Dancer, writer, and choreographer Emily Coates presents the world premiere of Tell Me Where It Comes From, a performance project commissioned by Works & Process. Spurred by George Balanchine’s brief but pivotal 1933 touchdown in Hartford, Connecticut, Coates gathered artifacts of his lingering presence in archives throughout the northeast United States. Drawing on her background as a former member of New York City Ballet, Coates creates an unexpected portrait of his choreographic legacy, working in collaboration with director Ain Gordon, performer and co-creator Derek Lucci, violinist and composer Charles Burnham, pianist Melvin Chen, lighting designer Krista Smith, and costume designers Reid & Harriet to collage far-flung remnants: unanswered letters, lost ballets, old photographs, music exercises, early muses, and more. Filled with hidden movements and quieted voices, Tell Me Where It Comes From meditates on the sparks that propel art into existence.

Coates received the School of American Ballet’s Mae L. Wein Award for Outstanding Promise and went on to perform internationally with New York City Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, Twyla Tharp, and Yvonne Rainer. Widely commissioned and critically praised, her choreographic projects transform the marginalia of archival findings, collective memory, literature, and science into new forms. A Dance Research Fellow of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division (2019) and Fellow of the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU (2016), she is a Professor in the Practice at Yale University, where she founded the program in Dance Studies.

For this project, she assembled a cross-disciplinary team of exceptional artists: Ain Gordon, a three-time Obie Award and Guggenheim Award–winning writer, actor, and director; Derek Lucci, actor, writer, director, and founder of Open Sky Inc., an award winning, innovative, skills-based acting program aimed at successful reintegration without recidivism in the New Hampshire state prison system; Charles Burnham, a leading figure in the American musical scene for more than five decades; Dr. Melvin Chen, professor in the practice of piano at the Yale School of Music and director of the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival; Krista Smith, lighting designer and interdisciplinary artist, graduate of the Yale School of Drama, and company member of KrymovLab NYC; and Reid & Harriet, who design costumes and sets for dance productions around the world.

Continue the conversation at a post-performance reception in the rotunda.

Tell Me Where It Comes From is commissioned by Works & Process. Its development included a Works & Process LaunchPAD residency at The Church in Sag Harbor, home to George Balanchine’s grave, followed by a Works & Process LaunchPAD residency at the Catskill Mountain Foundation in Hunter, New York. Additional support was provided by the Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and New England Foundation for the Arts Dance Fund. The work was created in part during a residency at the Pillow Lab at Jacob’s Pillow. Additional support was provided by the O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation.

Photo: Emily Coates, Tell Me Where It Comes From, featuring Derek Lucci, Emily Coates, and Charles Burnham. Photo: Chris Randall