Light Labor

2nd Best Dance Company blends humor and tragedy while tackling big topics through “rigorous, inventive movement and wit” (Dance Magazine). The company brings its signature style to Red Hook with a physically rigorous, sometimes virtuosic, almost always slapstick work entitled Light Labor.

This evening-length work walks the fuzzy, shag-carpet line between dance performance and narrative play, leaning into both text and movement to wonder how we handle the inevitable. Does the inevitable require speed? Practice? Does it come back easily, like riding a bike? Through the lens of an intimate relationship, the work considers an unknown future as a menace and a relief. A future we are all in, together. Join us in this search for enlightenment, but no promises we will get anywhere.

The performers–Annie Morgan and Channce Williams–cycle through absurd games, unmetered time, accidental violence, and, sometimes, honest care to grapple with the unknown and build their own peculiar world.

Hannah (she/her), awarded Dance Magazine’s ‘25 to Watch’ in 2020, graduated summa cum laude from SUNY Purchase, earning a BFA in Performance and Composition and a minor in Arts Management. While at Purchase, Hannah performed in works by Adam Barruch, Aszure Barton, Larry Keigwin, Rosalind Newman, Claire Porter, and Nicole Wolcott in addition to one semester dancing abroad at the Beijing Dance Academy. Since graduating, Hannah has worked with Doug Varone, Raja Feather Kelly, Sue Bernhard Danceworks, Megan Williams Dance, and Rovaco Dance Company in venues such as The Joyce Theater, New York City Center, and New York Live Arts. Her work as 2nd Best Dance Company has been commissioned by GroundWorks DanceTheater, Gibney’s ‘dance-mobile’ series, Triskelion Arts, Kizuna Dance, GALLIM x CreateArt, musical artists (Snail Mail, Frankie Cosmos, and Half Waif), the Hartt School, and SUNY Purchase, among others. In addition to her performing work, Hannah finds a creative home in teaching: she is currently on the dance faculty of SUNY Purchase and Gibney Dance Center. She also sits on the Bessie Selection Committee for 2023-2024. Hannah is deeply affected by the weather and how the trains are running. Recent credits for Hannah's choreography, which “tackles topics like death and queer identity through rigorous, inventive movement and wit” (Lauren Wingenroth, Dance Magazine), include residencies at GALLIM and Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, movement direction for Snail Mail band (Valentine European tour, 2022), and a new evening-length production commissioned by Gibney.

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