The World Premiere of Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary dance artists Steven Atwater and Thomas Ford’s “In Search of an Exit” will take place at the Sierra Madre Playhouse on Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18, 2025 at 7:30 pm. “In Search of an Exit” explores experiences of being pushed to the margins, amplifying individual and collective needs for belonging. Tickets are on sale now HERE.
Atwater and Ford are relatively new to Los Angeles but their work is known to many on the east coast and elsewhere. Partners in life as well as on the stage, their work has been presented at prominent venues including the Joyce Theater and the Kennedy Center. To see their full bios, please click on their names in the first paragraph.
“InItsWake” by Steven Atwater and Thomas Ford – Photo by Rose Eichenbaum.
Because “In Search of an Exit” opens this coming weekend, the performers are very busy with rehearsals. Thomas Ford, however, agreed to answer a few question that I sent via email.
LADC: Talk about where and how the two of you began working together.
Ford: I met Steven when I moved to New York City in 2007, at his invitation to create work for his students—at the time, he directed a dance studio on Long Island. We connected immediately, especially around our shared commitment to wanting to give young people a robust dance education and around our love for theater and experimental art. I think our love of theater really shows up in our work. Over time, our collaboration grew closer on a personal and creative level. We’re now married and have been officially making dances together since 2016. It’s been pretty incredible to see how our work has evolved; each year, we become a bit more daring, a bit less fearful of the “what-if’s”.
LADC: What was the inspiration for “In Search of an Exit”?
Ford: A common theme throughout our work has been solitude—feeling unseen, disconnected. But over time, we’ve realized that we’re not just reconciling our past experiences of isolation; we’re actually centering something more cultural and political: otherness. What does it mean to be othered on a systemic level, and how does one navigate that reality? Through that lens, this work takes aim at a lot of inherited weight: the labor of shedding identities imposed by dominant culture, especially those forged through the subjugation and oppression of Black bodies. It’s about queer futurism and the radical act of imagining tomorrows that transcend normative social expectations. But it’s also about community, which features prominently in the final two acts. The show is a rollercoaster.
Thomas Ford and Steven Atwater – Photo courtesy of Steven Atwater and Thomas Ford.
LADC: I was intrigued by this statement in your press release. “Atwater and Ford use original sound scores, technology spanning mediated forms, and emergent movement vocabularies inspired by historically ostracized bodies and sci-fi folklore to build worlds in which the social, cultural and political entangle with the aesthetics of their collective histories.” Explain how this is utilized in this work.
Ford: This statement represents a broad overview of our body of work. I’ve loved sound engineering since I was a kid. I taught myself how to use a program called WavePad to edit and mix music around 10 years old, and that practice has since grown into creating soundscapes for my work with Steven. But sometimes, existing sound serves as the jumping-off point for our work. That was the case with “In Search of an Exit”. It felt important to draw on existing music for this work. For marginalized communities, much of what exists in collective memory has been shaped by dominant narratives. By using existing material and sort of reframing it, the goal was to reclaim authorship, to say, “This is ours, too, and now we get to tell it differently—yes, from the margins, but inside our truth and imagination.”
“InItsWake” by Steven Atwater and Thomas Ford – Photo by Rose Eichenbaum.
As far as technology, we design our own projections that cast imagery onto scrims and cycs, bodies and the stage. I think the incorporation of media can help to create a world that both contextualizes the work and highlights the idiosyncrasies of our approach to movement. We find it fascinating how the right media introduced at the right moment can shape how space and narrative are perceived in real time.
We’re also fascinated with sci-fi. There’s not an alien movie I’ve met that I haven’t loved, ha! I’ve always taken to how aliens move—they’re power and fierceness, so I use them as a way of accessing sensation and movement that exists beyond the contours of the human body. There’s certainly also something to be said about how aliens are treated in the media. They are the “others”, and that’s always resonated with both Steven and me on a deep level.
LADC: What is the music for “In Search of an Exit”?
Ford: The work features a mix of artists. A little soul/funk, a little Afro-Cuban, a lot of freeform sound, an aria. These sounds have a cultural and political dimension to them, which is maybe more evident in the way they’ve been woven into the themes of this work. For me, they’ve evoked feelings of resistance and joy and sorrow and celebration.
“InItsWake” by Steven Atwater and Thomas Ford – Photo by Rose Eichenbaum.
LADC: Are there any other performers?
Ford: Yes—and they’re incredible! We feel deeply grateful to be collaborating with such talented artists, including Tyler Chang, Diego López, Enzy-J’var Martin, Sophia Oddi, Ryann Simone and Xavier Williams. The cast is predominantly made up of people of color, which is something we’re committed to prioritizing in our work.
LADC would like to thank Thomas Ford for taking time from his busy schedule to give our readers a better insight into “In Search of an Exit.”
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WHAT: Sierra Madre Playhouse’s Dance @ the Playhouse Features the World Premiere of “In Search of an Exit” with Interdisciplinary Dance Artists Steven Atwater and Thomas Ford
WHEN:
Saturday, May 17, 2025, 7:30 PM
Sunday, May 18, 2025, 7:30 PM
WHERE: Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 West Sierra Madre Boulevard, Sierra Madre, CA 91024
TICKETS AND INFORMATION: $12 – $35, (626) 355-4318, www.sierramadreplayhouse.org
Written by Jeff Slayton for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: Thomas Ford in “InItsWake” – Photo by Rose Eichenbaum.
