HMD Presents NMLY.dance’s everyday more dystopian: entropic playground.

For Immediate Release 
Houston Met Dance | jhon r. stronks, Director of Programming 
office@metdance.org | 713.522.6375 
NMLY.dance | Nicole McNeil and Lori Yuill, Co- Artistic Directors 
nmlydance@gmail.com | 713.522.6375 

HMD Presents NMLY.dance’s everyday more dystopian: entropic playground. 

[HOUSTON, Texas, October 14th] Houston Met Dance is excited to present everyday more dystopian: entropic playground by Creative Incubation Residency Artists, NMLY.dance under the co-artistic direction of Nicole McNeil and Lori Yuill. 

everyday more dystopian: entropic playground, is a feature length multidisciplinary presentation/installation that explores themes of destruction, nature, environmental impact, and human relationships. The work invites the audience to consider “what’s next” as it traverses a dystopian landscape incited by the kinetic energy in loss. The production features projection design by Brian Buck and a collaboratively developed set installation initiated by multidisciplinary artist Katelyn Halpern’s 2 part World Building workshops that were offered in early September.

entropic playground is part of Nicole and Lori’s broader project everyday more dystopian, growing catalog of dances, performances and workshops that aim to spark a renewed interest between humans and the natural world in an effort to inspire a deeper connection to nature, fostering appreciation for its beauty, fragility and the importance of ecological awareness and sustainability. The process for this body of work takes a deep dive into the archive to revive and reprise dances and phrases that were created between 2020 and 2023 with the goal to draw out new stories and meaning. As the work evolves, each presentation is shaped by a botanical sound score and projection design. 

NMLY.dance’s choreographic process embraces entropy and acknowledges the inherent death embedded in performance. Each iterative composition is devised from a process of construction and deconstruction which shifts from presentation to presentation. entropic playground takes it’s compositional direction from previous presentations and workshops that started in December of 2023. The project propels itself forward by inviting new media artist Brian Buck onto a wider platform making visible the dystopian landscape through projection design and set installation. 

The sound score is a collision between Nicole’s desire to construct order and jhon r. stronks’ longing to better understand chaos. Nicole and jhon have a shared sonic pallet, but approach sound design from opposite directions. jhon’s sonic narration gives voice to the underlying seismic shifts and emotional turmoil that shapes the topography of the work. Nicole co-creates with the electrical tones of plants to give voice to the hope through which we discover “what’s next”. Their individual approaches give the sound score a rhythm derived from the play between harmony and dissonance.

everyday more dystopian: entropic playground runs November 15th, 22nd, 23rd, 29th and 30th 2024 @8pm. Performances take place at Houston Met Dance in the Phoenix Studio Theatre. Tickets available online at metdance.org. For more information contact office@metdance.org 

Press review tickets, photos, interviews, and access to in-person or virtual open rehearsals are available by request. 

When: 
November 15, 22, 23, 29 and 30 @ 8:00pm 

Where: 
Houston Met Dance 
Phoenix Studio Theatre 
4916 Main Street, Suite 100 
Houston, Texas 77002 

Tickets: 
www.metdance.org 
$15 through November 1
$20 November 2 – November 13
$25 At the Door *** 
***Online sale ends November 13

Photographer: Lynn Lane 

About the Artists 
(Projection and Set Design) A veteran of the Navy Brian H. Buck started dancing in College. Brian has performed in NYC, Houston, Washington DC and a variety of other places in the DC with This Body This Earth, Seize the Day, Spiral Dance Company, Daniel Burkholder/The Playground, Jane Jarardi, Jane Franklin Updraft aerial dance and the telematic works of Another Language. Brian has studied the art of improvisation through observation and contact improvisation with Daniel Lepkoff as well as other improvisational artists including Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark-Smith. Brian has developed works for the stage, for the camera and installations for various spaces. He has presented both performance work and stage designs throughout the DC area, Houston, Salt Lake City and New York City. Installation spaces have included Dance Studio’s (including Dance Exchange), Dance Forum, and Apothecary Shed, complete with a peacock! Life has a series of adventures, one after another that have engulfed

Brian’s life. “I am always eager to see where my work might go next and what might be revealed about the human condition through his artistic endeavors.” Instagram: @bhbuck2 

(Set Design) Katelyn Halpern is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and facilitator from Austin, Texas living in Jersey City, New Jersey. Trained as a dancer and writer and self-taught in other media, she works in installations, performance, multimedia visual art, and the written word on subjects of peace/not peace, intimate relationship, space dust, possibility-freedom-futures, and the experience of moving through the world in a feminine body. Hailed as a “compelling conceptual artist,” “mischief maker,” and “born searcher,” (Jersey City Times), she is a 2024 Rabbinic Arts Fellow, a 2024 Interdisciplinary Arts Finalist and 2023 Choreography Finalist with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a New Jersey Performing Arts Center Jersey New Moves Fellow (2019-2022), a Dresher Ensemble Artist in Residence (2020), Hambidge Fellow (2016), and the inaugural Choreographers in Residency Program (CHiRP) choreographer at County Prep High School (2017). She has presented at galleries, parks, sidewalks, call-in lines, and theaters including BAM Fisher, Deep Space Gallery, Gibney, NJPAC, Gallery Aferro, Philadelphia Contemporary, Omaha’s Under the Radar Festival, and San Francisco’s Switchboard Presents, and been commissioned by Jersey City’s Exchange Place Alliance. She is the founding artistic director of SMUSH Gallery, an art space dedicated to creative and community work in Jersey City. – Website: katelynhalpern.com | Instagram: @katelynhalperndotcom 

