MEGAN WILLIAMS DANCE PROJECTS PRESENTS

THE WORLD PREMIERE OF

Smile, though your heart is aching

IN COLLABORATION WITH COMPOSER EVE BEGLARIAN,

APRIL 5, 6, AND 7, 2024 AT MARK MORRIS DANCE CENTER’S JAMES AND MARTHA DUFFY PERFORMANCE SPACE

Megan Williams Dance Projects (MWDP) will give the World Premiere of Smile, though your heart is aching, choreographed by Megan Williams to music composed by Eve Beglarian, April 5, 6, and 7, 7:30 P.M., at the James and Martha Duffy Performance Space at Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn, New York.

The evening length work is set to Beglarian’s anthology, Machaut in the Machine Age (1986-2024), a series of responses to the secular songs of 14th century composer/poet Guillaume de Machaut. The work features ten dancers accompanied live by six musicians, including Beglarian on vocals, keyboard, and toy piano. Performers include Esmé Julien Boyce, Robert Mark Burke, Réka Echerer, Mary Lyn Graves, Chelsea Enjer Hecht, Justin Lynch, Mykel Marai Nairne, Will  Nolan, Michael Bryan Wang, and Williams. Musicians include Beglarian, Tristan Kasten-Krause (bass), Margaret Lancaster (flute), Isabelle O’Connell (piano), Caitlin Cawley (percussion), and Lukas Pappenfusscline (vocals).

In Machaut in the Machine Age, Beglarian  pushes at the norms of gendered behavior, queering medieval mores into the 21st century. Williams draws on the themes embedded in the music, in which hope, desire, love, possession, consent, perseverance, and loss are in dialogue, creating a lush and intimate movement landscape that falls in and out of classical form and poses the question: “How do we find joy, pleasure, rhythm, and momentum when things around us and within us are in a constant state of upheaval?”

Costumes for Smile, though your heart is aching are by Claire Fleury, with lighting by Kathy Kaufman, and sound design by Florian Staab.

Tickets On Sale Now

Smile, though your heart is aching will be given three performances, April 5, 6, and 7. The James and Martha Duffy Performance Space at Mark Morris Dance Center is located at:3 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.

Smile, though your heart is aching is funded in part by the The O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation and the Center for Ballet and the Arts, NYU