Dea X Dea

Thursday, June 6 | 7:30 PM
Broadway Presbyterian Church
601 West 114th Street (at Broadway), Manhattan

Co-choreographed by Stefanie Nelson and Maya Orchin
Featuring performers Tricia Dietrick, Paige Doku, Noah Meteau, and Maya Orchin
Original composition by Sky White Tiger
Costume Design by Ting Huang | Lighting Design by Lauren Parrish
Project Advisor: David Shenk

“What makes us human?”
That’s the central question animating DEA x DEA, an evening-length dance work that is playful, absurd, physical, and celebratory. Drawing from Massimiliano Bontempelli’s 1925 absurdist play Nostra Dea—a landmark of early magical realism—the piece interrogates how identity, particularly feminine identity, is shaped, erased, and mythologized by external forces.

In the original play, a childlike protagonist transforms daily, her identity shifting with each new outfit created by a mysterious dressmaker. In DEA x DEA, this character becomes a prism through which four performers explore the roles women are expected to inhabit—roles that feel both too tight and impossibly amorphous.

Nelson and Orchin reimagine Dea as both a vessel and a disrupter: a memoryless force navigating the chaos of identity, submitting and resisting in equal measure. Through moments of whimsical play and stark disruption, the dancers expose the cyclical nature of history, the amnesia of progress, and the absurd expectations still imposed on women today.

This final iteration culminates years of development, from solos to duets to ensemble works. Now distilled into its purest form, DEA x DEA embraces contradiction, movement, and metamorphosis—demanding we ask not just who Dea is, but who we are becoming.

Supported by:
The National Endowment for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, West Harlem Development Corporation, IndieSpace/Partners in Sacred Places, Comune di Lucca, Provincia di Lucca, and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone.