Photos courtesy of the artists

Friday, September 11
7:00 PM
Free Admission with an RSVP
Black Box Theater

A generous and candid conversation between festival choreographers Courtney “Balenciaga” Washington (MasterZ at Work), and Ronald K. Brown and Arcell Cabuag (EVIDENCE), facilitated by choreographer Souleymane Badolo (Assistant Professor of Dance, Bard College) around their artistic lineages, dance influences, and daily inspirations. Free and open for everyone to enjoy.

Stay after the event for a reception including light refreshments in the Lobby Gallery. In partnership with Dancers Responding to AIDS and O+ Festival.

About the Artists:

Raised in Brooklyn, Ronald K. Brown is the recipient of the Martha Hill Mid-Career Achievement Award (2024), American Dance Guild Lifetime Achievement Award (2024), and a Dance Teacher Award of Distinction (2024). Other awards include the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award (2020), Dance Magazine Award (2018), and Samuel H. Scripps/ADF Award (2018), among others. Brown received an AUDELCO Award for choreography in Regina Taylor’s award-winning play Crowns, two Black Theater Alliance Awards, and Fred & Adele Astaire Award for Outstanding Choreography in the Tony Award-winning Porgy and Bess, adapted by Suzan Lori Parks. Ronald K. Brown is Co-Artistic Director of The Billie Holiday Theatre’s Youth Arts Academy and a member of Stage Directors & Choreographers Society. Brown has set works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Jennifer Muller/The Works, among others. He has collaborated with Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya, Craig G. Harris, Ernie McClintock’s Jazz Actors Theater, choreographers Patricia Hoffbauer and Rokiya Kone, and composers Jason Moran, Arturo O’Farrill, Meshell Ndegeocello, and many more.

Arcell Cabuag is a first-generation Filipino-American from San Jose, California. In New York City, he attended the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and met Ronald K. Brown. He joined EVIDENCE as their first apprentice then a company member, and has served as its Associate Artistic Director since 2004. Cabuag has danced with Camille A. Brown, Mekeda Thomas, in Rock the House (Paramount Pictures), The Shoji Tabuchi Show (Branson, MO), The King and I (Richard Rodgers Centennial Production), and has been seen on TV’s Law & Order: SVU and a Codorniu Cava commercial for Spanish television. He has assisted Brown in creating repertory on Philadanco Dance Company, MUNTU Drum and Dance Company, TU Dance, Ballet Hispánico, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Cuba’s Malpaso Dance Company, and served as associate choreographer for the Tony Award-winning Porgy and Bess. Cabuag is a 2004 New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award winner for EVIDENCE and he received the Dance Teacher Award of Distinction alongside Brown in 2024.

Souleymane “Solo” Badolo is a Bessie Award-winning choreographer, performer, and Assistant Professor of Dance at Bard College, celebrated for his innovative fusion of traditional African and contemporary dance vocabularies. Born in Burkina Faso, he founded Kongo Ba Téria in 1993, a troupe that redefines African dance aesthetics. Badolo has worked with Burkina Faso’s Salia ni Seydou, French choreographers Elsa Wolliaston and Mathilde Monnier, and the National Ballet of Burkina Faso. His collaborators include Nora Chipaumire, Ralph Lemon, Reggie Wilson, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (Urban Bush Women). His work is featured in the documentary Movement (R)evolution Africa and Film Nora, highlighting his role in Africa’s experimental dance movement. Badolo has been commissioned by Danspace Project, NYLA, Harlem Stage, BAM, Jacob’s Pillow, Adzido Dance Company, Philadanco, and Ballet National of Burkina Faso, among others. His research into African dance traditions is supported by NYLA’s Suitcase Fund and, with Creative Capital, he is developing “the science of ancestors,” a technique with roots in the symbolic sign language of geomancy African divination.

Courtney “Balenciaga” Washington is a visionary Black trans femme choreographer, performer, and the creative director of MasterZ at Work Dance Family. A legend in the ballroom community, Washington is the founder of the Kiki House of Juicy Couture and the leader of the House of Balenciaga. She is recognized for her groundbreaking work in fusing street dance, street jazz, ballroom, and hip-hop, creating performances that are vibrant, high-energy expressions of resilience, survival, and chosen family. As a queer teen in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, she found refuge in dance. Her passion led to the formation of the Pretty Kitties crew, evolving into MasterZ at Work. The company engages with communities in rehearsals in public parks and outreach events, promoting inclusivity and accessibility in underserved neighborhoods. With the support of Works & Process, the company performed at the Guggenheim, SummerStage, Jacob’s Pillow, and Lincoln Center. Washington’s work uplifts the legacy of ballroom and street dance, carving out a place in the broader dance world.

