LIFE IS DANCE, DANCE IS DEATH, LIFE IS DANCE WITH DEATH: THE ART OF MORIAH EVANS

MOMUS
OCTOBER 2, 2026

“The title for Moriah Evans’s newest dance is an unsayable sign: […/+*^%<>€£¥$&@!!!!^^^]. Perhaps some sort of experimental grawlix used in place of an unknown profanity, it sprouts shards of meaning when broken into parts: unfinishedness and ongoingness (“…”); mathematical operations (“/+*^%<>”); competing regimes of value, international exchange rates (“€£¥$”); connectors and conjunctions (“&@”); excitement (“!!!!”); exponentials and insertions (“^^^”). […] Titles for contemporary dance tend to provide some sort of linguistic frame, some sort of regime of about-ness. Sometimes they point toward a motivating concept or an implied narrative world. Sometimes they place a dance within a numbered sequence, or pin it to a quirky non sequitur or cheeky joke. […] With […/+*^%<>€£¥$&@!!!!^^^], Evans sidesteps these conventions while also refusing to leave the dance untitled. […] Even before the dance begins, the title creates a miniature crisis in the relationship between dance and language, dance and world. How can a dance be talked about? How does a dance get separated from the movement of the world?” —Ethan Philbrick

[…/+*^%<>€£¥$&@!!!!^^^] is co-commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater and the Walker Art Center and supported through Moriah Evans’ 2025–2027 Vera List Center Fellowship.