(Performer/ Choreographer/ Set and Sound Design) Nicole McNeil received her BFA in Dance and Minor in Interdisciplinary Arts from the University of Houston. While at UH, she was a member of the UH Dance Ensemble for four years and had the opportunity to work with various choreographers like: Teresa Chapman, Karen Stokes, Sophia Torres, Becky Valls, Toni Valle, Jackie Nalett, Laurie Amare, Leslie Scates, Amy Ell, Kelly Knox, jhon r. stronks, and Jennifer Wood. During and after college, she danced for Suchu and continued to work with Houston area companies and choreographers like Lori Yuill, Amy Ell, The Living Room Project, and Pilot Dance Project. In addition to project based work, she has also performed in several festivals across Texas including; American Dance Festival, Big Range Dance Festival, Fringe Festival, Texas Weekend of Contemporary Dance, Barnstorm, Mind The Gap,Texas Dance Improvisation Festival, Queer Fringe Festival, the Mix/Match Festival. Instagram: @lady_nic83 

(Performer/ Set / Sound and Lighting Design) jhon r. stronks is a queer identifying gender non conforming singer and dancer. Often their dancing is a mending practice in pursuit of expansion and evolution, while their singing carries through a mourning call in search of recognition, and reconciliation. Through their voice and movement emerges a genderqueer expression that remembers lost existences and imagines new trajectories toward the home and rest they are chasing after. jhon currently serves as the Director of Programming for Houston Met Dance (HMD) and tasked with developing new programming focused on supporting choreographic development in Houston. Additionally, jhon serves as Production Manager for Dance Source Houston (DSH), where they have helped to establish, develop and facilitate a number of capacity building programs including DSH’s Artist in Residence (AIR) program and co-presenting platform, Mind The Gap. Website: www.thereinthesunlight.com | Instagram: @jhonnielove

(Performer/ Choreographer and Set Design) Lori Yuill has been engaged in making dances for the past two decades. Her work includes ongoing research into the in-between spaces: the space between narrative and abstraction, choreography and improvisation, and between performance and rehearsal. Lori is drawn to site specific work because of the opportunity to learn from and about different places like the Flower Garden Banks off the shore of Galveston, or Finca Tres Robles a farm located in Houston’s East End where she made “Green Zebras: Moringa Madness” In addition to making dances for specific spaces, Lori has made several evening length works for the stage including “The Remembering Happens” created during a residency at Rice University. Her choreographic interests in collaboration, research and process infuse her teaching practice as well. She works with a variety of organizations to bring dance to curious movers and thinkers. At Houston Met Dance, Lori serves as the Director of Curriculum helping to cultivate a conversation about how dance is shared across age groups and across genres. Additionally, with Hope Stone she has the great pleasure to guide the residents at Village of River Oaks Memory Care Center through bimonthly dance classes, and through Performing Arts Houston Lori facilitates a creative writing and dance program for middle school students. She has worked as a facilitator for Artist Inc., a program that helps artists develop their business practices, and for Emc Arts, a program that helps nonprofits develop their adaptive capacities. Website: www.loriyuill.com |Instagram: @loriyuilldance 

Support: 
This production is presented as part of Houston Met Dance’s Made in Houston programming and supported by Houston Endowment Inc, Dance Source Houston, Texas Commission on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts and The City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. 

About NMLY.dance: 
After many years in the studio together Nicole McNeil and Lori Yuill are working collaboratively to meld their creative capacities. NMLY.dance is a convergence of their intersectional interests and individual studio practices. Intentionally they entered this collaborative venture with a desire to deepen their collaborative practice, calling on multiple voices to shape the direction of the creative act. Their goal is to entangle different artistic practices to reveal new one and rediscover old one. NMLY.dance projects explore multimedia performance using dance, projections, and sound design always with the goal of melding different perspectives in order to build new worlds for audiences to inhabit with them. @nmlydance 

About Made in Houston and Houston Met Dance 
Made in Houston is a choreographic initiative designed to establish creative development space for Houston based choreographers and support dancemakers who are looking to engage with their peers, and expand their roster of dancers while developing a supportive and informed audience for their work. With bedrock support from Houston Endowment, Houston Met Dance has been empowered to retool their 26+ year history of dance production through the company model and transition to artist centered programming that provides: Creative Residencies, Workshops, Space Grants, and Presenting opportunities that inspire the practice, creation and presentation of dance in Houston. Website: www.metdance.org |Instagram: @houstonmetdance /