Questions? Visit our Festival FAQs.

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Saturday, September 12
1:00 PM
$25 General Admission, $15 Student Admission
45 minutes
Mountain Stage (outdoors)
**Calling all dance lovers! This performance is immediately followed by Courtney “Balenciaga" Washington / MasterZ at Work’s 2:30 PM Performance. Purchase a discounted ticket to both by clicking on the “2 Performance Package” button! 

Photo by Justin Chao

EVIDENCE presents Where the Light Shines Through and Torch, two choreographic works full of heart. Both are brilliant and triumphant expressions of freedom for our times performed by Brown’s highly accomplished dancers. Their exacting movements exude grace, and equal parts intensity and generosity. With dancing so infectious and soul-stirring, you will be swept up out of your seat throughout the entire show.

Founded by Ronald K. Brown in 1985 and based in Brooklyn, EVIDENCE focuses on the seamless integration of traditional African dance with contemporary choreography to provide a unique view of human struggles, tragedies, and triumphs. Brown uses movement as a way to reinforce the importance of community in African American culture and to acquaint audiences with the beauty of traditional African forms and rhythms. Brown has set works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Cleo Parker Robinson Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Jeune Ballet d’Afrique Noire, Ko-ThiDance Company, Philadanco and others. He choreographed Regina Taylor’s award-winning play, Crowns and won an AUDELCO Award for his work on that production. EVIDENCE tours to some 25 communities in the United States and abroad. The company has traveled to Cuba, Brazil, England, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa and Canada to perform, teach master classes, and conduct lecture-demonstrations for individuals of all ages.

**Saturday’s performance will take place outdoors at our Mountain Stage with seating in a grass field. Ticket holders may rent chairs at Concessions or BYO chairs and blankets. Please note that the outdoor seating areas are not covered. We suggest that you arrive prepared with sunscreen, a hat, sun umbrella, and bug spray.

About Tickets

• One performance ticket is $25. ($15. for students). Performance tickets do no include evening concerts.

• Ticket Combo Packages for Same-Day Performances:
  -       A two-performance ticket combo is $40. ($25. for students)
  -       A three-performance ticket combo is $50. ($30. for students) *only available 8/29*
  -       Add an evening concert ticket to your combo and receive a $10 discount. This all-day pass maximizes discounts!

Questions? Visit our Festival FAQs.

Return to Festival Schedule

Saturday, September 12
2:30 PM
$25 General Admission, $15 Student Admission
60 minutes, includes 10 minute intermission
Mountain Stage (outdoors)
**Calling all dance lovers! This performance falls immediately after Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE’s 1:00 PM Performance. Purchase a discounted ticket to both by clicking on the “2 Performance Package” button! 

The 24/7 Diner: precise, high-energy dancing that mirrors the bustle of a big city, all-night diner and the internal landscape of those who work and gather inside. Inspired by and set to dance versions of Suzanne Vega’s Tom’s Diner. ALL INCLUSIVE is informed by Courtney "Balenciaga" Washington's experience as a queer teenager who found refuge from teasing in dance. The work reflects how her gender transition spurred transformative emotional, creative, and physical liberation.

Washington's choreography seamlessly pulls from house, hip hop, vogue, and street with tight, continuously evolving formations that serve to amplify each dancer’s individual style, personality, and charm. MasterZ at Work is a dance collective of vibrant performers from different dance backgrounds, creating dances that represent resilience and foster community in under-resourced areas of Brooklyn. 
Created and directed by Courtney “Balenciaga” Washington—founder of the Kiki House of Juicy Couture, a leader of the House of Balenciaga, and Legend in the Ballroom community, who cut her teeth in street-dance competitions—MasterZ at Work Dance Family is a group of extraordinarily talented individuals that come from all different dance backgrounds, including jazz, hip hop, street jazz, house, African, voguing, and contemporary. Members are highly ranked within the dance competition world and, while company members have their own dance goals and accomplishments, the company performs masterpieces together.

ALL INCLUSIVE and The 24/7 Diner were commissioned by Works & Process. ALL INCLUSIVE was developed in Works & Process residencies at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park (2021) and Bethany Arts Community (2022). The 24/7 Diner was made possible, in part, by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and Mellon Foundation. The 24/7 Diner was developed in Works & Process Residencies at Modern Accord Depot (2024), Bethany Arts Community (2025), and The Campus at Marlboro Music (2026).

