Intimacy and Infinity

The Wade Thompson Drill Hall at the Park Avenue Armory is a yawning, cavernous space. In its depths, even the fiercest applause can be rendered a mere din, sounding hollow and unappreciative. Movement too, can be swallowed whole, with the subtleties that typically elevate dance-based storytelling drowning in the sheer amount of air they are tasked with filling.

Performance

Los Angeles Dance Project: “Romeo and Juliet Suite” by Benjamin Millepied

Place

Wade Thompson Drill Hall at the Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY, March 3, 2026

Words

Sophie Bress

David Adrian Freeland Jr. and Morgan Lugo in “Romeo and Juliet Suite” by Benjamin Millepied. Photograph by Stephanie Berger

This space, however, also lends itself to the creation of innovative new works that embrace a vision beyond the traditional proscenium. Its emptiness, though domineering, offers possibility—a wide-open sort of freedom that must be seized bravely and surely by the artists who create there.

Benjamin Millepied’s “Romeo and Juliet Suite,” which had its New York City premiere at the venue on March 2, capitalized on this sense of possibility. The work unfolds on both a traditional proscenium erected in the center of the Drill Hall and throughout the various other rooms and spaces in the Armory, captured in real time by a videographer and projected onto a large screen above the stage.

The videography offered a way to render the Drill Hall at once intimate and infinite. It was a tool to allow audiences to see the same choreography from different angles, but it was also a deeply impactful window into the characters’ inner worlds.

During the ball where Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time, the two title characters perform a sweeping, expansive duet onstage while the rest of the action takes place on camera, in a mirrored room filled with disco balls and movement that conjures images of ballroom culture and voguing. Later, as Juliet takes the sleeping pill—setting off the tragic chain of events that end the story—Juliet wanders and stumbles about the palatial rooms of the armory, which are all lit ominously in red. The use of mirrors to generate an infinity effect became a recurring motif in “Romeo and Juliet Suite,” perfectly crystallizing the idea of the title characters being star-crossed lovers—fated to meet in any universe, plane, or timeline.

Los Angeles Dance Project “Romeo and Juliet Suite” by Benjamin Millepied. Photograph by Stephanie Berger

Success in the Drill Hall, however, not only takes the right vision, it also takes the right cast. In this work, Millepied asks the performers—a group of artists including L.A. Dance Project company members as well as freelancers who’ve worked with LADP and Paris Danse—to be actors as well as dancers. Throughout the work, their movements are boundless and practically panoramic, filling the space with an energy that continues to reverberate even in stillness.

It’s clear that Prokofiev’s score was a guiding light in the creation of this work—each step, gesture, and caress was deeply musical. In fact, the choreography was inseparable from the music. Without the score, the movement may have fallen flat in its resemblance to much of the dance world’s current contemporary offerings. Instead, Millepied’s choreographic choices joined forces with the music to further elucidate this timeless story.

In addition to the video element, “Romeo and Juliet Suite” has garnered much attention for its use of same-sex couples to portray the title characters. On the evening of March 3, Romeo was played by David Adrian Freeland Jr. and Juliet was played by Morgan Lugo, both male performers. (Other pairings for the show’s run in New York City are Daphne Fernberger with Rachel Hutsell and Giacomo Luci with Emma Spinosi). While this choice created an obvious—and welcome—statement in a dance world that still leans heavily on heterosexual coupling, gender was never the focus of the story. Rather, it simply became a notable part of a compelling whole. Love—at its essence—always took center stage.

Sophie Bress

Sophie Bress is an arts and culture journalist and dance critic. She regularly contributes to Dance Magazine and Fjord Review, and has also written for the New York Times, NPR, Observer, Pointe, and more.

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