Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for donating for Give to the Max Day 2023!
As a token of our gratitude, please enjoy our Cowles Center Debut Performance of our newest work, We Are Cosmic.
We Are Cosmic connects black holes, dream states, multiverses, and theta waves through stunning visuals, rigorous physicality, and haunting sound design. We explore the celestial phenomenons of our ever-expanding universe in relationship to our humanity. How can we intimately understand our inherent stardust connections to and within a vast and mysterious cosmic universe? Concept co-created by Joanna Lees and Dameun Strange; learn more about the poems by Cole Sarar below.
“I’d like to convince you that the universe has a soundtrack and that soundtrack is played on space itself,
because space can wobble like a drum” - Janna Levin
As a token of our gratitude, please enjoy our Cowles Center Debut Performance of our newest work, We Are Cosmic.
We Are Cosmic connects black holes, dream states, multiverses, and theta waves through stunning visuals, rigorous physicality, and haunting sound design. We explore the celestial phenomenons of our ever-expanding universe in relationship to our humanity. How can we intimately understand our inherent stardust connections to and within a vast and mysterious cosmic universe? Concept co-created by Joanna Lees and Dameun Strange; learn more about the poems by Cole Sarar below.
“I’d like to convince you that the universe has a soundtrack and that soundtrack is played on space itself,
because space can wobble like a drum” - Janna Levin
Program Information
Concept Co-Creators
Dameun Strange and Joanna Lees
Choreography
Joanna Lees in collaboration with the performers
Sound Design
Dameun Strange
Spoken Word
Cole Sarar - Prayer 1 (Mitochondria) and Prayer 2 (Hail Mary)
Performers
Kendall Edstrom, Laura K Johnson, Zoë Koenig, Joanna Lees, Brenna Mosser, Jesse Schmitz-Boyd, and Addie Smith
Lighting Design
Karin Olson
Costume Design
Stephanie Flanagan and Joanna Lees
Costume Assistant
Stephanie Flanagan
Video
Tamara Ober
Special Thanks to our community of supporters and to the Cowles Center for inviting AMP to perform in the Fall Forward Festival. See the other works we are developing in our 12th Season March 15-17, 2024.
This is the 2nd iteration of this work, the first premiering in April 2023. We will be continuing to develop this research as a new, original evening-length work for the 2025-26 Season.
About the spoken word poetry from Cole Sarar:
Prayer One (Mitochondria) and Prayer Two (Hail Mary) are reflections on our connections with the universe, microscopic and beyond telescopic. All of us have moments of feeling disconnected from each other or at odds with the world around us. I find comfort and connection looking at science, much in the way that prayers connect believers with the infinite and each other. The centuries of repetition of familiar prayers like the “our father” and the “Hail Mary” give them power that even an atheist can recognize- and my mirroring them within my poems shows how science and faith are not always at odds.
These poems include wordplay that alludes to the concepts in genetics and physics that I relate to, our relationships with each other, and the larger and smaller systems at play in the universe. In Hail Mary, the push and pull of magnetic fields as symbols for romantic connections and disconnects, the redshifting (always spreading further apart) universe to describe how we grow apart from one another, but also how we we come from that singularity- how we are the same machine, how we will return to each other eventually. Thank you for being a part of my universe.
Dameun Strange and Joanna Lees
Choreography
Joanna Lees in collaboration with the performers
Sound Design
Dameun Strange
Spoken Word
Cole Sarar - Prayer 1 (Mitochondria) and Prayer 2 (Hail Mary)
Performers
Kendall Edstrom, Laura K Johnson, Zoë Koenig, Joanna Lees, Brenna Mosser, Jesse Schmitz-Boyd, and Addie Smith
Lighting Design
Karin Olson
Costume Design
Stephanie Flanagan and Joanna Lees
Costume Assistant
Stephanie Flanagan
Video
Tamara Ober
Special Thanks to our community of supporters and to the Cowles Center for inviting AMP to perform in the Fall Forward Festival. See the other works we are developing in our 12th Season March 15-17, 2024.
