to: dance

to:dance is a solo performance that traces the tight confines of obsession, codependency, and unrequited love through a life dedicated to performance. In this love letter, farewell, and solo reckoning, a dancer, adept and agile, endeavors to express and confess. A body, aging and unreliable, attempts to move, but too layered with meaning and commentary, revolts. A voice, attempting autonomy and agency, loops, harmonizes, and repeats, building momentum with only itself, asking what it all adds up to. Humorous, awkward, and honest, ohs creates a shadow of a dance, a staccato form of failed gestures and punctuated phrases attempting creation, liberation, and ultimately – a new terrain of dance and performance.

Choreographed, directed, and performed by: ayo ohs
Music by: The Beatles, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (A-Trak remix), ayo ohs / ayo minor
Lighting Design by: Jacob Zedek
Understudy and Rehearsal Assistant: Natassha Amalia
Live Music performed by: Miss Bernice “Boom Boom” Brooks, Mary Feaster, and Treya Lam
Videography and editing: Nel Shelby Productions

part of the New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks Residency 2025

SPECIAL THANKS: Andrew Schneider, Kristen Leonard and Frank Rose, Myssi Robinson, George Emilio Sanchez, Sarah Plumer-Holzman, Jamie Lynn Hart, Joe Endozo, and Tatyana Tenenbaum

Photos by Maria Baranova