Night three of three performances – 5/29, 5/30, 5/31
This evening-length work grew out of research that began in 2021 while in residence at New Dance Alliance. Early in our process Molly revealed stories of her religious upbringing, and specifically a brief dalliance she had with the Pentecostal Church. Together we mined this personal history for imagery, and through our exploration uncanny parallels between church, cattle, and divine kink revealed themselves. Early phases of this work reckoned with these realms of violence and exaltation. Subsequent research led us to an image of the wound in Christ’s side, found in the Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg. Encountering this image and the story of disciples sucking Christ’s wound prompted conversations around profanity, voyeurism, and the erotic. Inspired by this narrative, we play into themes of consent, materiality, and objectification as we devour each other. Flesh and object converge in a celestial wasteland.
Molly Ross
Nola Sporn Smith
A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing. Watch below or on YouTube.
MOLLY&NOLA is Molly Ross and Nola Sporn Smith. We have been making work in NYC as MOLLY&NOLA since 2017. Our work has been presented by Movement Research at the Judson Church; New Dance Alliance’s Performance Mix Festival; Center for Performance Research’s Fall Movement Festival; Pioneers Go East Collective; and at a variety of galleries, music venues and DIY spaces around the city (Trans Pecos; The Glove; Chaos Computer; Assembly Room Gallery; SECRET DUNGEON, and more). We have been in residence at Keshet Center for the Arts (Albuquerque, NM) and New Dance Alliance’s LiftOff program (NYC). We are thrilled to be premiering our first evening-length work at Roulette.
Molly is a performer and choreographer based in Brooklyn. Her solo work has been presented at PAGEANT, Essex Flowers, The Wild Project, and FourOneOne in NYC, and has been supported by New Dance Alliance’s Satellite Residency and the Lakeside Inn Artist Residency Program. She loves dancing with Jo McKendry, Austin Selden, and Nola.
Nola is a dance & theater artist from Brooklyn, NY. Nola was nominated for a 2019 “Bessie” Outstanding Performer Award for her work with Stacy Grossfield. In addition to collaborating with Molly and dancing for Stacy, Nola has recently worked with cakeface, Eryka Dellenbach, Nicole Mannarino, and Donna Uchizono Company. She can also be found performing alongside musicians Paco Cathcart/The Cradle (NYC); Dead Tooth (NYC); and Betsy Soukup (Detroit, MI). Nola is a caretaker of The Woods, an affordable rehearsal space and venue for artists located in Ridgewood, Queens.
MOLLY&NOLA is presented through DANCEROULETTE, made possible with funds provided by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
Night three of three performances – 5/29, 5/30, 5/31
This evening-length work grew out of research that began in 2021 while in residence at New Dance Alliance. Early in our process Molly revealed stories of her religious upbringing, and specifically a brief dalliance she had with the Pentecostal Church. Together we mined this personal history for imagery, and through our exploration uncanny parallels between church, cattle, and divine kink revealed themselves. Early phases of this work reckoned with these realms of violence and exaltation. Subsequent research led us to an image of the wound in Christ’s side, found in the Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg. Encountering this image and the story of disciples sucking Christ’s wound prompted conversations around profanity, voyeurism, and the erotic. Inspired by this narrative, we play into themes of consent, materiality, and objectification as we devour each other. Flesh and object converge in a celestial wasteland.
Molly Ross
Nola Sporn Smith
A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing. Watch below or on YouTube.
MOLLY&NOLA is Molly Ross and Nola Sporn Smith. We have been making work in NYC as MOLLY&NOLA since 2017. Our work has been presented by Movement Research at the Judson Church; New Dance Alliance’s Performance Mix Festival; Center for Performance Research’s Fall Movement Festival; Pioneers Go East Collective; and at a variety of galleries, music venues and DIY spaces around the city (Trans Pecos; The Glove; Chaos Computer; Assembly Room Gallery; SECRET DUNGEON, and more). We have been in residence at Keshet Center for the Arts (Albuquerque, NM) and New Dance Alliance’s LiftOff program (NYC). We are thrilled to be premiering our first evening-length work at Roulette.
Molly is a performer and choreographer based in Brooklyn. Her solo work has been presented at PAGEANT, Essex Flowers, The Wild Project, and FourOneOne in NYC, and has been supported by New Dance Alliance’s Satellite Residency and the Lakeside Inn Artist Residency Program. She loves dancing with Jo McKendry, Austin Selden, and Nola.
Nola is a dance & theater artist from Brooklyn, NY. Nola was nominated for a 2019 “Bessie” Outstanding Performer Award for her work with Stacy Grossfield. In addition to collaborating with Molly and dancing for Stacy, Nola has recently worked with cakeface, Eryka Dellenbach, Nicole Mannarino, and Donna Uchizono Company. She can also be found performing alongside musicians Paco Cathcart/The Cradle (NYC); Dead Tooth (NYC); and Betsy Soukup (Detroit, MI). Nola is a caretaker of The Woods, an affordable rehearsal space and venue for artists located in Ridgewood, Queens.
MOLLY&NOLA is presented through DANCEROULETTE, made possible with funds provided by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
