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fearless action, physical indulgence, elegant design

Chris Ferris & Dancers

Linear Folds in Orbit

choreography: Chris Ferris

 

dancers: Rachael Venner & Alli Bradley,

 

photo: Eric Bandiero

About Us

phone: 718-672-6965

E-mail: chris@chrisferrisdance.com

Chris Ferris & Dancers is known for its fearless action, physical indulgence, and elegant design.  Fists pound the floor, bodies spiral with tactile awareness, and the planes of raw space are rearranged again.  Dancers inhabit space by weaving a fabric of movement that varies from intricate to sweeping, light to determined, and is always part of a larger spatial design. 

Chris Ferris & Dancers presented Just In Time Dec. 9 & 10, 2023 at The Ailey Studios in NYC. Just In Time is dance influenced by observations of the repeating circular patterns of trees, plants, water, and weather .

Seasonal-Just in Time, a half evening work premiere, was performed at Green Space NYC in Oct. 2022. It is a suite of dances influenced by observations of the shifting, circular patterns of trees, plants, and weather. Original music is by Loren Kyoshi Dempster.

Urban Pastoral an outdoor structured dance improvisation with sculptural lights by Warren Kloner and music by Human Time Machine was performed at Summit Rock in Central Park NYC on Oct. 8th!

Chris Ferris & Dancers presented excerpts from Unquantifiable on 11/2/19 at Alison Cook Beatty’s Artists in Notion and on 10/15/19 at Dixon Place’s Fast Forward.  The full evening work, Unquantifiable premiered at Roulette on Feb. 17, 2019.  Unquantifiable incorporates a cast of dancers and musicians delving into the compositional and improvisational expression of how to survive a crowd or enjoy it.  The masses vs. the individual are brought forth in this suite of movement and music.  The choreography is by Chris Ferris and composition/direction is by Loren Kiyoshi Dempster. Chris Ferris & Dancers received a Mertz Gilmore Foundation Late Stage Production Stipend through Roulette for Unquantifiable.

The REAL suite was presented at Fast Forward, Dixon Place NYC Sept. 2018. REAL - If This Were Not Real and Three Point Perspective were presented with selections from the Rampaging Light suite at Roulette, Brooklyn NY Feb. 2018 and at Second Sundays, Lenox Hill Neighborhood House March 2018.

Rampaging Light was presented 3/31-4/1 2017 as part of The Waxing Crescent (an evening of dance and music with guest artists presented by Ferris) at New York City Center Studios. An earlier version of Rampaging Light was performed at Take Root, Green Space Studio LIC Sept. 2016. This is dance existing in parallel worlds; framed time shattered between reality and dreams; and the magical mishaps that you thought didn’t happen but did.  You are held and released by the silent step, soundless wind, screaming train, and buzzing wall of voices.  This is performance that will alter your perception of a single room and the flipping numbers on your clock.  Sometimes everything does not have to make sense.

In May 2016 Chris Ferris & Dancers premiered new works at 7 Incantations, a showing at New York City Center Studios NYC.  It included 3 dance works by Ferris and 5 guest artists, who were present and past Chris Ferris & Dancers company members.

In 2015 Chris Ferris & Dancers has been a part of 60x60 at the Winter Garden, Brookfield Place New York on Oct. 23.  Torrential Dance Fall has been presented at Summer Shake-Up, Triskelion Arts, Brooklyn NY on Aug. 26 and Green Space Blooms, Green Space, Long Island City NY on April 18.  Ferris performed a new solo, Flight Pattern #59 for Performance Situation in Movement Research’s Open Performance on Oct. 13 with live music by Helen Yee. 

Urban Pastoral is an outdoor improvisation with 10 sculptural lights by Warren Kloner, 10 dancers, and live music by a variety of musicians including Max Maples, Loren Dempster, Helen Yee, Jeff Hudgins, and Brian Adler. Its 3rd season, in June 2015, was at Socrates Sculpture Park LIC NY, Battery Park City NYC, and Carl Schurz Park NYC. Urban was presented, for its Spring 2014 series, in Central Park NYC and Squibb Park/Bridge, Brooklyn NY.  In the Fall of 2013 we presented at the Tobacco Warehouse, Brooklyn Bridge Park; The High Line, NYC; and Central Park NYC.

Perfect Tension, the full evening work, pulls you into the exhilarating world of stress.  We take stress, pressure, and anxiety and then go further to bring about resolution with self comforting survival tactics.  Perfect Tension was presented in November, 2014 at the Martha Graham Studio Theater NYC.  It premiered at FLICfest at the Irondale Theater, Brooklyn NY in January, 2014.

Chris Ferris & Dancers performed Circuitous Body, a full evening collaboration with composer Loren Dempster, in April 2012 presented by Roulette, Brooklyn NY.  Circuitous Body was then presented by Green Space in Long Island City, NY with partial support by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation Late-Stage Production Stipend in Nov. 2012.  Our 2011 concert, Continental Drift, was presented at CPR–Center for Performance Research.  Proximity Of Clouds (2010 full evening work), premiered at Joyce SoHo NYC; incorporating sculptures that hang, swing, slash, glow, and illuminate creating ethereal forms, a forest of moving architecture, and corporeal presences.  The company has presented 3 season concerts in New York at the Cunningham Studio. 

Chris Ferris & Dancers has also performed at Green Space Blooms, 60 x 60 at Brookfield Place’s Winter Garden, Summer Shake-Up at Triskelion Arts, Queensboro Dance Festival, West Fest, Biomorphic Dance Festival, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center, Rebound Dance Festival, Performance Mix, Solar Powered Dance Festival, Dance Conversations at the Flea, WAXworks, SWEAT Modern Dance Series, d.u.m.b.o. Dance Festival, Movement Research at Judson Church, University Settlement, and a variety of other venues.

This is dance created for the love of physicality and its expression.  The structure and design may be complicated but it also can be human as bodies are repelled, collide, and bound through space.  We are determined to give you more action than you have seen all day and make you acutely aware of its existence in your day to day life.

Chris Ferris & Dancers

photo: Eric Bandiero

Still Night

choreography: Chris Ferris

dancer: Erin Delucia-Benson

photo: Pat Heagy