This is the 2nd iteration of this work, the first premiering in April 2023. We will be continuing to develop this research as a new, original evening-length work for the 2025-26 Season.
About the spoken word poetry from Cole Sarar:
Prayer One (Mitochondria) and Prayer Two (Hail Mary) are reflections on our connections with the universe, microscopic and beyond telescopic. All of us have moments of feeling disconnected from each other or at odds with the world around us. I find comfort and connection looking at science, much in the way that prayers connect believers with the infinite and each other. The centuries of repetition of familiar prayers like the “our father” and the “Hail Mary” give them power that even an atheist can recognize- and my mirroring them within my poems shows how science and faith are not always at odds.
These poems include wordplay that alludes to the concepts in genetics and physics that I relate to, our relationships with each other, and the larger and smaller systems at play in the universe. In Hail Mary, the push and pull of magnetic fields as symbols for romantic connections and disconnects, the redshifting (always spreading further apart) universe to describe how we grow apart from one another, but also how we we come from that singularity- how we are the same machine, how we will return to each other eventually. Thank you for being a part of my universe.
About the Artists
Joanna Lees (Director, Co-Creator, Choreographer, she/her) is a dance artist based in Minneapolis, MN. Joanna holds a BFA from The Ohio State University (2007) where she graduated Cum Laude, received the Denman Undergraduate Research Scholarship, and performed alongside BalletMet Columbus in a collaborative performance for Doug Varone’s Le Sacre du Printemps. Joanna co-founded the dance company, Alternative Motion Project in 2011 + serves as AMP's Artistic + Executive Director.
In 2020, Joanna earned her Masters of Fine Arts degree in Modern Dance at The University of Utah (Salt Lake City). Whilst there, she served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the School of Dance and received the L. Scott Marsh Mentorship Award & a University Teaching Assistantship. Joanna performed works by Charles O. Anderson, Stephen Koester, Sara Pickett, and Christine McMillan. She performed in work by Doug Varone in collaboration with Doug Varone and Dancers and was selected as a choreographer for Varone’s DEVICES mentorship program, showcasing her work, Spiral Into Control, in New York City (2018). An excerpt of her MFA thesis, BECOMING, was selected to represent the University of Utah in performance for the American College Dance Association Northwest Regional Conference at Gonzaga University (2020). Her work has also been presented in the Chicago area, Louisville, KY, and Kalamazoo, MI. Joanna is currently an Adjunct Instructor at Winona State University.
Dameun Maurice Strange (Co-Creator, Sound Designer, he/him) is a sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, and award-winning composer of conceptual electronic and improvised electro-acoustic works focusing on the African diaspora's stories and themes, often exploring surrealist and afro-futurist ideas with unique impressionism. Dameun is compelled to express through sound and poetry the beauty and resilience of the Black experience, digging into a pantheon of ancestors to tell stories of triumph while connecting the past, present, and future.
Dameun has composed music with such artists as Leslie Parker, Ananya Chatterjea, J. Otis Powell, and Sha Cage and has been a featured performer in concerts celebrating the work of George Lewis, Thurston Moore, and Henry Threadgill. He is a 2018 recipient of the ACF | Create Award and 2019 Jerome Hill Fellowship. Most recently, his work was commissioned by renowned flutist Adam Sadberry, _not running. (The Life of L. Alex Wilson) for flute and electronics was premiered at Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center in 2023.
Dameun lives in Saint Paul, MN with his wife, Corina, and their 4 yo, Ezra. Like any good nerd, he enjoys a good sci-fi story and has a soft spot for anything related to cosmology.
Cole Sarar (Spoken Word Artist, she/they) is a writer, photographer, and tech-artist. She writes plays, web-based and traditional fiction, and both “page” poetry and “stage” poetry. She’s won Urban Griots Spoken Word, Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative, VERVE, and Emerging Writer awards and grants for her performance and tech-poetry. Cole has created public, interactive literary pieces in collaboration with local writers, using phone technology and simple physical design. Beyond collaborating with AMP, she’s featured at Poetry & Pints, Convergence, Cheap Theatre, Encyclopedia Show, Not So Silent Planet, Midstream Reading Series, Minnesota Fringe Festival, The Racket, and Silverwood Park. She’s the creator of Cole Sarar’s Sci-Fi Reading Hour, a live reading series featuring new science fiction from Cole and special guest writers, underscored with futurist soundscapes by accomplished musicians.
Cole’s creative work envisions possible futures and alternate presents, employing under-represented characters and situations as a way of making space for us to imagine ourselves existing in the future, having roles, and doing things other than what has been written for us in the past. Their work falls along the intersection of technology and literature. They might use code and tech behind the scenes, or simple physical items like paper, flags, and our cell phones to create surprising, interactive fiction in physical space. Cole serves on the board of directors for Art Shanty Projects, and moonlights doing tech, communications, and design work for various arts organizations.
Kendall Edstrom (they/she) is a movement artist and educator from Minneapolis, Minnesota –Mni Sota Makoce. Kendall attended Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists and went on to attain a BFA from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities in 2019. After graduating, they lived in Brussels, Belgium and studied at Charleroi Danse and TicTac Arts Centre. At the moment she is most interested in using her body to expand, wiggle, play, and tune in to the quiet details around her.
Laura K Johnson (she/her) is a dancing artist based in Minneapolis/Saint Paul. She is originally from Rosemount, MN where she was introduced to modern dance in high school and hasn’t looked back since. Laura is a graduate from Gustavus Adolphus College, where she received the Distinguished Dance Student Award and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Dance Honors. Laura is currently in her sixth season dancing with Alternative Motion Project and teaches modern technique at Ballet Royale Minnesota during the school year. Her goal is to move, perform and teach with authenticity, lightheartedness and presence.
Zoë Koenig (she/her) is a Minnesota-based dancer and choreographer. She has shown work in Minneapolis at the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, the Southern Theater, Squirrel Haus Arts, Praxis Gallery, and the Off-Leash Art Box, and has taught dance workshops through the Cowles Center and Zenon Dance School. She was a 2019 Generating Room Artist at the Cowles Center for the early development of her work Cloud Cover, which premiered in 2022 as part of the Analog Dance Works production Tellus. Zoë was a member of Kanopy Dance Company II in Madison, WI for three years before attending Beloit College where she was awarded the Chavey Family Endowed Award in Dance for Outstanding Performance and the Theater, Dance, and Media Studies Award for Outstanding Achievement in Production. She has worked for Twin Cities choreographers Sarah Abdel-Jelil and Erika Martin, participated in Gabriel Rodreick’s A Cripples Dance project, and performed work at many festivals, including DUMBO Dance Festival (NYC), Queerly Contemporary Festival (NYC), and World Dance Alliance Global Summit (St. John’s, Newfoundland). She is currently a company member of Analog Dance Works and Alternative Motion Project.
Brenna Mosser (she/her) is a dance artist who seeks to illuminate the awe in her surroundings by sculpting falls, stumbles, and asymmetries gracefully. She spent two years in the Conservation Corps, where she faced the reality of climate change and has since dedicated her work to bringing awareness and justice to this crisis. She earned her bachelor’s in dance performance at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, UK. She supplemented her degree at le Centre national de la danse contemporaine in Angers, France where she earned the US equivalent of a BA in dance performance and in arts management. Brenna founded Analog Dance Works in 2019, a dance company whose mission is to explore the intersection between dance and science through choreographic works and roundtable discussions. Alongside AMP, Brenna currently dances for Threads Dance Project, Ruby Josephine Dance Theater, and Bernadette Knaeble.
Jesse Schmitz-Boyd (he/him) is a Twin Cities based performer, choreographer and arts educator. This is Jesse's 11th year with Alternative Motion Project. Jesse also has performed locally with Off-Leash Area at the Cowles Center and throughout Minnesota as a part of the company’s Neighborhood Garage Tour. Additionally he has worked with RE|Dance & Erinn Liebhard. Jesse’s choreography has been presented at The Minnesota Fringe Festival, Off-Leash Area ArtBox, Zenon Dance Zone, The Ritz Theatre, and Movement Arts Day (Eau Claire, WI). Jesse is the founder and Artistic Director of Rogue & Rabble Dance. Currently Jesse is on faculty at Children’s Theater Company Theater Arts Training and Ballare Teatro Performing Arts Center.
