Archive
These works were made prior to the formation of a canary torsi.
Center of Sleep
2008
“The overall effect of the piece is of constant shifting. Sounds build to a roar and die away. Dancers rush past you. Their images slide onto the reflective surfaces and slip away again. The spaces defined by these moveable mirrors grow and shrink. You’re forced to step back; then suddenly a pathway opens up in front of you. Watching yourself watching the dancers, you’re part of Castro’s sleep visions too, the observer who has been handed, willy-nilly, a performer’s role.”
— Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice, “Dream, Baby, Dream”
Center of Sleep was a dance installation and audience environment inspired by the psychological and biological connections between sleep, gestation, and metamorphosis. Set in a space without predictable boundaries between the audience and four performers, Center of Sleep explored hormonal transformation (puberty, pregnancy, fetal development) and sleep as enclosed neurological activities that resemble the violent, transformative state of cocooning. Center of Sleep was performed by Peggy Cheng, Luke Miller, Heather Olson, Joseph Poulson, and Ashley Smith Steele, with environments and lighting by Roderick Murray, and music by Stephan Moore performed live by Moore, Michael Haleta and Scott Smallwood.
Center of Sleep was commissioned and premiered at Dance Theater Workshop and was made possible with a Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Residency.
MANCC Choreographic Fellow Video: Center of Sleep Research in 2007
Press
Deborah Jowitt for The Village Voice, “Dream Baby Dream”
Tom Phillips for Dance View Times, “Delivery at DTW”
Brian McCormick for Gay City News, “Metamorphoses”
Quinn Batson for OFFOFFOFF, “A Pregnant Dream”
fetus(twin) fet(us)twin
2006
Confined within a hermetic environment—a cylinder of translucent fabric slowly revolving around suspended fluorescents—two dancers perform a series of intimate movements, assisting each other through symbiotic tasks and whispering into each other’s ears. Inspired by two reported stories of twins: one of conjoined adults whose decision to separate late in life was fatal and another of a seven-year-old boy who carried the dead fetus of his twin brother inside his own body as a tumor , the piece addressed the experience of loss, union, and separateness in the body.
fetus(twin) fet(us)twin was performed by Pamela Vail and Nancy Ellis, with text by Kevin Kwan and a motorized installation by Charles Merritt Houghton, costumes by Suzanne Dougan.
fetus(twin) fet(us)twin premiered at The Chocolate Factory Theater.
Press
Chris Dohse for The Dance Insider, “Accusatory Curtsies, Twin Fetuses, Well-made Mammals, & Authoritative Bodies from Spradlin, Castro, O'Brien & Green”
Beacon
2005
“We don’t know who these people are or what has happened to them, but we care. We have to, because they are human, and not incidentally beautiful. Ms. Castro evokes Greek tragedy, but takes it a step further into the void.”
— Tom Phillips, DanceView Times, “Evening News with Aeschylus: Yanira Castro’s Beacon”
Beacon was a site-based dance installation performed by Nancy Ellis, Heather Olson, Pamela Vail, and Marýa Wethers that explored the experience of dislocation in the aftermath of a violent event. Confined within a narrow performance arena, the four dancers performed a series of abstract movement patterns and recited short excerpts from Aeschylus’ The Libation Bearers as a pure expression of horror, a cry of grief. Environments and lighting by Roderick Murray, music by Dan Siegler, and costumes by Albert Sakhai.
Commissioned and presented by Dance Theater Workshop, Beacon premiered at the Lyceum, a former public bathhouse in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Beacon was made possible by an award from The MAP Fund.
Press
Gia Kourlas for The New York Times, “The Terrors of Assigned Seating”
Tom Phillips for Dance View Times, “Evening News with Aeschylus, Yanira Castro’s ‘Beacon’”
Brian McCormick for Gay City News, “Winter Masterworks Previewed”
Eva Yaa Asantewaa for Dancing with Eva Yaa Asantewaa, “Beacon”
Lori Ortiz for Attitude, “Beacon at the Lyceum”
Holly Messitt for Ballet Dance Magazine, “Alone on the Stand”
Susan Yung for ballet-tanz, “on stage”
Cartography: haru, verano, autumn, hiver
2002
“This poetic new piece by Yanira Castro + Company featured four duets, each a meditation on the seasons of love… we trooped up to a roof and sat in cold October wind, watching Ellis and Vail drift past a brick wall like ancient petroglyphs, images of a past remembered imperfectly.”
— Eva Yaa Asantewaa, The Village Voice, “Brooklyn Brunch”
Cartography was a site-adaptable dance installation composed of four duets each depicting one season--haru, verano, autumn, and hiver--as stages of a love affair. Each duet evoked an emotional landscape specific to its season by connecting it to a movement vocabulary, a single musical instrument and a visual environment. haru was performed by Jan Schollenberger and Pamela Vail, verano by Yanira Castro and Nancy Ellis, autumn by Heather Olson and Marýa Wethers, and hiver by Nancy Ellis and Pamela Vail. Environments and lighting by Roderick Murray, music by William Grabek, Jr., and costumes by Albert Sakhai.
Cartography: haru, verano, autumn, hiver premiered at the Old American Can Factory.
Press
Brian McCormick for Gay City News, “Mapping Relationships Across Industrial Space”
Gia Kourlas for TimeOut New York, “Climate Control”
Nicole Pope for The Dance Insider, “Castro Charts the Seasons, Site-Specifically”
Eva Yaa Asantewaa for The Village Voice, “Brooklyn Brunch”
2:1
2000
Confined within a hermetic environment—a room sealed in white scrim for the audience to peer through and painted in five coats of glossy white—two dancers performed task-oriented and mechanical movements in unison to the sound of a pile driver. Recorded text played on twin recorders telling the poignant story of twins—one who dies at birth, and the other who dreams of a lost sibling and the moments, both commonplace and poignant, of a life unrealized. 2:1 was performed by Jeff Janisheski and Pamela Vail with environment and text by Kevin Kwan, and costumes by Rozalia Jovanovic.
2:1 premiered as part of the Peculiar Works Project’s The Judson House Project at Judson Memorial Church in New York.
Press
Gia Kourlas, TimeOut New York, “Last Rites:Peculiar Works Project honors Judson House’s Legacy on the eve of its destruction”