**Saturday’s performance will take place outdoors at our Mountain Stage with seating in a grass field. Ticket holders may rent chairs at Concessions or BYO chairs and blankets. Please note that the outdoor seating areas are not covered. We suggest that you arrive prepared with sunscreen, a hat, sun umbrella, and bug spray.

About Tickets

• One performance ticket is $25. ($15. for students). Performance tickets do no include evening concerts.

• Ticket Combo Packages for Same-Day Performances:
  -       A two-performance ticket combo is $40. ($25. for students)
  -       A three-performance ticket combo is $50. ($30. for students) *only available 8/29*
  -       Add an evening concert ticket to your combo and receive a $10 discount. This all-day pass maximizes discounts!

Questions? Visit our Festival FAQs.

Return to Festival Schedule

Photo by Titus Ogilvie Laing

Photo by Marley Trigg Stewart

Saturday, September 12
6:00 PM
$40 General Admission, $30 Student Admission
75 minutes
Mountain Stage (outdoors)

Sadonna (Miguel Gutierrez) and the Slutinos (John Maria Gutierrez, Alvaro Gonzalez, and Santiago Venegas) provide the bow at the end of the festival, the cherry on top of a full season. Fans of Madonna’s sensational pop hits will recognize the messages of strength and resilience in Sadonna’s slower, bluer renditions. Though comfortingly familiar, the now sad songs rightly reveal the raw vulnerability and beating heart behind these classic hits as we sing farewell to summer.

Miguel Gutierrez is a multidisciplinary dance and music artist. Recent work includes Super Nothing, created through the Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist program at NYLA, and Frankenstein, created for visual artist Avram Finkelstein at Smack Mellon. His work has been presented internationally for over 20 years, most recently at ODC/SF, On the Boards, CAP/UCLA, MCA Chicago, American Dance Festival. He was a selected artist in the 2014 Whitney Biennial, Guggenheim Fellow, United States Artists Fellow, and has received a Foundation for Contemporary Art award, Doris Duke Artist Award, Frankie Award, and four New York Dance and Performance Bessie Awards. His writing has appeared in BOMB, Small Press Traffic’s The Back Room, InDance, SLUTS anthology from Dopamine Press, and more. His podcast, Are You For Sale? examines the ethical entanglement between dancemaking and funding. His two records—SADONNA: The Album and sueño, featuring his original songs—are available on all streaming platforms. He is an Associate Professor of Choreography in UCLA and splits his time between Los Angeles, Brooklyn, San Francisco, and the world.

**Saturday’s performance will take place outdoors at our Mountain Stage with seating in a grass field. Ticket holders may rent chairs at Concessions or BYO chairs and blankets. Please note that the outdoor seating areas are not covered. We suggest that you arrive prepared with sunscreen, a hat, sun umbrella, and bug spray.

About Tickets

• One performance ticket is $25. ($15. for students). Performance tickets do no include evening concerts.

• Ticket Combo Packages for Same-Day Performances:
  -       A two-performance ticket combo is $40. ($25. for students)
  -       A three-performance ticket combo is $50. ($30. for students) *only available 8/29*
  -       Add an evening concert ticket to your combo and receive a $10 discount. This all-day pass maximizes discounts!

Questions? Visit our Festival FAQs.

Return to Festival Schedule

INTERCULTURAL FIRE LIGHTING
Saturday, September 12
7:15 PM
Free
Fire pits in front of Studio Complex

Join leaders of different cultures and fellow community members to gather and celebrate the start of the Jewish New Year and end of the Annual Festival. Free and open for everyone to enjoy!

Questions? Visit our Festival FAQs.

Return to Festival Schedule

Photo by Uche Iroegbu, courtesy of Pramila Vasudevan

PERFORMANCE LENDING LIBRARY
QR codes at Studio Complex Lobby and at Concessions
Monday - Friday, 9 AM – 5 PM
Access included with tickets on festival days
Lobby Gallery + Grounds (indoors and outdoors)
Free

A curated selection of audio-guided physical experiences adapted for Kaatsbaan’s environment, each under 30 minutes. 

Bring your smart phone/tablet (data streaming required), earbuds/headphones, and be led into a range of embodied performance practices with your imagination as the site of the artwork. Available onsite for free and at your own pace throughout the festival (August 29–September 12).

