Weathering

With Weathering, choreographer Faye Driscoll presents a breathing sculpture of bodies, sounds and objects. Ten performers - dancers, singers and technicians - move on a floating, soft platform as their voices weave into each other to form a pulsating composition. Grasping, colliding, slithering and merging, they fill a space that seems too small to contain them all. The audience sits directly around them, feeling the heat, seeing the sweat and thus experiencing the physical intensity up close.

The performance is a whirlwind of impressions, centred on surrender and the pure experience of the moment. The performers teeter on the brink, catch each other and offer support, but are also challenged by the unstable stage. In Weathering, the action does not revolve around one star of the evening: the body is celebrated in all its capacities, regardless of shape, gender or background. What begins with subtle, slow movements grows into an explosion of energy.

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Driscoll's work playfully, yet with sharp insights plays with the complexity of human interactions and identities. With a mix of movement, text and sound, the choreographer turns social norms upside down and inside out to allow the audience to take a fresh look at dancing performances and theatre.

In Weathering, her signature style reaches a climax to date. This constantly evolving, multi-sensory performance draws the audience into a mesmerising experience. The show premiered at REDCAT in Los Angeles in February 2025, where it was hailed as a ‘sensory rollercoaster ride of a performance’.

The term ‘weathering’ is taken from geology and describes how rocks are broken down by natural influences such as wind, water and temperature. In the performance, the term serves as a powerful physical metaphor for change, survival and connectedness in a world that is increasingly unpredictable.

creator Faye Driscoll
cast James Barrett, Kara Brody, Miguel Alejandro Castillo, Amy Gernux, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Maya LaLiberté, Jennifer Nugent, Cory Seals, Carlo Antonio Villanueva, Jo Warren
understudy David Guzman
former performer Eliza Tappan
scenic design Jake Margolin and Nick Vaughan
lighting design Amanda K. Ringger
sound and music director Sophia Brous
live sound and sound design Ryan Gamblin
composition, field recordings, sound design Guillaume Soula
costume design Karen Boyer
dramaturgy and scent design Dages Juvelier Keates
choreographic assistant Amy Gernux
intimacy coordination Yehuda Duenyas
lighting supervisor serena wong
production stage management Emily Vizina
production and company manager Lilach Orenstein
booking Tommy Kriegsmann, Damien Valette

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Weathering was commissioned and produced by New York Live Arts as part of the New York Live Arts Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist Program and co-commissioned by Theater der Welt 2023 in Frankfurt – Offenbach, Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dancers’ Workshop in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and the Artist Residency Center of The Joyce Theater Foundation, made possible by lead funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

additional commissioning support provided by the Wexner Center for the Arts and members of Faye Driscoll’s Commissioners Circle

Weathering is made possible with support of the New York State Council on the Arts, the Café Royal Cultural Foundation, and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and was developed with residency support of the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University, the Pillow Lab at Jacob’s Pillow, and Dancers’ Workshop