Moss and Other Things

Choreography + Direction by Esmé Julien Boyce, made in collaboration with the dance artists

Dance Performance by Esmé Julien Boyce, Ching-I Chang, Caroline Fermin, Pierre Guilbault, and Cori Kresge 

Musical Performance by Jean-Paul Björlin, Sophie Daws, Brian Ellis, Samantha Goldman, Hope Littwin, London Lucille, John Urban (Synths), Hannah Wilson

Music Composition by Cody Boyce, Dreamt Dreamer, Eleanor Hovda, and Hope Littwin

Costume Design by Sue Julien and Esmé Boyce in collaboration with the dance artists

Set Design by Kit Boyce

Special thank you to Gentry Isaiah George and Matilda Sakamoto for their fabulous contribution to the making of this piece. Thank you to my parents, Kit Boyce and Sue Julien for their ongoing support and producing this work and to Arts on Site for having us! 

Moss and Other Things is a piece about the coexistence of conflicting experiences. It is about the joy of your child laughing and the simultaneous grief of a loved one lost; going to the park on a perfect afternoon knowing war is ravaging families across oceans; humor and rage bubbling up next to each other. It explores the moments of transcendence in which we move between the everyday and the vast unknown. This work pulls its aesthetic language from a recent trip to Iceland where we wandered lava fields in which soft vibrant moss grew on the hardened, cooled, molten core of the earth, the calm evidence of the Earth’s explosive power. 

This piece is dedicated in loving memory to Rubén Travieso, my father-in-law, Lorna Domínguez, Kyle Richardson’s mama, and Cesár Fermin, Caroline Fermin’s papa. They are deeply beloved and missed beyond any words.