Addie Smith (they/them) A California native, Addie graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a BA in Theater Arts and Dance; collaborating, choreographing, and directing new works both professionally and within the university. Since moving to the Twin Cities in 2017, they have created and performed with various local companies and artists including Loom Lab, Crash Dance Productions, Analog Dance Works, Rogue & Rabble Dance, and Bobby Rethwish. Addie loves bringing humor and vulnerability into dance spaces; their style and work is often theatrical, absurd, and steeped in child-like curiosity. They are so grateful to be a part of this production and to work with such dynamic, passionate artists.
In 2020, Joanna earned her Masters of Fine Arts degree in Modern Dance at The University of Utah (Salt Lake City). Whilst there, she served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the School of Dance and received the L. Scott Marsh Mentorship Award & a University Teaching Assistantship. Joanna performed works by Charles O. Anderson, Stephen Koester, Sara Pickett, and Christine McMillan. She performed in work by Doug Varone in collaboration with Doug Varone and Dancers and was selected as a choreographer for Varone’s DEVICES mentorship program, showcasing her work, Spiral Into Control, in New York City (2018). An excerpt of her MFA thesis, BECOMING, was selected to represent the University of Utah in performance for the American College Dance Association Northwest Regional Conference at Gonzaga University (2020). Her work has also been presented in the Chicago area, Louisville, KY, and Kalamazoo, MI. Joanna is currently an Adjunct Instructor at Winona State University.
Dameun Maurice Strange (Co-Creator, Sound Designer, he/him) is a sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, and award-winning composer of conceptual electronic and improvised electro-acoustic works focusing on the African diaspora's stories and themes, often exploring surrealist and afro-futurist ideas with unique impressionism. Dameun is compelled to express through sound and poetry the beauty and resilience of the Black experience, digging into a pantheon of ancestors to tell stories of triumph while connecting the past, present, and future.
Dameun has composed music with such artists as Leslie Parker, Ananya Chatterjea, J. Otis Powell, and Sha Cage and has been a featured performer in concerts celebrating the work of George Lewis, Thurston Moore, and Henry Threadgill. He is a 2018 recipient of the ACF | Create Award and 2019 Jerome Hill Fellowship. Most recently, his work was commissioned by renowned flutist Adam Sadberry, _not running. (The Life of L. Alex Wilson) for flute and electronics was premiered at Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center in 2023.
Dameun lives in Saint Paul, MN with his wife, Corina, and their 4 yo, Ezra. Like any good nerd, he enjoys a good sci-fi story and has a soft spot for anything related to cosmology.
Cole Sarar (Spoken Word Artist, she/they) is a writer, photographer, and tech-artist. She writes plays, web-based and traditional fiction, and both “page” poetry and “stage” poetry. She’s won Urban Griots Spoken Word, Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative, VERVE, and Emerging Writer awards and grants for her performance and tech-poetry. Cole has created public, interactive literary pieces in collaboration with local writers, using phone technology and simple physical design. Beyond collaborating with AMP, she’s featured at Poetry & Pints, Convergence, Cheap Theatre, Encyclopedia Show, Not So Silent Planet, Midstream Reading Series, Minnesota Fringe Festival, The Racket, and Silverwood Park. She’s the creator of Cole Sarar’s Sci-Fi Reading Hour, a live reading series featuring new science fiction from Cole and special guest writers, underscored with futurist soundscapes by accomplished musicians.
Cole’s creative work envisions possible futures and alternate presents, employing under-represented characters and situations as a way of making space for us to imagine ourselves existing in the future, having roles, and doing things other than what has been written for us in the past. Their work falls along the intersection of technology and literature. They might use code and tech behind the scenes, or simple physical items like paper, flags, and our cell phones to create surprising, interactive fiction in physical space. Cole serves on the board of directors for Art Shanty Projects, and moonlights doing tech, communications, and design work for various arts organizations.
