Playspaces Digital Playbill

Playspaces is a virtual variety show produced by People Play Dance Theatre, celebrating movement in unconventional spaces. Each featured work was created or filmed outside traditional stage spaces.

The artists of Playspaces explore how physical expression transforms ordinary environments into sites of imagination. Each piece reveals the human body’s ability to play, adapt, and create meaning wherever it moves.

Premiere Link:

A Note from the Artistic Director

Welcome to Playspaces.

I have always been drawn to site specific works, whether improvised or carefully choreographed. There is something special about discovering how bodies and places respond to one another, how the texture of a wall or the sound of gravel can shape a performance.

My background as an archaeologist and anthropologist has a lot to do with that fascination. I have spent years studying how people leave traces in the world and how the world in turn shapes the stories we tell. Movement, for me, is a way to experience a place. Every gesture digs into the history of a space, uncovering something human, ephemeral, and beautifully unrepeatable.

Playspaces is a celebration of those discoveries. Each artist in this program has transformed an ordinary location into something alive with meaning and motion. Together, they remind us that art does not need a stage, only presence, curiosity, and a willingness to play.

Thank you for being here and for watching with an open heart.

With gratitude,
Nicole Rudder
Artistic Director, People Play Dance Theatre

Our Program

INTRODUCTION

Dancer/Editor: Nicole Rudder

Camera Operator: Jonathan Rudder

Company: People Play Dance Theatre

Underline

UNDERLINE is an abstract dance film that explores the liberation found in rejecting conformity and embracing the unexpected beauty of imperfection. Through a seamless blend of contemporary movement and visceral imagery, the film follows a solitary dancer navigating a stark, monochrome space — a world defined by control, order, and invisible expectations.

As the piece unfolds, the dancer’s body becomes a living canvas. A single magic marker begins to scrawl across her skin, at first hesitantly, then with increasing confidence — chaotic lines, curves, symbols, and color where there was once only blankness. Each new mark disrupts her polished, rehearsed movements, throwing her off balance. But instead of resisting, she surrenders to the evolving design. Her dance becomes looser, more impulsive, more human.

“Coloring outside the lines” becomes more than an artistic rebellion — it becomes a metaphor for life lived authentically. The film asks: What if our flaws are not blemishes but brushstrokes?

Director/Choreographer: Marissa Mahoney

Camera Operator/Editor: Mallory Siegenthaler

Company: RISSTHEMOVEMENT

Music:“Ramona” by SupaDupa

Instagram: @rissthemovement, @marissa_mahoneyy

In My Mind

This piece explores the constant presence of dance in our everyday lives. Choreography lingers in the mind even when we are not in the studio or on stage. It reflects the restless creativity of dancers who never stop imagining, composing, or embodying new possibilities through motion. This work celebrates the idea that movement and artistry are never separate from who we are. Through improvisation, I explore what it would be like to dance through life and bring to life the dancer that many of us only ever see in our minds.

Dancer/Editor: Amanda Martz

Music: Je te laisserai des mots by Patrick Watson

Instagram: @amandamartz_

Life as we know it

The video is based on the corona pandemic, and is about the virus, isolation and restrictions. We were told about so many restrictions from different places, and while everyone was overwhelmed, we were united in our loneliness. The most important thing was that we felt apart from each other, we didn’t cough into our hands, and our mouths and noses were covered. It was as if our hands and mouths were the most dangerous thing ever, and in the midst of this chaos, the word skin hunger covered up our loneliness everywhere. The video has a touch of tragic-comic approach, as it was all so intense that it was difficult to relate to.

Performer: Amalie Jasim

Music:Chino Amobi – Petina

Pushed | Pulled

In life, we go through moments that can shape us, define us, and change our course. We can choose to stay where it’s comfortable or grow into the next version of ourselves; almost grieving a version of who we thought we were to allow for the rebirth of who we are meant to become. The choice is yours: stay pulled to the life you have now or push yourself for more.

Performer: Heather Cagle

Filmmaker: Michael Ludwig

Additional Editing: Nicole Rudder

Music: November – Max Richter

Instagram: @heathercagle @sweat_and_sizzle

INTERMISSION- 3 Minutes

Taqsim at Sunset

Phaedra Darwish improvised baladi dance movement at sunset in the Grand Tetons to an improvised taqsim performed by Marwan Kamel on buzuq. A taqsim is an improvised Melody composed on the spot based on a musical mode in Arabic music. A buzuq is a tradition Middle Eastern stringed instrument.

Performer: Phaedra Darwish

Company: Bellydance by Phaedra

Music: Taqsim/Marwan Kamel

Filming and Editing: Phaedra Darwish

Music recording and Editing: Marwan Kamel

Instagram: @chicagoRAQS

Waiting

This is a collection of aesthetic clips, self-filmed in a hotel room. I loved the look of the chair, and spent some time exploring my body in relation to the shape and texture.

Performer: Nicole Rudder

Company: People Play Dance Theatre

Music: In 3 · Godmode

Instagram: @peopleplaydancetheatre

Vessel

This is an improv I did that I am very proud of. It is me exploring and reveling the new range of motion and freedom of expression I have developed as a disabled and neurodivergent movement artist. I am interested in exploratory movement especially for the means of discovering freedom and coming into oneself. I consider myself to be a poet first, so my movement practice mainly involves evoking emotional connection and engagement in the audience.

Performer: Maya Anuligo (Founder and Artistic Director of The Observed Observer)

Additional Editing: Nicole Rudder

Music: “it was then that i ”- Feeo

Instagram: @movementbymaya @theobservedobserverevents @moja_ve

Goddess

Goddess is the product of two friends who rely on one another for play, inspiration, and creation. The work takes place in an apartment kitchen among personal collections, and a dog. The work was inspired by Laufey’s song Goddess. As the dancer glides across the floor, the boundaries between performer, filmmaker, and audience blur as the dance becomes a shared creation. What began as a performance becomes a quiet study of perception, intimacy, and the act of seeing itself.

Film: Jay Adams

Performer: Corie Altaffer

Music: Goddess by Laufey

Instagram: @_forplacementonly, @corieograph