WORKS

shape augurs memory / [directing the birds]

“...and i am less alone
they soothe my aching limbs,
and i shut my eyes
… i tethered my organs - and told myself to stay
… / stay - like a seedling / waiting for the sun / i tilt in its direction
… i am, the salvage, i was waiting for
spring, i was waiting for, rain,
i was waiting for”
Aasma Jama

I’m interested in how asymmetry and folding indicates a history, shape holds memory, and the process of sense-making. I learn about things through repetition. When retracing our steps (on the ground, in our memories) the lines are redrawn. Understanding, like the growth of a flower, begins with the effort of pushing upward out of the ground; out of that effort, petals unfold and tilt to the sun with ease; the flower then begins to fold and surrender to gravity; it continues to fold until it disintegrates into the ground; the effort of pushing upward [understanding] begins again. I don’t know if a flower remembers the last time it grew – sometimes I remember, but not always.

The movement passes through cycles and accumulates new shapes as it goes; I find the ways I can fit into the shapes, the ways they fit onto me. Some of the shapes hang in the air, some pass through like a current, some writhe like regrets, some sound like the song I cried to at 10 (or the one I cried to at 30), some are soft like imagined arms – many I don’t know about yet. I’ll learn about them through doing.

Created for performed at ode • ANTiPODE fall 2026 in collaboration with mixed-media artist Saïna Heshmati

a crisis of standing

a crisis of standing is an examination of failure, flexibility, and firmness in an ever-evolving, metastable form. How does one stand in the fullness of their complexity - in their lightness, darkness and inbetween-ness? Three dancers embody facets of an individual as they reflect on the challenge of being alive, searching for meaning in nothingness and expansion in emptiness.

Presented by Velocity Dance Center’s OUT THERE Experimental Dance Festival 2025

- Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé, Natalie Grant -
[lighting: Trevor Cushman, photo: Jim Coleman]
- Natalie Grant -
[lighting: Trevor Cushman, photo: Jim Coleman]
- Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé, Natalie Grant -
[lighting: Trevor Cushman, photo: Jim Coleman]
- Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé -
[lighting: Trevor Cushman, photo: Jim Coleman]
- Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé, Natalie Grant -
[lighting: Trevor Cushman, photo: Jim Coleman]
- Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé, Natalie Grant -
[lighting: Trevor Cushman, photo: Jim Coleman]
- maia melene d’urfé, Natalie Grant -
[lighting: Trevor Cushman, photo: Jim Coleman]

this is the time, and this is the record of the time

this is the time, and this is the record of the time is a quartet investigating fracture and how we respond to shattering, exploring the impulses to fix, hide, fight, or sit with the pieces. We discuss what fracture looks like in a variety of spheres (personal, interpersonal, communal, global, and existential) and the tension between risk and control - to live is to risk fracture. A fracture destabilizes a structure or system and we each have our own subjective understanding of what amount or kind of instability we can tolerate and when we cannot stand for it. We wrestle with this in tension and in care somewhere between erosion and reconstruction - in the fear of unraveling, we speak loudly from below.

Presented at Seattle International Dance Festival as a James Ray Resident in 2024 and Quinzena de Dança de Almada, Portugal in 2025

- Alicia Pugh, maia melene d’urfé, Alethea Alexander, Ashley Menestrina -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Jim Coleman]
- Alethea Alexander, maia melene d’urfé -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Jim Coleman]
- Alethea Alexander, Ashley Menestrina, maia melen d’urfé -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Jim Coleman]
- Alicia Pugh, Ashley Menestrina, Alethea Alexander -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Jim Coleman]
- Alicia Pugh -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Jim Coleman]
- maia melene d’urfé, Alicia Pugh -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Jim Coleman]
- Alicia Pugh, Alethea Alexander, Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Jim Coleman]
- Alicia Pugh, maia melene d’urfé, Alethea Alexander, Ashley Menestrina -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Jim Coleman]
- maia melene d’urfé, Ashley Menestrina, Alethea Alexander -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Jim Coleman]

endlessly circling, your mind finds out

An investigation into the sensations and textures of dis[morphia]
[phoria]
[thymia]

Presented at BOOST Dance Festival 2025

- maia melene d’urfé -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Joseph Lambert]
- maia melene d’urfé -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Joseph Lambert]
- maia melene d’urfé -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Joseph Lambert]
- maia melene d’urfé -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Joseph Lambert]
- maia melene d’urfé -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Joseph Lambert]
- maia melene d’urfé -
[lighting: Becca Blackwell, photo: Joseph Lambert]

I’m sitting facing the wind

I’m sitting facing the wind delves into the experience of pressing forward through uncertainty. Three people move through rhythm, melody and words in continuous motion, holding the images of moss on trees and water flowing through a narrow channel. They slide together and dispersed across the space as a dynamic, multi-surface body with strength, tenderness, and care. Together, we look into the blue.

Presented in two self-produced productions 2023, Estrogenius Festival NYC 2024, and Festival Internacional de Danza de Mexico 2024

- Alicia Pugh, Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé -
[photo: Rafa de Copilco]

- Alicia Pugh, Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé -
[photo: Rafa De Copilco]

- Alicia Pugh, Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé -
[photo: Rafa de Copilco]

- Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé -
[photo: Devin Muñoz]

-Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé -
[photo: Devin Muñoz]

- Alicia Pugh, Ashley Menestrina, maia melene d’urfé -
[photo: Devin Muñoz]