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IMPRESSIONS: Megan Williams Dance Projects Presents "Visible" at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
By Miranda Stuck
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Published on June 20, 2025
Photo: Julie Lemberger
Megan Williams Dance Projects Presents Visible (World Premiere)
Choreography: Megan Williams
Dancers: Robert Mark Burke, Esmé Julien Boyce, Clarence Brooks, Janet Charleston, Réka Echerer, Chelsea Enjer Hecht, Mary Lyn Graves, Courtney Lopes, Will Noling, Emily Pope, Megan Williams
Music: Tristan Kasten-Krause (From Thin Air, Euphoria cancel, Dawn Looming from Potential Landscapes, 2020) Alexander Scriabin (Piano Preludes Opus 11, #2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 14, 16, 1888-96, and Opus 16 #1, 2, 1894-95)
Musicians: Isabelle O’Connell (piano), Tristan Kasten-Krause (bass), Brendon Randall-Myers (guitar, floor tom, pitched bowls, Zosha Warpeha (Hardanger fiddle)
Lighting Designer: Kathy Kaufmann
Costume Designer: Sarah Thea
Venue: St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery
Dates: June 5 - 7, 2025
On a blaring hot, humid Thursday evening in the East Village, a sold-out audience floods through the tall doors of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery to witness Megan Williams Dance Project in Visible, an intergenerational dance exploring how individuals reveal and conceal dimensions of their identities. With a cast of eleven dancers, including Williams herself, Visible incorporates a vast range of bodies and stages of life. Her dynamic casting and choreography explores how younger and older generations can connect, build, and learn from each other.
When Visible begins, we are immediately drawn into a calm meditation of sight and sounds. The accompaniment of four musicians — pianist, bassist, guitarist, and Hardanger fiddler — blends into a tranquil yet dynamically vivid sound score. Soft lights rise to reveal Williams and dancer Esmé Julien Boyce in front of the piano wearing deep royal blue garments. In two seemingly separate worlds, they begin executing suspensions, lengthy reaches of their arms, and gentle curvature of their backs. The remaining dancers trickle onstage in the beginning phase of the performance - each appearance is a surprise.
Williams’ movement language, although sometimes simply structured, is fascinating. She plays with oscillating formations, at times isolating one dancer from the group, other times creating multiple synchronized duets that weave in and out of each other. As Williams adds more overlap and idiosyncrasies in the choreography, the stage becomes a playground for the eye.
As the sound of Visible cycles between live accompaniment and silence, Williams makes sure the audience’s focus continues to dart around the space to keep up with every exciting image and connection. The entire cast feels like a large family, yet at the same time many dancers disappear into their own worlds, completely independent and unfazed.
Throughout Visible, Williams transforms the space of the church into a museum of dancers, both still and moving. Dancers disappear and reappear through aisles of the audience or simply sit in a corner of the church as if they are an audience member themselves. Williams’ use of non-stage space is thought provoking — even though the dancers take turns ‘performing,’ they are rarely truly offstage or unseen. Multiple times, dancers suddenly freeze in shapes independently as the group continues synchronized movement, sharply transitioning from performers to statues.
A beautifully intimate moment occurs when Williams and dancer Emily Pope become the only two remaining dancers on stage. Drawing closer, they find each other on the floor in silence. Williams pulls Pope’s arm over her shoulder and across her chest in an image that remains memorable for the rest of the performance. The gesture is so simple, yet shows the power of finding someone you can harbor emotional safety and intimacy with. Easygoing and heartfelt, they sit quietly and we begin to resonate with the unique feeling of finding home in a person rather than a place.
When it comes to partnering, Williams crafts beautifully gentle moments of levitation and space holding in which dancers lift off the floor in one position and land in another. Dancers Chelsea Enjer Hecht and Will Noling latch onto the forearm and ankle of Robert Mark Burke, who stretches to either wall in a lengthy lateral T position. The dancers’ points of contact continue to change throughout the work, sometimes lightly caressing another dancers’ arms, other times a herd of dancers unites to lift one person.
Visible in many ways symbolizes the dimensions of humanity: young, old, seasoned, and new. Williams has created a tribute with a message: dance is for everyone, no matter at what point, age, or moment in life. Through her vision she cultivates more than a body of work — she's curated a dance family who engage and embrace each other.
