90 miles separate the Cuban coast from Key West.
Ninety miles of darkness, hope, waiting, and light.
In here, those ninety miles could be ninety thousand.
Distancia infinita.
(Poetry and opening text to the work by Colette Krogol)

Cuban-American artist Colette Krogol, of Orange Grove Dance, takes the stage to share her personal journey reconciling the recurring dreams she has for a country she’s never touched. More Than 90 Miles From Home weaves together movement, poetry, and projection design within Krogol’s intimate chronicling of her family's exodus from Cuba during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift. A solo, one-woman-show, More Than 90 Miles From Home takes the audience inside the bilingual thoughts, memories, and dreams of Krogol. 

"Even though I was born five years after the Mariel, this event has impacted my life in a myriad of ways. These dreams are my bridge to the stories I have been told since I was young and the places I've stil never touched."
-Colette Krogol

Research and History shared with audiences prior to the performance:
More than 90 Miles From Home is a personal journey through memory, dance, and dream that shines a light on the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 - a historic inflection point that changed the trajectory of more than 125,000 lives emigrating from Cuba to the United States. The Mariel Boatlift began in April of 1980, when Fidel Castro responded to the thousands of Cubans gathering at the Peruvian Embassy to seek asylum. He announced that anyone who wanted to leave Cuba could as long as someone came by boat to pick them up from the United States. 

The Cuban point of departure was the Port of Mariel. Even after relatives from the U.S. arrived, Cubans has to wait days in barren camps at the Mariel Bay and were stripped of all of their belongings. On April 14th, President Jimmy Carter agreed to accept 3,500 Cuban refugees. By the end of the Mariel Boatlift six months later, about 125,000 Cubans had arrived in the U.S.

Program Information:

Direction and Choreography: Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves
Projection and Sound Design: Matt Reeves
Lighting Design: Peter Leibold VI
Associate Lighting Design: Faryn Kelly
Original Music: Dylan Glatthorn
Performance and Poetry: Colette Krogol

50 minute live solo performance

DC Theater Arts Review:
https://dctheaterarts.org/2022/05/25/flying-v-presents-a-visceral-more-than-90-miles-from-home/

Children of Babel is the third installment in ‘4 Recurring Dreams’, a tetralogy of evening length dances that explore the nature of recurring dreams and opens up new dialogues on timely themes such as migration, exodus, and transformation.

Inspired by the invisible radio wars between the United States and Cuba since 1959 and mythopoetic research into personal dreams and stories of one family’s migration from Cuba during the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, Children of Babel takes its audience and performers into a vivid sand filled landscape where the voices of a country pulled apart echo 90 miles in all directions.

Premiere: March 2020
Length: 70 minutes Direction and Choreography: Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves Choreography created in collaboration with performers Performers: London Brison, Robin Neveu Brown, Juliana Pongutá Forero, Jonathan Hsu, Colette Krogol, Shanice Mason, Matt Reeves, and Mei Yamanaka Music Composition: Dylan Glatthorn Lighting Design: Peter Leibold Sound and Media Design: Matt Reeves Costume Design: Robert Croghan Scenic and Prop Design: Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves Stage Manager: Tarythe Albrecht

As the United States Botanic Garden's 2019 Dance Commission, my company, Orange Grove Dance created an immersive site-specific dance and design performance experience. This is what we shared with our audiences:

Come curiously explore the lush and abundant living collection of the USBG Conservatory as never before with Orange Grove Dance's transformative site-specific choreography and design. Performed among the Celebrating New American Gardens exhibit and elsewhere in the Conservatory, Orange Grove Dance illuminates and further reveals the richness and wonder of life cycles in plants, people, and mythology through dynamic dancing, an original sound score, and vivid projection design. Step into the Garden for an evening of discovery that exists at a special place within yourself; that place where, if you stand still for a moment and listen, you can hear the heartbeat of the universe aligning with your own.

Within this project, I took on the roles of Director, Choreographer, Performer, and Rehearsal Director.

Premiere: April 2019
Length: 75 minutes

THE BARRIER PROJECT by Orange Grove Dance is a part of the Mapping Racism Project.

After months of field work and conversations with residents of the historic neighborhood of North Brentwood, Maryland, THE BARRIER PROJECT became a multi-location site-specific dance and design performance that traversed audiences through the town in May of 2019.

The event began at Sis's Tavern where participants could enter the historic site and experience projection design throughout it's raw walls with the sound score from community members talking about the history of the building. At a certain point, the audience gathered back outside where they were each handed an individual audio headset, which we transmitted the sound score to them wirelessly. We all then took a walking tour of North Brentwood and and it culminated at a guardrail barrier that stands as a dividing line between historically segregated black and white communities. This location is where the final part of the experience took place.

Premiered: May 2019
Length: 45 minutes

Directed and conceived by: Orange Grove Dance
Choreography: Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves in collaboration with performers

Performers: Colette Krogol, Chris Law, Shanice Mason, Juliana Ponguta, Matt Reeves, and Nicole Sneed
Projection & Sound Design: Matt Reeves
Stage Manager: Tori Ujczo

Voices of the North Brentwood Community:
Mr. Arthur J. Dock
Stuart Eisenberg
Una Palmer
Mayor Petrella Robinson
Denise Thomas

Alongside voices from a 1994 interview with North Brentwood residents graciously shared by The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission

Thanks to Chris Law and Ama Law for their vital role within the creation of this work. Through important conversations and a dedication to this project you helped bring this work to life.

