Jody Sperling and Time Lapse Dance Ensemble to Present Upcoming Free Concert

Recently returned home from a two-week, three-city tour of Egypt with the Hakawy International Arts Festival, Jody Sperling and her Time Lapse Dance ensemble are performing a FREE concert in partnership with The New York Society for Ethical Culture, the site of their ongoing Eco-Artist-Residency on March 21, 2025. The company was following in the footsteps of Loïe Fuller who toured Egypt with her dancers in 1905! The program Memories of Egypt features a world premiere in Fuller style, repertory favorites, and a souvenir from the journey abroad. The company's seven luminous dancers are joined by Emmy Award-winning composer Matthew Burtner for a transporting evening of live music and dance.

The evening's highlight is the world premiere of Fractal Memories, created for and featured in the Loïe Fuller documentary film Obsessed with Light (Directed by Sabine Krayehbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum). The dance, choreographed by Jody Sperling, is a contemporary homage to Fuller that illuminates the entanglement of bodies through time. The culminating moment is a reimagining of Fuller's famous Fire Dance, in which she appeared to self-immolate. Conceived at the dawn of the fossil fuel era, Fuller's Fire Dance, as strikingly recontextualized by Sperling, is eerily resonant in these combustible times.

In Serpentine Swells, the company riffs on a spiralling melodic line, evoking the crest and fall of ocean currents. This ensemble improvisation was presented in Egypt with musical collaboration between Butner and Egyptian oud player Aly Eissa.

The evening also reprises Arbor, dwelling on the intimacy of trees, and Sperling's hypnotic solo Piece for Northern Sky, a meditation on planetary motion, both with music composed and performed by Burtner.

All of these works feature transformative costumes that abstract human movement into elemental and organic forces, with the dancers appearing to conjure a growing forest or a swirling inferno. The company's unique style of movement draws inspiration from and furthers the art form created by dance icon Loie Fuller (1862-1928) a century ago.

Time Lapse Dance: Jody Sperling, Choreographer/Soloist; Matthew Burtner, Composer/Musician; Andrea Trager, Rehearsal Director/Dramaturge' Frances Barker, Dancer; Anika Hunter, Dancer; Maki Kitahara, Dancer; Nicole Lemelin, Dancer; Sarah Tracy, Dancer; and Rathi Varma. Dancer.

About Jody Sperling

Jody Sperling (Choreographer), Founder/Artistic Director of Time Lapse Dance, has created 50+ works. The leading exponent of performance technology innovator Loie Fuller (1862-1928), she has expanded the genre into contemporary and environmental forms. The Paul Taylor Dance Company performed two of Sperling's Fuller tributes in their 2024 Lincoln Center Season. Sperling's work is featured in the Fuller documentary Obsessed with Light (Dirs. Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum) and she earned a World Choreography Award nomination for the Fuller biopic The Dancer ( (Dir. Stephanie Digiusto). In 2014, Sperling participated in a polar science mission and danced on Arctic sea ice. Following, her work has focused on creatively engaging with climate change. Since 2022, Sperling and company are Eco-Artists-in-Residence at the New York Society of Ethical Culture, where they are advancing the mission of dancing toward a more embodied, sustainable, and equitable future.