At Kaatsbaan, you can find the Performance Lending Library QR codes inside the Studio Complex lobby and at Concessions. Individuals and groups can contact 845-757-5106 x117 or boxoffice@kaatsbaan.org for more information and support. When onsite for the festival, Box Office staff can offer suggestions for places to anchor your experience and answer any questions you may have.

• Bridget Fiske, Joseph Lau, Stelios Manousakis, and Stephanie Pan: A Concept Album of Architectural Choreographies: A guerrilla audio tour in semi-public spaces
  A mixtape-style selection of propositions to perform almost-imperceptible daily dances in overlooked transitory and in-between places around Kaatsbaan. An international co-production by Modulus (NL) and Project Auske (UK).

• Terry Hempfling and Rachel Jendrzejewski: Backwards Walk
  An invitation to walk backwards slowly, in a sustained tempo, while listening to fragments of text and focusing your sensory orientation along a single path. Developed as a collaboration from 2016 to 2025 and adapted in 2026 for Kaatsbaan, Backwards Walk is a site-responsive movement practice designed to interrupt your habitual patterns of perception, attention, and locomotion.

• GUTSOIL ARTS | Pramila Vasudevan: Mossing|Marrowing Vitality Scores
  A movement ritual for all bodies as constellations of energy fields. A visualization and overlay of human marma points (ie. anatomical junctions where muscles, veins, ligaments, bones, and joints meet) with those of our plant kin (ie. roots to shoots), honoring every point as vulnerable and an opportunity for healing.
  

About the Artists:

Modulus is a Hague-based artist-run interdisciplinary production house that creates innovative, participatory, immersive, and embodied experiences.

The work of Stelios Manousakis (Modulus) has been shown in five continents in festivals, performance venues, centers, museums, galleries, underground spaces, film houses and public spaces, such as ZKM, Ars Electronica, Rewire Festival, Museum Reina Sofia, London National Gallery, IDFA, The Place, November Music, Dutch National Opera, and O. Festival. Stelios has a PhD in Digital Arts and Experimental Media from the University of Washington.

Stephanie Pan (Modulus) is a voice artist, composer, interdisciplinary maker, and performer. Pan has created and presented work at venues and festivals like CTM Berlin, Rewire Festival, Young Vic Theatre, La MaMa, BBC, Dutch National Opera, Beursschouwburg Brussel, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Kunstmuseum Den Haag. She has collaborated with Belarus Free Theatre, filmmaker Jeanette Groenendaal, and Ensemble Klang, among others. 

Project Auske is a Manchester-based choreographic creative house working at the edges of forms, and the co-existence and intersection of ideas and practices.

Bridget Fiske (Project Auske) is a director, choreographer, performer, producer, facilitator, and writer with a 25-year international portfolio in dance, theatre, film, participatory and interdisciplinary arts. Fiske has been choreographic, movement and rehearsal director for Belarus Free Theatre and the documentary Iron Butterflies. Fiske is associate director of Sufi in The City. Other works have been presented at Cinekid Festival, The Place, Lowry, Open Amare, Illuminating York, Liverpool Biennial, and The Future (Rambert & Lowry). 

Joseph Lau (Project Auske) is an artist working in contemporary movement and choreography, with projects often exploring political, social, and economic themes. His work includes the EU-commissioned Viva… and Deeper Than All Roses for the FascinatE multimedia project with BBC, Technicolour and European partners. Lau was the inaugural Moving Dance Forward associate, and choreographed and directed Abandoned Things. Lau has performed with imitating the dog, Opera Queensland, Willi Dorner, Barking Gecko, Buzz Dance Theatre, and Dancenorth Australia. Lau is a founder of Manchester Dance Consortium.

Terry Hempfling’s work spans dance, improvisation, site-specific performance, visual art, video, and social practice, with a particular interest in ephemeral performance, embodied memory, and the ways live experiences are transmitted, documented, archived, and transformed in analog and digital media. She has worked with Phoebe Berglund, Marina Abramović, Laure Prouvost, Pierre Droulers, Ada Friendman, Anthea Hamilton, and Rachel Jendrzejewski, with whom she maintained a decade-long artistic partnership before stewarding Jendrzejewski’s artistic archive following her passing in 2025. In 2026, Hempfling founded The New Workers Dance League in Minneapolis, a public movement project developed in response to Operation Metro Surge. This summer, she presented a video and print work with Queer Arts at Beverley’s, New York City, and video at Pasture Gallery, New Hampshire.