Special Thanks
Joe’s Movement Emporium, Brooke Kidd, Neena Narayanan, Andre Mazelin, Mayor Petrella Robinson, Stuart Eisenberg, PGAAMCC, Jake Rollow, Ryan Craun, The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, and Gustavo

Collaboration
A partnership between Hyattsville Community Development Corporation and Joe’s Movement Emporium.

Community Collaborators:
Cities of Hyattsville & North Brentwood
Prince George’s African-American Musuem & Cultural Center
Pyramid Atlantic
Ally Theatre Company
Orange Grove Dance

Support for Mapping Racism comes from:

MID-ATLANTIC ARTS FOUNDATION: Cross-Sector Arts Grant
City of Hyattsville
Prince George’s Arts & Humanities Council
Prince George’s County Council Member, Deni Taveras
Long & Foster Real Estate Broker, Ann Barrett

Orange Grove Dance, under the direction of Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves, transforms the stage with its trademark virtuosic athleticism and evocative multimedia design. Waking Darkness. Waiting Light. uses sophisticated sensor technology and digital-media interaction to explore the nature of recurring dreams that tear through our homes, awakening us from sleep.

“These dreams are the bridge to the stories that we have been told since we were young and the places we’ve still never touched.”

Based on mythopoetic research into personal dreams and stories of one family’s migration from Cuba in 1980, Orange Grove Dance opens up new dialogues on timely themes such as migration, exodus, and transformation. An excerpt of this work won the Audience Choice Award at the 34th Annual Choreographers’ Showcase in 2017 and was described by Dance Metro DC as a “magically spun… visual tale of suspension, tension, and community within a multilayered moving painting.”

Original score and sound design: Dylan Glatthorn and Jeff Dorfman.
Projection Design: Mark Costello
Lighting Design: Peter Leibold

Premiere: October 2016
Restaged: January 2019 for Dance Place DC
Length: 1 hour

Still Standing is a site-specific, socially-distanced dance and design performance experience that premiered in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2020. It was conceived, created, and performed amidst/in response to the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. The work was commissioned by the Maryland Theatre for the Performing Arts in Annapolis and in true Orange Grove Dance aesthetic, Still Standing exists at the intersection of dance and immersive, performer-operated design. 

Inspired by the adjacent Annapolis National Cemetery, the performers utilized over 170 wireless lighting units, creating a grid of light, memory, and hope that mirrors the precise rows of the gravestones that sprawl across the horizon. Each dancer and light will serve as a reminder of the importance of casting our lights together during times of darkness. 

Premiere: November 2020
Re-staged at Sweet Briar College: April 2021
Length: 55 minutes Direction & Choreography:  Colette Krogol & Matt Reeves *Choreography created in collaboration with performers Music Composition: Dylan Glatthorn Lighting Design: Peter Leibold VI Stage Manager: Tori Ujczo Drone Videographer: Jeff Voigt Annapolis Performers: Robin Neveu Brown Juliana Pongutá Forero Jonathan Hsu Colette Krogol Chris Law Mariama "Ama" Law Shanice Mason Matt Reeves Candace Scarborough Understudy: Jemma Lehner Sweet Briar College Tour Performers:
London Brison
Jonathan Hsu
Colette Krogol
Chris Law
Mariama "Ama" Law
Matt Reeves
Robert Rubama

Remnants is a bridge to the stories that we have been told since we were young and the places we have still never touched. This Orange Grove Dance world premiere takes audiences on a mytho-poetic and dream-like journey that physically conjures up the visual metaphors of the inexhaustible burning hope of the human spirit. What does it mean to start over? What are the things we carry? What survives within us? What is left behind? 

Remnants was commissioned and presented as part of The Kennedy Center's 2018 Direct Current Festival

Premiere: The Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater, March 2018
Length: 50 minutes

Within this project, I took on the roles of Director, Choreographer, Performer, and Rehearsal Director.

The OPEN BOX Project is an evening-length collaboration between Rogue Collective and Orange Grove Dance featuring compelling music and dancing. Performed in the vast tunnels of Dupont Underground, the architecture serves as rich inspiration for this interactive evening, which explores how space, material, light, and sound affect the experiences and actions of their inhabitants. Influenced by American minimalism and popular music the string players of Rogue Collective blend their sounds and creations with the dynamic, virtuosic, and visually athletic choreography of Orange Grove Dance.

This was created and presented through a CulturalDC Space4 Grant

Premiere: December 2017 at Dupont Underground
Length: 50 minutes

Due to the pandemic, my artistic projects shifted in scope, space, and concept. Commissions that were originally planned for large gatherings and spaces like the Reflection Pool/Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC were reframed. Work requiring planes and trains to be on site and in residency  had to be reimagined. The world as I knew it evaporated yet it seemed that making work and building connections through movement and technology was even more vital and necessarry. 

The projects shared below were all conceieved, reconcieved, created, and performed between April 2020 and September 2021. Zoom, Vimeo, live-streaming platforms, Isadora, Dropbox, and Facetime became a lifeline for artmaking. These technologies allowed my work to become even more accessible to audiences and participants around the world.

Additionally, Orange Grove Dance hosts an annual intensive (more info on the 2020 intensive below). In 2020, we built out a 5-day immersive Dance, Design, and Film Intensive experience where participants from over a dozen different US states  participated. It was an exceptional time to share, learn, and reflect on the new live performance frontier we had all been driven to undertake. It has left me forever changed as an artist because it redefined what I thought was possible for dance, design, and film.