Emergent Summer

Tushrik Fredericks walks as if in a trance, arms floating forward and pushing back with each step. Fog transforms the air into a tangible element. Patience hovers in it alongside anticipation. Fredericks and three other dancers are content to be suspended in the mylar-decorated universe of “til infiniti,” inside TRISK’s black box theater in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, perambulating and partnering each other in slow motion. The kaleidoscopic patterns they trace mirror a prismatic image on a small television set upstage. Their bodies relate like a many-sided gem, and a sense builds that this careful choreography is merely one facet of their being.

Tushrik Fredericks's “til infiniti.” Photograph by Alexander Diaz

This premonition is rewarded with an up-tempo unison dance full of child’s play: jumping, digging, twisting, spinning, shimmying, bouncing, and the tossing of imaginary balls. Breakout solos, with the group pumping each other up, show off their unique articulations and contortions, their personal rhythms, and their joy in their own bodies. As the work pushes the quartet past the fun of the club and back into more intimate solos and duets, the marathon demands presence as much as it requires sheer athleticism. More than an hour later, when the group finally gallops around a backdrop of boxes, they do so only to break through it.

While my eyes involuntarily glaze over the frequently used term “emerging artist,” the word “emergent,” which is both an adjective and a noun, perks me up. In the Oxford English Dictionary, emergent can mean a rising out of a surrounding medium; emerging unpredictably because of evolutionary process; or rising into notice (among several other historical and scientific entries). Emergent is more in tune with the artists and art I have witnessed onstage this summer and seems to offer an alternative to the notion of “emerging” as achieving an early demarcation point on a linear career path.

One need not be young or green to be emergent. Or alone.

ayo ohs in “to: dance.” Photograph by Maria Baranova

June was abundant in such theatrical arrivals: along with the kinetic oomph of Frederick’s “til infiniti,” there were dramatic turns in the 2025 Fresh Tracks showcase at New York Live Arts, and a reckoning of tap generations in Ayodele Casel’s “The Remix,” at the Joyce Theater.

In “to: dance,” ayo ohs opens the Live Arts’ performance with humor and pathos in a bit where the sound and lights continually cut out, thwarting every attempt to welcome us with a little speech. Undeterred, the earnest emcee character builds herself up again, only to be tossed about by physical and emotional breakdowns and jazz class combos. Desperate entreaties like, “You can’t hear me?” fall away as the stage is reset with instruments and ohs is dressed in a glittering gown. The short work ends with a triumphant dream sequence where ohs performs the show’s single “Killing Me Slow.” Big soaring notes—ohs can belt it!—mix with saturated colors and fog, and the smooth sounds of the backing band, leaving the audience in a world opposite the stark, frustrated state in which ohs began.

Kashia Kancey’s “I’m in the Middle of the Ocean, and I Can’t See You,” swerves in another direction. Kancey, along with her cast of three dancers, gasp and suck at the air in a chorus of wheezing, spines undulating in their frilly nightgowns. As they begin to breathe and vocalize their simultaneous monologues, their voices escalate into a cacophony of anger. Who they are raging at and what they are trying to escape is difficult to parse—and whether they are alive or undead—but the Gothic horror set up is compelling, the dancing holds nothing back, and Jacob Zedek’s lighting design is as ominous as Cristina Moya-Palacios’ music. As they bust out of their restrictive corsets and push a piano over, I am struck by how rare this kind of cinematic storytelling is in experimental dance.

Kashia Kancey’s “I’m in the Middle of the Ocean, and I Can’t See You.” Photograph by Maria Baranova

Likewise, Maxi Hawkeye Canion’s multimedia solo “flesh-talker,” is mythical and strange, with elements of body horror and humor. Canion is a horned creature, covered in bandages and blood presumably from some kind of metamorphosis. But Canion is also the voice of hope, or at least a character of the same name talking to their mom about not being able to believe when something is not butter and the very pedestrian fact that Blue Bottle is hiring. Snippets of real life and the past, via home movies, continually collide with their fantasy world. Though Canion grapples in an arena of water and blood, putting on thigh-high boots that are missing their sky-high heels, the projected scene of the artist as a young adult, smiling and holding a cake full of candles, is the hardest image to shake.

In contrast, “Superposition,” by Jade Manns feels more expected in its postmodern abstraction. Yet there is an itchy inventiveness to Manns’ movement score, for a quartet that does not include herself. Two dancers locked in an embrace on the floor, roll and shift across the stage. Without letting go they stand up and continue the maneuver while running. The others pursue animal instincts in the flourishes of their arms and heads. Short movement sequences repeat several times before changing, creating an expectation that the repetition may eventually yield some kind of comfort. Instead, the dancers simply move on to the next task, repeating the movement or phrase inside its own discrete parameters, until an abrupt blackout signals the end.

And while Ayodele Casel may best be described as a mid-career artist, well-established and respected in her tap oeuvre, her work never seems to lose its emergent quality. Each new show peels back layers of self and genre, never failing to delight and surprise. The powerful question underlying her work always asks: where and what am I emerging from?

Ayodele Casel's “The Remix.” Photograph by Tony Turner

At the Joyce Theater in June, “The Remix,” began with a poem anticipating Casel’s 50th birthday and creating a formative portrait of the artist. The realization that she could tap dance to anything she wanted sets ups the perfect 90s soundtrack, with all cast sing-alongs serving jams like Blackstreet and Dr. Dre’s “No Diggity,” and Queen Latifah’s “U.N.I.T.Y.,” and TLC’s “No Scrubs,” among so many other hits. These intermittent nods to the past create a circular feel to her lineage; the present moment and the new talents she pushes forward coexist with her creative awakening. From an infectious dance battle to a spoken word interlude—that wrestles with ideas of being a beginner against the desire for perfection—to the performance of a particular tap dance generations of the hoofers onstage have learned, emergence bubbles under every section of the work.

The sweetness of a soft-shoe duet between Casel and Naomi Funaki to “Little Things,” and the ASMR-like sensation of Quynn Johnson’s solo on sand bring other moods and textures to the theme. But Johnson’s solitary moment develops into something bigger: a group returns, forming a supportive line upstage behind her. One at a time they pour sand from their own cups, establishing a gritty path for her to take her sensory experiment onwards.

Candice Thompson

Candice Thompson has been working in and around live art for over two decades. She was a dancer with Milwaukee Ballet before moving into costume design, movement education and direction, editing and arts writing. She attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, graduated from St. Mary’s College LEAP Program, and later received an MFA in literary nonfiction from Columbia University. From 2010-2021 she was editorial director of DIYdancer, a project-based media company she co-founded. Her writing on dance can be found in publications like Andscape, ALL ARTS, ArtsATL, The Brooklyn Rail, Dance Magazine, and the New York Times.

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