The Wendy Osserman Dance Company will celebrate its 50th anniversary with the world premiere of Echo Glass, running Feb. 5–7 at 7:30 p.m. at Danspace Project in St. Mark’s Church in Manhattan.

The new work, developed through an ongoing collaboration between composer Concetta Abbate and the company, anchors a milestone season for the long-running New York-based ensemble. Choreographed by Wendy Osserman in collaboration with dancers Cori Kresge and Hui Wang Zhang, Echo Glass brings movement and live music into close dialogue, with each shaping the structure, timing and texture of the other.

Abbate’s live score — performed with vocalists Jimmy Kraft, Judette Elliston and Damon Hankoff — draws inspiration from echolocation techniques and the ways partially sighted individuals experience the world through sound and vibration. Rather than serving as accompaniment, the music functions as an active presence, resonating through bodies and architecture and transforming sound into a spatial and perceptual force.

Together, the choreography and music invite audiences to experience performance in a multisensory way, encouraging them to “listen” with their bodies and consider alternative approaches to perception, connection and presence. The work reflects the company’s five-decade commitment to experimentation, collaboration and embodied inquiry.

Founded in 1976, the Wendy Osserman Dance Company has been presented at venues including the 92nd Street Y, DanceNow at Joe’s Pub, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Dixon Place, Dance Theater Workshop, Joyce SoHo, Symphony Space, La MaMa and Theater for the New City. The company has toured nationally and internationally, performing and teaching at colleges, schools and festivals, and is known for choreography that explores the complexity of personality and human relationships.

Collaboration has long been central to the company’s artistic identity. Over the years, Osserman has worked closely with composers and musicians such as Iva Bittová, Skip La Plante, Harry Mann, Victor Lewis and Abbate, as well as visual artists including Illya Azaroff, Charles Hinman, Sarah Olson, Ken Laser and Sanya Kantarovsky.

Influenced by her early experience with Kei Takei’s Moving Earth in the 1970s, Osserman is known for setting tasks for herself and her dancers that border on the impossible — such as exploring the tension between wanting to touch and resisting touch. These challenges generate movement that is at once literal and metaphorical, blending physical rigor with emotional and political subtext.

With Echo Glass, the Wendy Osserman Dance Company honors its past while looking forward, marking 50 years of artistic risk-taking with a premiere that reflects the depth of its collaborative spirit and its enduring role in New York’s contemporary dance landscape.

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