Kendall Edstrom (they/she) is a movement artist and educator from Minneapolis, Minnesota –Mni Sota Makoce. Kendall attended Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists and went on to attain a BFA from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities in 2019. After graduating, they lived in Brussels, Belgium and studied at Charleroi Danse and TicTac Arts Centre. At the moment she is most interested in using her body to expand, wiggle, play, and tune in to the quiet details around her.
Laura K Johnson (she/her) is a dancing artist based in Minneapolis/Saint Paul. She is originally from Rosemount, MN where she was introduced to modern dance in high school and hasn’t looked back since. Laura is a graduate from Gustavus Adolphus College, where she received the Distinguished Dance Student Award and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Dance Honors. Laura is currently in her sixth season dancing with Alternative Motion Project and teaches modern technique at Ballet Royale Minnesota during the school year. Her goal is to move, perform and teach with authenticity, lightheartedness and presence.
Zoë Koenig (she/her) is a Minnesota-based dancer and choreographer. She has shown work in Minneapolis at the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, the Southern Theater, Squirrel Haus Arts, Praxis Gallery, and the Off-Leash Art Box, and has taught dance workshops through the Cowles Center and Zenon Dance School. She was a 2019 Generating Room Artist at the Cowles Center for the early development of her work Cloud Cover, which premiered in 2022 as part of the Analog Dance Works production Tellus. Zoë was a member of Kanopy Dance Company II in Madison, WI for three years before attending Beloit College where she was awarded the Chavey Family Endowed Award in Dance for Outstanding Performance and the Theater, Dance, and Media Studies Award for Outstanding Achievement in Production. She has worked for Twin Cities choreographers Sarah Abdel-Jelil and Erika Martin, participated in Gabriel Rodreick’s A Cripples Dance project, and performed work at many festivals, including DUMBO Dance Festival (NYC), Queerly Contemporary Festival (NYC), and World Dance Alliance Global Summit (St. John’s, Newfoundland). She is currently a company member of Analog Dance Works and Alternative Motion Project.
Brenna Mosser (she/her) is a dance artist who seeks to illuminate the awe in her surroundings by sculpting falls, stumbles, and asymmetries gracefully. She spent two years in the Conservation Corps, where she faced the reality of climate change and has since dedicated her work to bringing awareness and justice to this crisis. She earned her bachelor’s in dance performance at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, UK. She supplemented her degree at le Centre national de la danse contemporaine in Angers, France where she earned the US equivalent of a BA in dance performance and in arts management. Brenna founded Analog Dance Works in 2019, a dance company whose mission is to explore the intersection between dance and science through choreographic works and roundtable discussions. Alongside AMP, Brenna currently dances for Threads Dance Project, Ruby Josephine Dance Theater, and Bernadette Knaeble.
Jesse Schmitz-Boyd (he/him) is a Twin Cities based performer, choreographer and arts educator. This is Jesse's 11th year with Alternative Motion Project. Jesse also has performed locally with Off-Leash Area at the Cowles Center and throughout Minnesota as a part of the company’s Neighborhood Garage Tour. Additionally he has worked with RE|Dance & Erinn Liebhard. Jesse’s choreography has been presented at The Minnesota Fringe Festival, Off-Leash Area ArtBox, Zenon Dance Zone, The Ritz Theatre, and Movement Arts Day (Eau Claire, WI). Jesse is the founder and Artistic Director of Rogue & Rabble Dance. Currently Jesse is on faculty at Children’s Theater Company Theater Arts Training and Ballare Teatro Performing Arts Center.
Addie Smith (they/them) A California native, Addie graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a BA in Theater Arts and Dance; collaborating, choreographing, and directing new works both professionally and within the university. Since moving to the Twin Cities in 2017, they have created and performed with various local companies and artists including Loom Lab, Crash Dance Productions, Analog Dance Works, Rogue & Rabble Dance, and Bobby Rethwish. Addie loves bringing humor and vulnerability into dance spaces; their style and work is often theatrical, absurd, and steeped in child-like curiosity. They are so grateful to be a part of this production and to work with such dynamic, passionate artists.