. She was one of twenty international artists invited
to participate in The New Aesthetics Performance Intensive in a dance theatre collajboration conducted by Crystal Pite and Pol
Hayvaert in Vancouver, B.C. Cohn was selected to serve on The Massachusetts Cultural Council Choreography Fellowship
Panel. She has received scholarships to Bridge: Choreographic Dialogues at the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv, the Bessie
Schoenberg Choreographic Lab at New York Live Arts and Systems for Understanding Movement and Choreography, led by
Susan Marshall. Cohn has performed in works by Ohad Naharin, Alex Ketley, Colin Connor and Barak Marshall, and in self
choreographed solos Leak and Au Revoir Love. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts in
dance performance and composition. Cohn is pursuing low residency Master of Fine Arts candidacy at University of Wisconsin
- Milwaukee.
PRESS QUOTES
Cohns intricate choreography lends itself especially well to the tableaux
of love and connections that she creates. She depicts with stunning
clarity.
Stage Buddy
Turn off the lights, and the world suddenly becomes a very foreign
place... The costumes are black, the score is ominous and the movement is
fittingly fragmented and slithery.
The New York Times
an emotional ride
Seattle Dances
dynamic, striking...
Ms. Cohn reached a remarkable level of sophistication.
Explore Dance
2016
HOME Premiere // Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center at Gibney Dance | New York NY
Master Classes + Lecture // CalArts | Los Angeles CA
Master Classes // Cal State Los Angeles | Los Angeles CA
Master Workshop // Peridance Capezio Center | New York NY
Profile in Dance Teacher Magazine
Winner of Inception to Exhibitions Fan Favorite Contest
HOME Performance // Nazareth College | Rochester NY
HOME Performance // Rutgers University | New Brunswick NJ
Master Class // Stockton University | Stockton, New Jersey
Class Series // Gibney Dance | New York, NY
2015
Skin Evening Premiere // Danspace Project in St. Marks Church | New York NY
Alfred Z. Soloman Charitable Trust Recipient
Site-Specific Collaboration // Foley Gallery | New York NY
Master Workshop // Peridance Capezio Center | New York NY
Commissions
Master Class // Loyola Marymount University | Los Angeles CA
Master Workshop at Class Act Performing Arts Studio | South Orange NJ
2014
Abrons Art Center | New York NY 2017
Jazz at Lincoln Center | New York NY University at Buffalo
Chop Shop: Bodies of Work // The Theatre at Meydenbauer | Seattle WA Stockton University
Master Class at Velocity Dance Center | Seattle WA California State University, Fullerton
Master Workshop // Peridance Capezio Center | New York NY
Reverb Dance Festival | New York NY 2016
Into The Dark Evening Premiere // The Center for Performance Research | Brooklyn NY Big Muddy Dance Company
Boston University Theater | MA Youth America Grand Prix | Lincoln Center
2013
Bayonne High School | New Jersey
2012 2014
Pentacles Fall Farther // Ailey Citigroup Theater | New York NY Pushing Progress Contemporary Training Program
Reverb Dance Festival // Baruch Performing Arts Center | New York NY
92nd Street Y | New York NY
Young Choreographers Festival // Symphony Space | New York NY
2013
Missouri Contemporary Ballet
Upstart Festival // Brooklyn Arts Exchange | Brooklyn NY
Underexposed Festival // Dixon Place | New York NY
Cool Festival // John Ryan Theater | Brooklyn NY
2012
Billy Bells Lunge Dance (formerly of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet +
CHELSEA AINSWORTH
Chelsea Ainsworth is a graduate of
the Dance Department of The Juilliard
School. After graduating, she worked with
Johannes Wieland/StaadtstheaterKassel
in Germany. Currently she is dancing with
David Parker and The Bang Group, as well
as ZviDance. She is on the modern dance
faculty at Cap21 musical theater school
and Ballet Faculty of the Chen Dance
Center / H.T. Chen & Dancers. She recently
founded and is a Director at Arts On Site.
TECHNICAL COLLABORATORS
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To collaborate with artists across different disciplines to build kinetic + multifaceted experiences
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To partner with organizations to make dance more accessible within the public sphere + advocate the
arts as a valuable and sustainable social necessity
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REPERTORY
4AM
4AM is a visceral exploration of intersections between science and
spirituality, reimagined through rave and trance culture. Cohns kinetic
and explosive choreography illuminates the extreme risk and sensuality
that emanate from relinquishing inhibition and surrendering to sensation.
From ethereal to dim revealings, 4AM unleashes what occurs when we
fully loose ourselves in our bodies, in our environments and in one
another.
Premiere // June 2017 at New York Live Arts l New York NY
Dancers // 6
Running Time // 45 Minutes | Excerpt 15 Minutes
Music // Various Artists
Costumes // Mark Grienger
*4AM was made possible with generous support from Kaatsbaan
International Dance Center*
Cohns intricate choreography lends itself well to the tableux of love and connections
that she creates. She depicts with stunning clarity.
