This content highlights projects completed and derived during the pandemic and done across incredible spacial divides for the artists, collaborators, and audiences. Each project came with a unique set of challenges that have molded my artistry and awareness of space in ways unexpected. Each project has also served as a testament to the boundless nature of dance and the infinite 'stages' that might be possible if we are willing to embrace the unknown. 

Pierrot and the Reverie Site-Specific Concept Video
Premiere: March 2021

A new site-specific concept video by Delune, “Pierrot and the Reverie,” blends music with animation, theater, dance, multimedia, and AI. This piece will be created on-site, one year after so many performing arts spaces closed their doors. The composer-singer duo’s ethereal vocals and haunting electronic beats scaffold this amorous epic, underscored by excerpts from the sisters’ upcoming debut concept album Pierrot. Glamour says, “Delune will be your next music obsession.” 

The piece opens in a dream-like trance: a performer wakes up alone in National Sawdust, to find the venue abandoned and in disarray. Reality and fantasy blur as he attempts to find connection in the void. He moves through winding back corridors in search of the Main Hall. Suddenly, he finds himself alone on stage: what will he do? A love story to performance in space, “Pierrot and the Reverie” provides an intimate insight into our performer’s interaction with the empty venue. A truly collaborative ode to performance, the piece incorporates many artistic disciplines that explore not only the stage, but all of the architectural flourishes that make the building unique. Direction and multimedia design by Obie-award winner Jared Mezzocchi. Starring Robert Rubama. Choreography by Helen Hayes award winners Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves. Script supervision by writer & playwright Taylor Steele. Cinematography and editing by Stephanie Gaweda. Production design by Sadah Espii Proctor. Hand-drawn animations by Russian Hungarian Alexandra Hohner. AI sound design by Icelandic composer David Brynjar Franzson. Lighting by Dan Kent. Michael Hojkanski grip.  Performer ensemble: Orange Grove Dance dancers and collaborators - London Brison, Robin Brown, Tiffanie Carson, Alexus Crooms, Greg David, Laurie Dodge, Atlas Hill, Jonathan Hsu, Abby Farina, Angad Kalsi, Colette Krogol, Chris Law, Mariama Law, Shanice Mason, Brandon Washington, and Mei Yamanaka

​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.

 Orange Grove Dance's world premiere of Children of Babel is supported by The Carla Fund for Choreography and Performance, established by the Howard and Geraldine Polinger Family Foundation, and Joe’s Movement Emporium’s Creative Residency.

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

Leaning Toward The Sky was a site-specific dance installation that was commisioned at the U.S. Botaic Garden. Audeiences curiously explored 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 illuminated and further revealed the richness and wonder of life cycles in plants, people, and mythology through dynamic dancing, an original sound score, and vivid projection design. It was 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. 

Projection Design: Matt Reeves
Costume Design: Matt Reeves
Stage Manager: Tori Ujczo

FREQUENCY casts its performers into a vast friction-filled digital landscape that evokes images and relationships from a past grievously misremembered. A duet between Artistic Directors Colette Krogol and Matt Reeves, FREQUENCY is a throwback to the company’s genesis as a duet company and reflects the significance of time spent trying to tune two lives together.

Premiered in Tampa, Florida (2019)

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.

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

Waking Darkness. Waiting Light. is the inceptive work of the 4 Recurring Dreams Tetralogy; a series of evening length dances that explore the personal dreams and mythopoetic images of one family’s migration from Cuba in 1980. The work is a dialogue on them on timely themes such as migration, exodus, and transformation. "How do you prepare in twenty minutes to leave your home forever? What do you hold one last time?"

​Using sophisticated sensor technology and digital-media interaction Waking Darkness. Waiting Light. explores 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.

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.”

Direction & Choreography: Colette Krogol & Matt Reeves
Performers: Robin Neveu Brown/Juliana Ponguta, Jonathan Hsu, Colette Krogol, Matt Reeves
Original Score: Dylan Glatthorn
Sound Design: Jeff Dorfman
Projection Design: Mark Costello
Lighting Design: Peter Leibold & Connor Dreibelbis
Scenic & Prop Design: Matt Reeves
Costume Design: Robert Croghan
Stage Manager: Tarythe Albrecht

Remnants premiered in March of 2018 as part of the Inaugural DIRECT CURRENT Season at The Kennedy Center. DIRECT CURRENT, the Kennedy Center’s two-week celebration of contemporary culture, focuses on new works, and interdisciplinary creations in which artistic worlds collide. This season showcases some of the most provocative, original, and pioneering voices in the arts today. DIRECT CURRENT takes place at the Kennedy Center and beyond, extending throughout the District of Columbia through collaborations with a number of alternative venues, to expand the growing audience for contemporary culture in the nation’s capital.

Direction & Choreography: Colette Krogol & Matt Reeves
Performers: Robin Neveu Brown, London Brison, Jonathan Hsu, Colette Krogol, Matt Reeves, Mei Yamanaka
Original Score: Dylan Glatthorn
Sound Design: Matt Reeves
Projection Design: Matt Reeves
Lighting Design: Peter Leibold 
Costume Design: Robert Croghan
Stage Manager: Tori Ujczo

A film at the intersections of dance, dream, and mythology.

FILM SYNOPSIS
The film follows six Archetypes through a dream-like reality as they near the end of a cycle. Ares and Athena are fated into a timeless battle, siblings pitted against one another, their destinies inextricably forced to collide. Hermes carries the call to action for all thus setting the stage for a final struggle between order and chaos, light and darkness. In the balance hangs the prophetic Pandora, burdened with a key and plagued by nightmares symbolic of the impending storm. Wise Prometheus accompanies her as they journey off to find Atlas whom ultimately carries the portal to their final destination.

BUILDING MODERN MYTHS
Using Greek mythological archetypes and insights from the Monomyth Theory of Joseph Campbell as a base for inspiration, we are creating modern mythologies within an abstract narrative that live and breathe in the fabric of today’s human psyche. Joseph Campbell said "Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.” 'THE ARCHETYPES' is an exploration into the private dreams that make up our new public myths today.

A UNIQUE DANCE FILM 
“Dance on film is always an affirmation of the moving storyteller we have inside our bodies. It reminds us to listen to the body. The body speaks deeply to who we are as people and often times it speaks with more honesty and clarity than the mouth. For this reason alone we need more dance on film. It is one of the few ways we can keep our ancestral truths relevant in a modern society.”

Matt Reeves- Orange Grove Dance
Co-Writer & Choreographer for THE ARCHETYPES 

BEST DANCE FILM*** ET CULTURA FILM FESTIVAL
FLORIDA FILMMAKERS AWARD*** ET CULTURA FILM FESTIVAL

OFFICIAL SELECTION*
DAM SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
UNDERGROUND FILM FEST
STOCKHOLM INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL
SKYLINE INDIE FILM FEST
ET CULTURA FILM FESTIVAL
TAMPA BAY UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL
FESTIVAL ANGAELICA
RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

FILMMAKERS

DIRECTOR: WILLIAM J. STRIBLING
CHOREOGRAPHERS: COLETTE KROGOL & MATT REEVES
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: ALEX GALLITANO
COMPOSER: DYLAN GLATTHORN
EDITOR BY: RAYMOND FRASER & THOMAS NUDI
COSTUME DESIGNER: JESSICA RAY HARRISON
PRODUCTION DESIGNER: ALEX WHITTENBERG
LG LIGHTING DESIGNER: SHAUN SUCHAN
SOUND BY: HAYLEY WAGNER

​​PRODUCED BY: COLETTE KROGOL & MATT REEVES
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: JASON LUDMAN
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: RJ LEWIS

'La Tierra De Mi Madre' is sprung from Orange Grove Dance's performance Tetralogy '4 Recurring Dreams'. The four part series of works stand as mythopoetic research into personal memories and stories of one family’s migration from Cuba in 1980.

"Evening was quickly turning to night as the boat pulled off the dock. The captain handed each person a glow stick. He broke his and told everyone aboard, 'If we capsize on this journey to the US make sure to illuminate your glow stick so that you have a better chance of being found in the ocean.' And with that my family watched the lights of Cuba fade away in the distance, the only land they had ever known. Only left with each other, the darkness of the night, and a few distant stars reflecting off the water. My mother tells of a darkness she had never experienced before. "

-Colette Krogol- Choreographer

Choreography & Direction: Colette Krogol & Matt Reeves
Performers: Robin Neveu Brown & Juliana Ponguta
Original Score: Dylan Glatthorn
Scenic & Prop Design: Matt Reeves
Lighting Design: Peter Leibold
Costume Design: Robert Croghan

Cinematography: Jonathan Hsu
Editor: Matt Reeves