Rachel Jendrzejewski (1982–2025) was an interdisciplinary artist and writer who frequently collaborated with choreographers, musicians, and multimedia artists to explore wide-ranging performative vocabularies. Her work was developed and/or presented by Walker Art Center, Padua Playwrights, Los Angeles Performance Practice, Tricklock Company, Joe’s Pub, The Wild Project, RISD, MASS MoCA, and ICA/Boston, among others. Published texts include MERONYMY (53rd State Press), In Which _______ and Others Discover the End, a collaboration with SuperGroup (Plays Inverse), and encyclopedia (Spout Press). Jendrzejewski was a Playwrights’ Center Core Writer and a Co-Artistic Director at Red Eye in Minneapolis.

Pramila Vasudevan is a movement-centered artist, cultural worker, and maker of community-rooted/routed transdisciplinary work. She is of Tamil descent and has been living and working in the Twin Cities, on stolen Dakota land, for the past 20-plus years. Vasudevan founded Aniccha Arts (2004–2025), an experimental arts collaborative, producing site-specific performances. She has been honored with McKnight Choreography Fellowship (2024, 2016), Joyce Award (2022), United States Artists (2022), and Guggenheim (2017). Her current practice involves gardening, hosting conversations and community gatherings, and developing improvisational movement inspired by growing practices and plant cycles in the urban wild.

Questions? Visit our Festival FAQs.

Photo courtesy of artist

LAURA CURRY, CITA EN BICI / BIKE DATE
Book directly with the artist onsite during the festival, August 29–September 12
bikedateproject@gmail.com

From an earnest conversation while biking, choreographer and social practice artist Laura Curry has turned a seemingly simple research process, started in 2013 in South and North American cities, into a sisterhood of mothers, daughters, aunties, grandmas, and fem/trans individuals who are also cyclists. Share stories while on a bike ride with Laura on the Empire State Trail or your local neighborhood route. In partnership with Tivoli Free Library.

August 29, 11 AM - 12:30 PM– Opening Day activities at Kaatsbaan include a bike maintenance workshop with Laura Curry, wampum belt art making with Vickie Ramirez, Ty Defoe, and Jeanette Harrison, and lacrosse stick handling clinic with Bard College Women’s Lacrosse team. Bring your bike/recommended gear (listed below), friends, and family. All are welcome!

September 4, 5 PM - 6 PM – Learn about Cita en Bici / Bike Date. Laura will share her artistic research and hands on advice for simple bike maintenance. Meet at Tivoli Free Library (86 Broadway) with or without your bike/recommended gear (listed below):

• Bike, helmet, lock.

• If you need chain cleaned: grease rag - one or two without nap (don't want loose fibers or threads getting into chain), old toothbrush, and bike chain lube - this can be found in any bike shop (Laura uses Tri-Flow Superior Lube).

• Allen wrench set (some will be available on site to borrow). 

• If you need a new tire/tube: set of tire levers, tube that fits your tire (make sure you know if your tubes are Presta or Schrader), and tire pump.

• Copy (printed or digital) of your roadway.

• Extra credit:

• Copy (printed or digital) of your cycling planning policy, framework, hierarchy - what mode of transport privileges what, and if that changes, etc.

• What are the stated responsibilities of the cyclist while on the road? This information can generally be found online in city or county transportation agency websites.

• Who are your transportation representatives?  Do you know the budget and how they spend it?

Laura Curry is an artist, educator, and researcher focusing on environmental and social justice through a feminist, queer perspective. Her practice includes collaboration, critical pedagogy, installation, media production, activism, performance, and writing. Curry holds an MFA in Media Art Production from SUNY Buffalo, is a published member of the Collective EnJust Network for environmental justice, Kiel Germany, and the American Association of Geographers.

Curry moves across social and political borders, working predominantly in the US and Mexico, where she presents her art, and teaches critical pedagogy at universities and research institutions. Her work has been exhibited at Queens Museum, DOCUMENTA 13, Yes We Cannibal (Baton Rouge), ISEA (Albuquerque), On the Boards and Hugo House (Seattle), PICA’s TBA Festival (Portland), The Southern Theater (Minneapolis), ODC Theater (San Francisco), Bauhaus-Universität (Weimar), and in Mexico at The Guapamacátaro Center for Art and Ecology (Michoacan), and Artes del Tecnológico de Monterrey, NoAutomatico, and LAB Nuevo Leon (Monterrey).

Questions? Visit our Festival FAQs.