Stage Buddy
HOME
HOME is a dance theater work rooted in familial dynamics and the pursuit
of physical, emotional and spiritual manifestations of connection. The
work embodies a non-linear narrative that provides a lens into the varied
encounters that occur within a group of individuals inhabiting, fighting
for and existing in harmony within designated spaces. Scenic design
elements, such as commonly seen furniture, are woven into kinetic
movement languages. Through continuously evolving structures that
transform the space and the complex relationships developed amongst
the performers, we come to understand that our concept of HOME is
constantly shifting as we move through life.
Premiere // June 2016
Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center at Gibney Dance l New York NY
Dancers // 5
Running Time // 37 Minutes | Excerpt 10 Minutes
Music // Original Composition by Kevin Keller with additional artists
Costumes // Sebastian Arango
*HOME was made possible due to support from The SILO Residency*
through DanceNOW*
Cohn takes ideas of the traditional, utopian family and smashes them apart, allowing
us to see what lies underneath.
The Dance Enthusiast
SKIN
Skin investigates how we physically and metaphorically build a person
in a continuous cycle of creation and destruction in response to social
castes, gender, sexuality and political systems. Featuring six mannequins,
Skin creates an immersive world onstage as the performers cultivate their
own identities in juxtaposition to the empty and emotionless physical
forms. This journey strips us of our fabricated spectacle and leaves us
bare, in our own skin, to reveal a sacred truth about ourselves in conflict
and harmony with our world.
Premiere // June 2015
Danspace Project in St. Marks Church in-the-Bowery l New York NY
Dancers // 6
Running Time // 65 Minutes | Excerpt 10 Minutes
Music // Original Composition by Kevin Keller with additional artists
Costumes // Sebastian Arango
*Skin was made possible due to support from The Alfred Z. Soloman
Charitable Trust*
REPERTORY
INTO THE DARK
Into The Dark confronts the reality of the ways we take risk and the trust,
conflict and hope that arise to navigate the experience. The work examines
what occurs when we surrender our certainties within a re-imagined
world of darkness, in the places where chance meets fear and rescue.
Featuring fully integrated scenic design, panels serve as continuously
evolving architecture, reassigning meaning to recognizable structures
such as prisons, mazes, and confessionals to elucidate the humanity that
sits at the core of the piece.
Premiere // June 2014
The Center for Performance Research l Brooklyn NY
Dancers // 4
Running Time // 55 Minutes | Excerpt 10 Minutes
Music // Original Composition by Bita Sharif
Immaculate shifts of texture and mood that were enthralling... the smallest movement
seemed to garner the greatest impact.
DIY Dancer
ALLEGIANCE
Allegiance is inspired by political clans, revolt and war. The potency of
pack mentality enables the performers to tackle all that exists on the
precipice of a looming battle frontier. Dense with raw, sculptured and
cinematic imagery, motifs of radicalism and community permeate the
movement and climate onstage.
Premiere // January 2014
Jazz at Lincoln Center l New York NY
Dancers // 4
Running Time // 20 minutes
Music // Ben Frost
IF YOU SINK
If You Sink examines archetypical models of relationships and the
corresponding social constructions of power that exist.. Movement
languages encompassing rhythmic nuances punctuated by highly
articulated gesture and classical idioms are seamlessly woven into the
subtleties of Chopins score. Sinking is embodied as an undercurrent
in the fragile connection shared by the dancers, and a semblance of
hope that operates in the face of weakness.
Premiere // May 2012
Symphony Space l New York NY
Redeveloped 2014 for Chop Shop: Bodies of Work Dance Festival |
The Theatre at Meydenbauer, Seattle WA
Dancers // 2
Running Time // 8 minutes
an emotional ride beneath the surface the back-and-forth of a romance showed off the
darts, quirks, and quick transitions of Cohns choreography.
Seattle Dances
REPERTORY
SHELF
Within a highly charged and electric landscape, codependency
ascends to its most extreme in Shelf. A shelf becomes a motif to evoke
nostalgia and desire that is bred from radical loss. Disillusions of the
present are echoed in rigorous and explosive attempts to return to the
past. Recognizable human action illuminates an absence of what is
certain, and the dissipating memory of the shelf that once was.
Premiere // December 2012
Pentacles Fall Further at Ailey Citigroup Theater l New York NY
Dancers // 2
Running Time // 10 minutes
Music // Tim Hecker + Pan Sonic
movement would arc gracefully beginning with slow movements that would suspend then
release to rapid gestures this was a strong statement and intelligently expressed.
Dance in New York City
AU REVOIR LOVE
A self choreographed solo by artistic director Bryn Cohn, Au Revoir
Love is a glimpse into the departure from great romance. The
impassioned and diverse movement palette reflects a rapid shifting
from abandoned to sensual, bound to free, mournful to determined.
