Of Dandelions and Resilience

Zvidance premiered its new work “Dandelion” mid-November at New York Live Arts. Founded by Zvi Gotheiner in 1989, Zvidance has been a steady presence in the New York contemporary dance scene, a reliable source of compositional integrity, and a magnet for wonderful dancers. Gotheiner always coalesces a group of exciting, technically adept performers, who never fail to mesmerize the audience with their individual, engaging qualities. Although Gotheiner has had a long history of working collaboratively with his dancers, he has opened more pathways to dancemaking due to a life-changing stroke in March 2021. It has no doubt been incredibly challenging but also healing to evolve this creative process while managing his own recovery.

Performance

Zvidance: “Dandelion” by Zvi Gotheiner

Place

New York Live Arts, New York, NY, November 13, 2025

Words

Karen Greenspan

Tessa Russ in “Dandelion” by Zvi Gotheiner. Photograph by Steven Pisano

I never thought much about dandelions before, but after learning about their qualities, I can understand what drew Gotheiner to this theme. The dandelion was once considered a beautiful, much sought after garden flower, but sometime in the last century, humans decided that it was a weed. Although out of favor these days, dandelions are exceptionally nutritious vegetables and have tremendous medicinal value. And they are true survivors—growing quickly, establishing deep roots, and thriving in barren habitats. Gotheiner wrote in the program notes that this work “continues his exploration of the collisions between humanity and nature and society’s senseless impulse to eradicate ‘imperfections.’” He shared that he was drawing a parallel between how we regard dandelions and how we regard some humans. In fact, the group initiated the research process imagining that each dancer was a dandelion. Although these ideas guided the choreographic exploration, they are not present as a literal narrative. They simply hover in the atmosphere. What is clearly present is an integral structure with discernible reference points and unity—much like a visual sonata.

The dance opened with a group of six dancers huddled in a circular mass in an upstage corner (audience right) pulsing rhythmically downward toward the earth with an occasional opening or twisting motion before returning to the downward pulse. The lighting, designed by longtime Zvidance collaborator Mark London, in a range of golden tones, immediately drew the eye to the textured movement coming to life within the black box space. The original flicker of a twist evolved into a moving swivel, and soon, the group expanded across the space gathering into other formations—arms stirring and tossing, legs extending, and bodies turning—until they returned to their starting location as a mass of pulsing bodies. Scott Killian, another veteran member of Gotheiner’s creative team, composed the haunting electronic score that bound the work together without calling attention to itself.

Chelsea Ainsworth and Joe Tennis in “Dandelion” by Zvi Gotheiner. Photograph by Steven Pisano

All the six dancers were featured in solos and duets capturing their distinctive qualities. Tessa Russ danced an expressive solo, or rather an encompassing duet with space, and introduced the motif of blowing a dandelion—rendered with the innocence of a child. It seemed, as she ran about with arms spread wide open, that she wanted to collect all the dispersed particles of the fuzz ball and put them back together. But like a child, she repeated the blowing gesture again.

Mizuho Kappa asserted her memorable presence as she jumped from a narrow stance to an exceedingly wide, straight legged posture. She stopped and started in challenging positions, finally blowing the dandelion while hovering in a tenuous balance. Additionally, Colin Heininger, Erin Maher, and Joe Tennis also performed memorably in solos, often reprising the dandelion blowing motif. Chelsea Ainsworth and Joe Tennis embraced in a deeply connected slow partner dance, scribbling love notes on the floor.

The group reconvened at several intervals representing a collective humankind. Their quasi-folk dance of interweaving lines merged into a circle dance. The circle expanded into further formations until the dancers gathered into their original clump of pulsing bodies. These group sections are where one feels the inherent structural form of the dance. Towards the end, the entire cast reappeared in an uneven row crossing the stage from right to left. Squatting low, they pulled at the ground as if trying to yank out weeds. They eventually stood and kicked them instead.

Chelsea Ainsworth, a Zvidance veteran of fifteen years and choreographer in her own right, had the final word. In a brilliantly performed solo, she moved through a range of emotions—from caressing the ground and rolling about its surface to leaping through the air and then punching the ground. Finally, in a display of humanness at its most fundamental level, Ainsworth faced the audience and simply breathed. Her ribs visibly expanded and contracted as she spread her fingers framing her breathing body. When all is said and done, we must breathe to live. And dandelions must breathe too.

Karen Greenspan

Karen Greenspan is a New York City-based dance journalist and frequent contributor to Natural History Magazine, Dance Tabs, Ballet Review, and Tricycle among other publications. She is also the author of Footfalls from the Land of Happiness: A Journey into the Dances of Bhutan, published in 2019.

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