Treeline Dance Works

Treeline Dance Works is a NYC and Phoenix-based performance co-op under the direction of Lyndsey Vader and Jenny Showalter. It is the mission of Treeline DW to honor the creative voices and artistic input of its multiple collaborators through joint investment in movement research.

With an emphasis on an open feedback forum, this collaborative entity entangles juxtapositions in movement, intermingling the quirky with the athletic, the subtle with the explosive, and the personal with the universal. The company creates kinetically charged works rooted in the wellspring of deeply intimate memories, thoughts, and encounters.

TreelineDW has been presented in over 32 venues across the United States including the Ailey Citigroup Theater, 92nd St. Y, Manhattan Movement and Arts Center, Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre, and the Merce Cunningham Studio. In 2011, the company made its international debut at Les 7eme Rencontres UPPAdance in Paris, France, with additional international performances at the Abundance International Dance Festival in Karlstad, Sweden. Choreography by the artistic co-directors has been set on Perpetual Motion Modern Dance Oklahoma, INC., Grand Valley State University, University of Buffalo, Western Illinois University, and Ball State University.

Touring Programs

4 – 8 dancers
Mixed repertory programs are comprised of any two of the choreographic works listed below. Total running time of program is 65-minutes with a 15-minute intermission:

Caged Until
Choreography: Jenny Showalter, Artistic Co-Director
A work inspired by an original score from world commissioned composer Daniel Felsenfeld and the collection of short stories Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing, by Lydia Peelle. Thematically grounded in personal and collective responses to bullying, the work explores pack mentality and the impact of purposefully built chaos. The work can be performed with recorded audio or with the live accompaniment of two violinists and one cellist.

Parade of Exaggerated Memories
Choreography: Jenny Showalter, Artistic Co-Director
Takes the viewer through a procession of recollections -presented as independent frames, together, they form the complete picture. The work explores four women’s interpretations of each other’s stories by recalling kinesthetic and emotional periods that seep into episodes of their present lives. Through these overlapping stories the passing of time is symbolized.

A Thousand Faces Within
Choreography: Lyndsey Vader, Artistic Co-Director
Inspired by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a literary work that dissects the fundamental structure of myth and the journey of the archetypal hero. The work physicalizes Campbell’s notion of the monomyth, or simply put, the stages that comprise the hero’s tale. These stages include: Departure (the quest’s calling), Initiation (the journey itself), and Return (re-entry into the ordinary world). The dance unfolds alongside three 4-foot moveable wheat fields that define the “place” within the journey. 

Unearthed Moments
Choreography: Lyndsey Vader, Artistic Co-Director
Chronicles World War II stories as scribed in Lewis Huber’s memoir. The work questions how written, verbal, and bodily histories are expressed through dance, while simultaneously recognizing that choreographing and creating shapes is history in the present. Unearthed Moments premiered as a forty-minute work for mobile audiences. The work can be performed with or without mounds of sand that are separated into the five coded beaches representative of D-Day. When performed in intimate theaters or untraditional performance venues, each audience member is left with an envelope addressed to “whom I wish to never forget.” The envelope contains prompts about reliving, storing, and recalling memory. The work includes spoken text derived from Huber’s memoirs.