BEAUTY

Conceived, Choreographed, and Directed by Valerie Green

Performed by Nicole Arakaki, Leon Cobb, Allison Costa, Tommy Batchelor, Sophia Diehl, Sydney Foley, Mizuho Kappa, Tsubasa Nishioka

Costumes and Visuals by Irena Romendik

Sound Score by Mark Katsaounis

Pre-Show Video by Adam Tirado

What is beauty?

Is it a shape, a line, a face, a gesture?

Is it something we recognize, something we desire, something we try to become?

Beauty moves through the body—from the primordial and instinctual to the human and the performed. This dance explores our longing to be beautiful, the ways we shape ourselves to fit an idea of beauty, and what happens when that idea breaks apart.

Through movement, touch, rhythm, distortion, pleasure, struggle, stillness, and connection, the dancers move through shifting states—between the pleasing and the uncomfortable, the polished and the raw, the controlled and the instinctual.

Beauty is often understood as something to be shaped, perfected, or consumed. This dance asks a different question: what does beauty look like when the body is no longer trying to be beautiful?

As the work unfolds, something shifts. We come to understand that beauty isn't something arranged for the eye. It is already there—in the breath, in the imperfect body, in effort, in pleasure, in falling, in connection, in being seen.

In the freedom to be exactly as we are.

Beauty is not a form. It is a state of being.

“Commitment to Green’s process requires undivided, hyper-aware physical and spiritual attention.”

— Catherine Tharin, The Dance Enthusiast