About the installation

Boston-based Landing Studio will design 16 Salt Tarps, Half Red Half White, a response to the Navy Yard’s history and the 2018 Beaux Arts theme, “Vector,” which celebrates the flow of ideas, goods, and people through global networks of communication and exchange. They write: “16 Salt Tarps, Half Red Half White, are woven in Ohio and sewn in Illinois, unloaded on a gantry in Brooklyn, on their way to cover a salt pile in Staten Island or Newark.”

About the performance

Inspired by the temporary architectural installation at Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Building 77 designed by Landing Studio for the Architecture League’s Beaux Arts Ball, dancer and choreographer Dylan Crossman and his company, Crossman Dans(c)e, will perform two site-specific dance performances for the public in this limited engagement. Set to a musical score created by Jesse Stiles, the performance will draw on both the movement and stillness of the installation and will also be influenced by the industrial landscape of the architectural environment. Members of the public will be invited to move throughout the space and interweave with the dancers causing the boundaries between performer and viewer to be dissolved.

About the participants

Landing Studio is an architecture, design, and research practice whose work negotiates the intersection of large-scale global industry with urban environments. Since 2005, Landing Studio has developed projects with port facilities and transit infrastructure entities in Boston and New York by designing shared industrial and public access landscapes, light installations, festivals, exhibitions, tours, and industrial/community operations agreements. The work of Landing Studio has been recognized with awards including a Progressive Architecture Award, the Architectural League Prize, an AIA Institute Honor Award, a Waterfront Center Award, and the Design Biennial Boston.

Dylan Crossman is a contemporary dancer and choreographer originally from the south of France, but currently living in NYC. He has worked with several artists such as Kimberly Bartosik, Wally Cardona, Ryan McNamara, Sally Silvers, and Pam Tanowitz; and was also a member of the final Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Crossman formed his own company in 2013 and his work has been presented throughout NYC as well as internationally. Crossman focuses on the examination of highly stylized movements paired with everyday expressions and gestures that are inspired by human interactions and the spaces they occur in. His narratives are often non-narrative as he aims to blur the boundaries between performer and viewer.

Jesse Stiles, a long-time collaborator of Crossman Dans(c)e, is an electronic composer, performer, installation artist, and software designer.  Stiles’ work has been featured at internationally recognized institutions including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Lincoln Center, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Park Avenue Armory.  Stiles has appeared multiple times at Carnegie Hall, performing as a soloist with electronic instruments.