Made specifically for the Chocolate Factory Theater’s new space, Folds revels in four dancers’ vulnerable, molting, and triumphant bodies; their operatic and primal voices; and the real-time morphing and mending of a large visual art installation made in collaboration with Ukrainian visual artist Inna Babaeva.

Working from a vocal score unrooted in human language — created with long-time collaborator Justin Jones — Folds builds layers of sound (combining field recordings and samples) within which the performers enact a series of delicately disturbing, brutally beautiful, chaotic and crystallized, solitary and communal rituals; formed in tactile (and sometimes violent) relationship to Babaeva’s fragile and decaying installation.

Folds is commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater. Folds was developed as part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Dance Studio Residency program (LMCC.net), Gibney Dance-In-Process (DiP) Residency, Snug Harbor Cultural Center Artist Residency, 92Y Artist-in-Residence Program, and Redtail Arts Artist-in-Residence Program at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. Folds is made possible, in part, by Ivy Baldwin Dance Commissioning Circle Members, the Bonnie and Sy Grossman Charitable Fund, The Fund for Good Work, The Dugas Family Foundation, a Foundation For Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, and a Dance/NYC Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund: New York State Edition, an initiative made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA).