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By Deirdre Towers/Follow @deirdre.towers on Instagram
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Published on July 3, 2025
Amina Konaté. Photo: Steven Pisano
Choreographer/Director: Felice Lesser
Dancers: Mackenzie Allen, Justice Jackson, Amina Konaté, Kristin Licata, Melanie Adam, Héloïse Ponsonnet, Stephanie (Lyon) Albanese
Composers: George Frideric Handel, Johannes Brahms, Alessandro Marcello, Richard Einhorn
Lighting: John Salutz
Graphic design: Johnathan Burkhardt
Date: June 26, 2025
Jonathan Burkhardt's design of the poster for Felice Lesser's "I AM A DANCER 2020" is striking. Central to the shot of a New York City street is a back-lit young dancer, Amina Konaté, jumping barefoot, bare midriff, arms high, left foot aligned with her shoulder. At a glance, she appears to be dancing amid snowflakes in a romantic urban sunset. With a double-take, you realize COVID-19 spikey balls dominate the red-tinted scene.
The world premiere of "I AM A DANCER 2020" marks the 50th anniversary of Felice Lesser Dance Theater. Justice Jackson stood out for his solo, performed to J. S. Bach's St. John Passion, seen in front of a projected video shot in a candlelit St. John the Divine.
After confessing on video that she had to resort to working as an accountant during the pandemic, MacKenzie Allen performs a live, delightful solo, Plan B set to Richard Einhorn's Lost and Found for Piano. Seemingly unhampered by her dual life as an accountant/dancer, she dances with clear, focused energy and clean lines.
Kristin Licata. Photo: Steven Pisano
Lesser celebrates her anniversary with a bare-bones ode to persistence, as though spent by her decades of experimenting with contemporary issues, creating elaborate multimedia worlds, and commissioning composers. Five young dancers appear live on stage, performing solos, trios, and group pieces in short multimedia dances, as well as in video interviews filmed often vertically on iPhones. A thread of nostalgia for the 1970s appears in a recurring move — a slow developpé with arms lifted in triumph.
Given her experience intersecting technology and the arts, as she did with her TRAP IST, FUNDING THE ARTS, and RUNNING BACKWARDS ON THE TREADMILL, Lesser surprises us with documentary footage shot without cinematography or lighting, as though the video was destined for YouTube, not for a large screen. Neither the interviews nor the style or presentation provides a new spin, at least for a dance audience in NYC who were also isolated during the pandemic. Many dancers, whether professional or amateur, kept each other amused by exchanging iPhone videos of site-specific choreographies (such as those in the bedroom, bathroom, or kitchen) and collaborations, often splitting the screen with graphic invention.
In 2006, Lesser choreographed I AM A DANCER about the plight of dancers coping with injuries and a sketchy future, even though optimism about the arts prevailed. In 2020, the shock of COVID-19 shut us down. Now, in 2025, US artists, humanitarian workers, and scientists are wide-eyed as they are force-fed news of federal defunding. Celebrating the gumption of dancers doing a daily barre on their patio during the pandemic seems quaint in light of today's existential turmoil.
