Reach for the Stars

When dancer and choreographer Marla Phelan was a kid, she wanted to be an astronaut. “I always loved science and astronomy,” Phelan said. “I was dead-set on being an astronaut for a while.” Things took a different turn. Phelan got “swept up in dance;” she attended the Juilliard School. Phelan has since danced with Gibney Company, Hofesh Shechter, Akram Khan, and Punchdrunk's Sleep No More, and also started her own company, Movement Museum, for which she choreographs and directs.

From left: Meenah Nehme, Paul Zivkovitch, Wyeth Walker, Sydney Hirai, Damontae Hack rehearse Marla Phelan's “Birth + Carnage.” Photograph by Tim Richardson

But Phelan always maintained an interest in the workings of the universe, and recently, the stars aligned to connect Phelan's childhood fantasy to her professional reality. In 2022, she was selected an Open Interval residency artist, part of a program by Gibney Center and the Simons Foundation that pairs choreographers and scientists to explore the connections between dance and science. Phelan was paired with astrophysicist Dr. Blakesley Burkhart, who collaborated with Phelan to explore star formation. Phelan's resulting work, “Birth + Carnage,” premieres at LaMaMa Experimental Theatre Club Dec. 19-21.

Open Interval is a program that is focused on research and process, rather than product, but Phelan said that “Birth + Carnage” was a natural next step. “We had a nine-month research residency to see what happens when you put a dancer or choreographer and a scientist in the same room together,” Phelan said. “That developed into a creative project because that's what we do: We create, we hypothesize, and we discover.”

Burkhart is an Associate Professor of Astrophysics at Rutgers University, as well as an Associate Research Scientist at the Center for Computational Astrophysics in the Simons Foundation Flatiron Institute. Burkhart hadn't had much experience with dance or choreography before the Open Interval residency, but she found the artistic research process to be similar to her own scientific research. “Working with Marla was deeply generative and very natural,” Burkhart said. “The collaboration quickly revealed that we were speaking a shared language, just in different mediums.”

From left: Aliza Russell, Paul Zivkovich, Eleni Loving in Marla Phelan's “Birth + Carnage.” Photograph by Richard Mettler

In particular, Burkhart's research focuses on magnetic turbulence and how turbulence impacts galaxy evolution, including star formation. As a computational physicist, Burkhart uses computers to generate simulations which allow this data to be visualized. “Creating a computational astrophysics simulation begins with translating the laws of physics including gravity, fluid turbulent motion, magnetic fields, and radiation, into mathematical equations that can be solved on a computer,” Burkhart said. “We start with initial conditions meant to resemble real cosmic environments and then allow the system to evolve. We run simulations on supercomputers, generating datasets that track how star-forming matter flows, fragments, collapses, and sometimes violently disperses. The final product is not a single image, but dynamic, three-dimensional structures, filaments, voids, and bursts of activity that can be visualized.”

For “Birth + Carnage,” Phelan used Burkhart's simulations to develop movement and sequences. In particular, Phelan was struck by the sheer chaos involved in star formation. “I started to feel like it was a coping mechanism for all of the unnecessary violence that we're currently experiencing on earth,” Phelan said. “If we're just mirroring each other, if it's all just fractals, then what are we becoming? What happens on the other side of death, on the other side of destruction?”

Phelan found Burkhart's simulations to be compelling metaphors for human relationships. “I replaced the force of gravity with the force of love or attraction, or hate and repulsion,” Phelan said. “I also looked at the phases of star formation as the big container for the arc of the work.”

Meenah Nehme and Felix Bryan in Marla Phelan's “Birth + Carnage.” Photograph by Richard Mettler

In exploring Burkhart's simulations, Phelan brought on director Tim Richardson, who is Phelan's partner both personally and professionally. Richardson has a background in photography and has worked in directing and mixed media in large commercial works from Nike to Dior, as well as with superstars such as Lady Gaga and Billie Eilish. “When I showed Tim Blakesley's simulations, he was inspired to explore and abstract the ideas through visual art,” Phelan said.

Richardson invited video artists KLSR and Reinfected.Me to develop a digital installation inspired by the simulations that is projected onto a screen. “The screen gives you the visual metaphor and the choreography gives you the physical metaphor,” Richardson said. Collaborator James Newberry created an original score for the piece, which involves repeated rhythms. Richardson said that the pulse-like rhythm of the score highlights the cyclical nature of life and death, both for humans and stars.

“The score has a deep bass that's a rhythmic cycle throughout,” Richardson said. ”The screen also creates a pulse: A lot of the imagery has a flickering quality to it, which is almost meditative.” Phelan and Richardson hope to create an emotional experience for the audience which lends toward greater considerations of human existence.

“I think the most striking thing in diving into astrophysics has been how inherently emotional the universe is,” Phelan said. “When you zoom out and you realize how tiny we are, why don't we just get along?” Burkhart, too, was moved by how studies of star formation organically lent themselves to choreographic and emotional expression. “What struck me in working with Marla is how naturally these simulations lend themselves to choreography,” Burkhart said. “They are full of tension between order and chaos, creation and destruction—patterns emerging, breaking apart, and reforming. Dance captures the dynamic nature of star formation in ways that other art forms cannot.”

Cecilia Whalen

Cecilia Whalen is a New York City-based dancer, choreographer, and writer. She is a graduate of the Martha Graham School and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In addition to her work with Fjord, her writing can be found in various publications, including Dance Magazine and Commonweal Magazine.

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