We trail the vulnerability of this dancer, wrought with anxiety in her
impulses and tethered to her self-induced affliction as she is finally
compelled to say the three emancipating words, Au Revoir Love.
Premiere// May 2013
Salvatore Capezio Theater l New York NY
Dancers// 1
Running Time// 10 minutes
Music// Yann Tierson + Otis Redding
you had to hold your breath...the honest emotional connection made it so worth
experiencing.
Brooklyn Buzz
PRINTED
Drawn together by a series of provocative and penetrating mementos,
each dancer identifies a tangible self-portrait within a larger communal
print. Dissolving memories of intimacy, trauma and individualism
are reflected in tangible impermanence of the movement and
compositional structures.
Premiere // December 2011
ReverbDance Festival at Baruch Performing Arts Center l New York NY
Dancers // 4
Running Time // 9 minutes
Music // Loscil
OUTREACH
Communal outreach resides at the forefront of BC + As mission with the consistent endeavor to provide artistic, accessible and
educational platforms that anyone, from any background, can connect to. From open rehearsals to lecture/demonstrations to
opportunities to engage in our creative process, our desire is to disseminate self-empowerment concepts and collaborative
mechanisms to our audiences and students that guide our company practice.
PERFORMANCES across the space alongside your community with intent, clarity
and pleasure. Take a risk. Invite yourself and your realities into
Bryn Cohn and Artists is available for professionally presented the jump, bounce, toss and most importantly, the quiet and
performances in an array of venues from proscenium stages to sensitive moments of connectedness.
site-specific work to museums + galleries. BC + A can travel as
a full company or with selected performers to fulfill presenters - Partnering
needs, showing between 10 to 120 minutes of work.
Class breaks down the mechanics of partnering as a way to
COMMISSIONS deepen visceral consciousness and to interface with one another
with authenticity and vulnerability. Exercises examine variations
Bryn Cohn resets company repertory + creates new work for of touch, momentum, weight bearing, manipulation, energy
ballet and modern dance companies, universities and colleges levels and counterbalance. Structured and improvisational
as well as commercials and film. Past commissions include: The prompts cultivate intimacy and connection while providing
Big Muddy Dance Company, University of Buffalo, California space to investigate ones creative voice and the collective
State University, Fullerton, Grand Valley State University, Missouri energy in the room.
Contemporary Ballet, Billy Bells Lunge Dance, Youth America
Grand Prix, Bayonne High School + The Pushing Progress - Repertory
Contemporary Training Program among others. Existing works
can be tailored to accommodate specific number of dancers. BC + A repertory incorporates fall and recovery, spatial
patterning, intricate floor work and rigor with strong emphasis
EDUCATION on focus and expressivity. Phrasework encourages an intuitive
coupling between specificity and sweeping motion, shape and
PHILOSOPHY // circularity, and the ability to morph from one physical state into
Bryn Cohn + Artists pedagogical philosophy provides the next. The dancers will not only learn material generated by
students of all ages and varying abilities the freedom to BC + A but will also submerge into an experimental process
explore representations of who they are as individuals and as based on movement, dialogue, writing, props and scenic
artists by providing an open and intimate environment to delve design.
into technical and performative practices. BC + A teaches - Composition
single classes, workshops, intensives and residencies as well
as lecture/demonstrations for professional or non-professional Choreography classes supply dancers with the fundamental
college level and K-12 dancers. tools to construct dances based on spatial dynamics, time,
movement invention, architecture and choreographic direction.
SAMPLE CLASSES // Students are given prompts such as self-identity portraits,
- Technique my turn your turn partnering strategies and methods of
collaboration to build larger ensemble structures. Students will
Groove, refine, center go upside down, focus, commit work individually and collectively to discover their directorial
take a risk then listen be the artist, communicator and voices and transfer inspiration and creativity into complex
dancer you want to be. Warm up begins with crafted and and clear vision. After the creation stage, we will discuss the
improvisational exercises to ground the body and welcome works in terms what we see and what meaning, theme, motif or
the mind into our flow. Prepare for physical demand by narrative we may infer from our observations.
honoring alignment, sequencing, directional change, gravity
and momentum. Draw upon Bartinieff Fundamentals, Limon,
Feldenkrais, ballet, contemporary and hip hop genres to
center and play. Floorwork butters the body into the Earth as
a method to resist and swing from it. A wide qualitative range
cultivated throughout class provides a springboard to launch
into dynamic - based, athletic and gestural phrasework. Sweep
CONTACT
Thank you for your interest in Bryn Cohn + Artists! For more information + booking inquiries,
please contact us.
Bryn Cohn
Artistic Director
bryn@bryncohnandartists.com
818 // 426 // 5600
Maxine Evangelista
Booking Representative
maxine@bryncohandartists.com
650 // 296 // 7192
Yuliya Romanskaya
General Operations/Rehearsal Director
yuliya@bryncohnandartists.com
KEEP IN TOUCH!