Year: 2024-2025
DanceForce Member: Jim Self
Artists: Robin Guiver; Troy Lingelbach; PeopleWatching Collective; Jim Self
Community Partners: Circus Culture; Cherry Arts Space; Hupstate Circus Festival
Audience: 697
County: Tompkins
The ‘CROSSOVERS’ project celebrates fusions of performance genres and the notion of moving through different ‘realms of being’ in physical reality and beyond. There were two Ithaca venues where these concepts were explored.
The 2024 HupState Circus hosted their headline company, ‘PEOPLE WATCHING COLLECTIVE,’ on August 30 and 31, 2024. An acrobatic dance collective consisting of 7 international multidisciplinary artists, they performed their celebrated surrealistic work, “PLAYDEAD.” Two performances at the Hangar Theater were sold out (500 attended), and the company offered two full workshops to 50 dance, circus, and performance students. Without exception, the audiences and students offered rave reviews and enthusiastic endorsements of their experiences.
June Dance 2025 embodied multiple themes of ‘Crossovers’ at The Cherry Arts on June 6 and 7, 2025. The brilliant aerial dancer and burlesque artist Troy Lingelbach performed a new version of their masterful work ‘International Lover,’ the tale of an artist in pursuit of a dream. Through trapeze work, dance, and performance art, they reckon with gender, relationships, identity, addiction, and injury. Ithaca movement artists Robin Guiver and Jim Self combined movement knowledge based in martial arts, physical theater, modern, post-modern dance, and movement storytelling. Robin drew on the myth of Orpheus and explored themes of memory, transformation and loss. Jim gave a quick ride into a series of pre-birth memories, speculations about ensoulment, and plans for lessons to be learned in this lifetime.
All together, these three powerful movement artists offered an intensity of spirit, intentionality and passion.
Here is an excerpt of an email from dancer, writer and director, Rachel Lampert: “I just saw the June Dance performance at The Cherry. It was a fabulous evening. I am writing people I know will find it inspiring on so many levels. Only one more performance – tomorrow, Saturday. I know I won’t sleep tonight, because images will be racing through my mind – the joy in seeing this concert is making me feel so alive.
“Robin Guiver’s piece is physical, and it’s satisfying to see his storytelling in action. Jim Self’s piece is full of good humor and richly personal—such a delight to see him inhabit the space with his unique and articulate physicality.
“And the final piece by Troy Lingelbach is spectacular. A brilliantly skilled dancer – like a great ballerina – and a trapeze artist who transformed before our eyes. This piece evoked gasps, tears, understanding, and joy – a work of art, unlike anything I have seen before. A young, queer artist who will be soon be a star!
“The evening is called: June Dance 2025: International Lover / Crossovers. Please see it. It is precisely what we all need right now. Inspiration.”
June Dance had full houses both nights (125 attended)Troy taught one workshop at Circus Culture for 10 students.
All events brought new audiences to dance and the movement arts. ‘CROSSOVERS’ continues an active strategy of celebrating and supporting Tompkins County artists, while hosting guest artists of exceptional quality.
