SND X West Harlem Arts Alliance
Thursday, September 25th | 6:00 PM
Innovation Triangle @ the TAYSTEE building
450 W 126th St, New York, NY 10027
Featured Image: Thy-Lan Alcalay’s Prodigal Daughter by Eduardo Ramirez
Join us for an evening of performance, discussion, and community connection as SND partners with the Harlem Innovation Triangle. The night features live music, new choreography from SND’s 2025 NEXT GEN choreographer Thy-Lan Alcalay, excerpts from SND’s DEA x DEA, and a reception to connect with artists and neighbors.
SND is also a public service–driven and education-focused organization, as well as a performing arts company, using dance as a tool for joy, healing, and empowerment. Since 2005, the company has been based in West Harlem, where it continues to engage and uplift the community. This program offers audiences an inside look at the initiatives that define SND today.
6:00–6:30 PM
Live Music by Jonah Kreitner & Lucas Cohen
6:30-7:15 PM
Performances of ELEANOR (chor. Thy-Lan Alcalay, in collaboration with the dancers) & DEA x DEA excerpts (chor. S. Nelson & M. Orchin)
-followed by a short Q & A
7:15–8:00 PM
Cocktail Reception
FREE ADMISSION with reservation w/ option to donate.
Eleanor
Choreographer: Thy-Lan Alcalay, in collaboration with the dancers
Cast
Thy-Lan Alcalay
Sarah Ashkin
Taip Ceman
Bella Donatelli
Maddy Doty
Abby Mankin
Mariah Martin
Marisol Ramirez-Buckles
Idea Reid
Music
Sound Design: MESA
Music: Just (After Song of Songs) by David Lang and Trio Mediæval
Violinist: Marisol Ramirez-Buckles
Piece Context
The dirty martini rose to prominence in the 1930s and 40s, becoming a symbol of refinement and authority, favored and popularized during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. FDR, the only American president to serve three terms, consolidated power within the Democratic Party, shaping its policies and direction through years of economic crisis and global war.
DEA x DEA (excerpts)
“What makes us human?”
That’s the central question animating DEA x DEA, a playfully absurd evening-length dance piece. 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.
Stefanie Nelson and Maya 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.
DEA x DEA embraces contradiction, movement, and metamorphosis—demanding we ask not just who Dea is, but who we are becoming.
Cast:
Tricia Deitrick
Drew Allen
JayJay Sanders
Music
Sky White Tiger
Choreographer Bios:
Thy-Lan Alcalay is a New York City–based dancer, choreographer, and designer. An alumna of Barnard College of Columbia University, she earned degrees in Dance and Architecture with a specialization in Spatial Design and Phenomenology, graduating with departmental honors in both. She has performed with David Dorfman Dance, Colleen Thomas Dance, MOVE|NYC, and Martha Graham II, while assisting choreographer Roderick George. Her training spans LaGuardia High School, The Ailey School, the Martha Graham School, the French Académie of Ballet, and more. Recipient of the Robert and Carol Horne Dance Award and the LaGuardia Performance Award, Alcalay has performed works by Andrea Miller, Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M., Chu This, Francesca Dominguez, Norbert De La Cruz III, Lisa Fagan, Lena Engelstein, and VIM VIGOR. Her choreographic practice often explores themes of female identity, and she has created works across stage, fashion, and film. Beyond dance, she has contributed to projects with NASA, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Serdar Architecture.
Stefanie Nelson’s work as a director/choreographer has been described as “instinctual, untamed, and edgy” (Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Infinite Body). Her intuitive approach distills deeply personal ideas into highly kinetic, expressive and provocative works that are rooted in cross-media collaboration with artists working in music, video and visual arts. Nelson studied dance with many distinguished educators, including Alice Teirstein and JuMay Chu, and entered the dance field as a performer, notably as a soloist with Anna Sokolow’s Player’s Project and Wendy Osserman Dance Company. She cites Merce Cunningham and Viola Farber techniques as influences. Dividing her time between New York City and Europe, she is an accomplished teacher as well as the founder and artistic director of DANCE ITALIA, an annual summer dance intensive in Lucca, now entering its 15th season and M592, a bold contemporary arts center in Lucca, IT. She teaches classes in Creative Movement and has been a guest teacher at many studios and educational institutions worldwide. Having danced with many local New York City choreographers, Nelson also works on independent choreographic projects. Highlights include feature film Plan-B, starring Diane Keaton, NY Fashion Week, and the NYC store opening of Flying Tiger.
Maya Orchin is a choreographer and movement director based between New York and London. She has had her choreographic work presented internationally in Canada, Poland, Italy, Scotland, Germany, Russia, England, Israel, France and throughout the United States. She has had artistic residencies at PAF, Champs Melisey, S.P.A.M, DanceEast, Motore592 and English National Ballet. As a performer she has worked with artists such as Luis Lara Malvacias, Okwui Okpokwasili, Bill T Jones, Christine Bonansea, Davis Freeman, Zoe Scofield, Madeline Hollander, Reut Shemesh, Lynn Neuman, Kate Digby, Jody Oberfelder and more. She was a solo performer in ‘Room 29’ on a European tour with musicians Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales. She has been an assistant choreographer for projects with MOMAPS1, NIKE, and for Stefanie Nelson for fashion designer Terrence Zhou for Bad Binch TONGTONGs New York Fashion Week. Maya has choreographed a music video for singer H.C.McEntire and a recent commercial for LNER.
This event is supported by:
