The Garden is an adaptive performance installation designed for 6 participants at a time.  The Garden premiered in 2013 and has lived in many forms, locations and languages. Each expression is adapted to its host location and language and takes the audience on an intimate yet expansive journey in which they are both viewer and participant. An individualized sound score by Michael Kiley accompanies audio cues, and each person navigates the shifting terrain of the performance. The Garden is grounded in the wisdom inherent in each participant’s body. Through a series of encounters, both tangible and ineffable, The Garden invites participants to meet the world and themselves with a bit more curiosity, wonder, and care. Each version of The Garden is designed to respond to the architecture, landscape and the community where it lives.

Follow the link to each site below for credits and images:

The Garden: River’s Edge
Arch Street Meeting House, Philadelphia, PA (May 2024 and September 2024)

The Garden: Invisible Branches
New Grit: Art& Philly Now, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA (May/June 2021)

The Garden of Forking Paths 
Bok Building, Philadelphia PA (May/June, 2017) * English, Spanish, Khmer

The Garden 
Premiere at FringeArts Festival
Powerplant Productions, Philadelphia, PA (September, 2013) * Premiere*

The Garden (on tour)

Giornate del Respiro
Argentiera, Italy (July 2023) *English and Italian

Swedish Performing Arts Coalition/Scensverige
Västerås, Sweden (June 2022) *English and Swedish

Festival Internacional de Danza Contemporánea Onésimo
Guadalajara, Mexico (October 2019) * English and Spanish

American Repertory Theater 
Adolphus Busch Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (October, 2016)

The Orchard Project
Saratoga Springs, NY (June, 2015)

NextNOW festival 
The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, College Park, MD (September, 2014)

Video Clip

“The site is perfect for such contemplation: I felt wrapped in its quiet, held in its ages with the scent of wood hundreds of years old, and close to the river that ran through the narrative. It was a welcome and much-needed moment of peace.”
– Broad Street Review

“…Guided into a delicious sense of presence…I’m all too ready to engage in the intricate exploration that follows…”
– ThINKingDance

“… a cool breeze blew into the space as I sat alone on a bench indoors and caught glimpses, through a doorway, of two dancers’ graceful movements in the nearby garden. Another attendee entered the room and we were both led, via our headphones, through a simple but intense dance, of sorts. It was incredibly refreshing to start on such friendly terms with a stranger…”
– The Boston Globe

“With high expectations going into this interactive experience, I walked out with my expectations having been blown out of the park… The choreography is absolutely stunning.”
– DC Metro Theater Arts

The premiere of The Garden (2013) was made possible by the generous support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wyncote Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Suzanne Roberts Cultural Development Fund, and our fabulous band of Kickstarter backers. Development of the work was supported by Creative residencies at Millay Colony for the Arts (NY) and was developed, in part, with assistance from The Orchard Project, a program of The Exchange (www.exchangenyc.org).