On Friday, June 26, 2026 dance theater artists Laurel Jenkins, Sarah Leddy and alexx schilling came together for a one-night-only performance of DANCE BAND: On the Verge at Stomping Ground L.A. The sold-out show read as a creative reunion for this trio, who describe DANCE BAND as (among other things) “a performance practice established years ago when we all lived in Los Angeles, danced in each other’s work, and trained with choreographer-performer Ros Warby.”
Unlike many academically informed artist statements, which can feel difficult to parse, or disconnected from what the audience perceives, the DANCE BAND project description explains exactly what the artists did on Friday night: “[had] an ongoing performance conversation….about motherhood, fascism, and ageing dancing female bodies….inviting humor, vulnerability, and full-throttled rage dancing.”
Dance Band: On the Verge – Cheryl Ashbury, Cheryl Banks-Smith, Julieta Garza, Sarah Leddy, Elle Lewis, Carol McDowell, Alicia Moseley, Sára Raušalová, and Edwin Sigüenza in “#OMGODDESS”, Choreography by Sarah Leddy – Photo by Daniel Stamm.
The show begins with Sarah Leddy’s #OMGODDESS, an ensemble piece to an eclectic sound score that ranges from choral music to German Punk. (Music: Kali Malone& Etienne Ferchaud, Don Nichols, Acht Eimer Hühnerherzen and London Dance Collective.) The title suggest a cheeky comment on internet culture or watered down spirituality, but the material is unironic, alternating between earnest reverence and rage. Leddy is obviously interested in joining all kinds of bodies on stage, as her cast is multigenerational, with varying degrees of formal training.
Dance Band: On the Verge – Sarah Leddy and Edwin Sigüenza in “#OMGODDESS”, Choreography by Sarah Leddy – Photo by Daniel Stamm.
As the piece begins, the ensemble dressed in black (Costume support by Kay Barbera) builds a human sculpture garden in silence. Then, three performers begin to wander and imitate the others, in regal postures all over the floor. The performed imitation suggests meaning, but it is unclear how this connects to the next section, during which Leddy thrashes and travels across the floor alone, long limbs flicking vigorously. In this section, she repeatedly returns to a parallel second position and trembles from foot to crown. Her gaze is confrontational but the thrashing seems to serve personal catharsis more than aggression toward the audience. At one point she tumbles to the floor, and it’s hard to tell if the fall is intentional. If the goal is catharsis, I’m not sure it matters either way. In the final section, dancers Sára Raušalová and Edwin Sigüenza repeat circular passes of more technically demanding movement, while Leddy ends up in a plaid flannel shirt that marks her as different from the group. Raw emotionality and strong articulation of space make this piece satisfying, but it’s difficult to sense the throughline across the work’s three sections.
The cast of #OMGODDESS was Cheryl Ashbury, Cheryl Banks-Smith, Julieta Garza, Sarah Leddy, Elle Lewis, Carol McDowell, Alicia Moseley, Sára Raušalová, and Edwin Sigüenza.
Dance Band: On the Verge – alexx shilling in “Cloud State: Solo Study, Choreography by shilling – Photo by Daniel Stamm.
Next on the program is Cloud State: Solo Study, with choreography, performance and text by alexx shilling; music by Ingram Marshall. The lights come up on shilling in a bell-shaped, floor length garment stage right. She slaps her thigh to punctuate rhythmic, spoken text that refers to different colored “states,” making an allusion to the electoral map. With a cadence somewhere between spoken word poetry and nursery rhyme, the text moves associatively between ideas, but always re-grounds with the word “state.” The script turns aspirational, dreaming of “a state that cares for us, a state that holds us,” and then schilling lands on “cloud state” which initiates a transition. From here, language distorts into gasps expressed through the whole body with dramatic shapes. Ultimately, this sequence of wordless sounding and shape-making expands into traveling movement, highlighting schilling’s fluidity, groundedness, and clear command of her instrument. I couldn’t help but wonder if for schilling, clouds represent symbolic medicine in dark times.
Dance Band: On the Verge – Laurel Jenkins in “Dawning”, Choreography by Jenkins – Photo by Daniel Stamm.
Next, Laurel Jenkins dances alone in her piece, Dawning, which lasts the length of one song – “Minnesota,” by Mick Flannery and Anaïs Mitchell. Here the choreography is simple. Jenkins faces the audience center stage for the duration of the piece, in a second position plié. She creates an ongoing pulse by shifting her weight from one foot to the other, which almost makes it look like she is bouncing on horseback. Jenkins then accumulates a series of upper body gestures, all while maintaining the repetitive weight transfer. There’s a sadness to this dance, but the unrelenting weight shift also suggests the will to keep on keeping on. Choreographic simplicity leaves space to pay attention to the song, whose first lyric is the word “Minnesota.” This links Jenkins’ solo to schilling’s “states” and calls to mind recent events in Minneapolis. About this song, Mick Flannery said he was “inspired by what…. appears to be an evermore fractured and polarized American society.” Dawning feels like thematic thread that ties the program together and diversifies the emotional tone.
Dance Band: On the Verge – Laurel Jenkins, Sarah Leddy, and alexx shilling in “On the Verge” , Choreography by Jenkins, Leddy and shilling – Photo by Daniel Stamm.
The title work On the Verge closes the program on a high note, with effective humor, pathos and a little lite transgression. This dance theater trio created and performed by Leddy, Jenkins and schilling scrambles topics like giving birth and the similarities between perimenopause and fascism. At one point, schilling and Jenkins wrap Leddy in blue fabric until she looks vaguely like the Statue of Liberty, while giving themselves a semi-silly, whispered pep-talk. All three artists shine in this collaboration, which gives the finale a very “The-whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts” kind of vibe. A few times during On the Verge I felt I’d recently seen the same creative concept elsewhere – like when the trio performs an improvised score while talking about the score-making in real time. Or when they don sparkly jackets and dance to a song from Flashdance, which contrasts post-modern dance vocabulary and compositional structures. But each time I thought I knew what I was looking at or felt inclined to categorize an idea as trope-y, the material morphed into something unexpectedly hilarious or tender. (Music: Pole, Terekke, Irene Cara, Shigeru Umebayashi.)
DANCE BAND has the flavor of worn-in friendship, history and a shared creative sensibility. These three artists come across as playful and skilled compatriots who want to get together and jam, just like (you guessed it) musicians in a band. On a more serious note, it is refreshing to witness art that centers the experiences of mid-life, in a youth obsessed culture, and an even more youth obsessed industry.
The Lighting Designer for DANCE BAND: On the Verge was Pablo Santiago.
Written by Annie Kahane for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: Dance Band: On the Verge – (L-R) Sarah Leddy, alexx shilling, Laurel Jenkins in On the Verge , Choreography by Jenkins, Leddy and shilling – Photo by Daniel Stamm.
