John Scott Dance and Mel Mercier

Begin Anywhere

New work by John Scott and Mel Mercier
Commissioned by Irish Arts Center 

Five Solos by Merce Cunningham
By arrangement with the Merce Cunningham Trust

WORLD PREMIERE 
FEBRUARY 12–16, 2025

Five Solos by Merce Cunningham

Choreography: Merce Cunningham 

Choreography staged by: Andrea Weber (Travelogue, Sports & Diversions #3), Ashley Chen (Changeling, RainForest), Cheryl Therrien (Solo), Daniel Madoff (A Single)

Choreography arranged by: Patricia Lent

Music: John King,100tone candles 

Lighting Design: Joe Levasseur

Costumes for Antic Meet and Travelogue: After the original design by Robert Rauschenberg

Choreography by Merce Cunningham © Merce Cunningham Trust. All rights reserved.

Begin Anywhere

Choreography: John Scott

Composition: Mel Mercier and the musicians

Dancers: Vinicius Martins Araujo, Boris Charrion, Magdalena Hylak, François Malbranque, and Ryan O’Neill, with special thanks to Morgan Amirah Burns for her contributions to the creative process

Musicians: Mel Mercier, Kevin McNally, Mick O’Shea, Claudia Schwab

Cassette Tape Audio: Danny McCarthy 

Lighting Designer: Joe Levasseur 

Chief LX: Gus Papagiannis

Costume Designer: Gabriel Berry

Company Manager: Carla Fazio

Soundscore Voices: Louise Burns, Karen Eliot, Victoria Finlayson, Catherine Kerr, David Kulick, Joseph Lennon, Patricia Lent, Kristy Santimyer-Melita (former members of Merce Cunningham Dance Company); Sienna Blaw (dancer with the Merce Cunningham Trust)

Soundscore Audio Engineering: Donncha Moynihan

U.S. Production Credits

 Production Stage Manager: Tré Wheeler
Assistant Stage Manager: Hannah Lewis
Audio Engineer: Rob Byerly
Head Wardrobe: Kathe Mull
Light Board Operator: Peter Lopez

Scenic Crew: Matt Baguth, Jarod Bakum, Bryant Blackburn, Kiel Fuller, Hayden Eric, Raymond Huth, Peter Lopez

Lighting Crew: Haley Burdette, Trevor Dewey, Emily LaRochelle, Peter Lopez, Jael Hoyos, Sarazina Stein

Sound Crew: Santiago Leon, Jesse Wilen

Begin Anywhere & Four Solos is supported by Irish Arts Center, Merce Cunningham Trust, Culture Ireland, Arts Council of Ireland, Dublin City Council, Dance Ireland, and Jody & John Arnhold

A Note from John Scott

As a young dancer in Ireland, I was inspired reading about Merce Cunningham and John Cage and their writings and experimentation. When I eventually saw the company live in 1997, I was stunned by Merce’s movement language, humor, use of space, emotional power, and integrity. For Begin Anywhere, Roaratorio inspired me to use a central element of ‘duets’ or ‘pairings’ of dancers—the pairs merging into lines, clumps, and circles moving continuously through the space shared with the four musicians, like a society connecting, dissolving and reforming in new ways.

—John Scott

A Note from Mel Mercier

Performing John Cage and Merce Cunningham’s Roaratorio in the 1980s with my father and a group of Irish traditional musicians turned my known musical world inside out. Not only were we plunged into the deep end of the avant-garde, we also encountered contemporary dance—and contemporary dancers—for the first time. The whole experience radicalized my sense of what it might mean to be a musician, to be an artist. Begin Anywhere takes its inspiration from the lives and work of Cage and Cunningham. The soundscore, which is co-created with a trio of wonderful improvising musicians, finds its emotional grounding in the voices of many of the original Roaratorio dancers as they reflect on their embodied experiences of Merce’s choreography and their relationships with him. For me, it is also a song for my father, Peadar Mercier, and for fellow Roaratorio frontiersmen Joe Heaney, Liam O’Flynn, Seamus Tansey, and Paddy Glackin.

—Mel Mercier

Who's Who

Morgan Amirah Burns

​Morgan Amirah Burns (dancer), originally from Atlanta, is a multidisciplinary faith based artist. Her work acknowledges the human experience as necessary and valuable in understanding the greater than, making way for spiritual purity. A 2020 graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts Department of Dance, she trained in various styles ranging from ballet to contemporary floorwork. Composing site-specific scores, creative directing, choreographing, and performing have allowed for Morgan to create in residence with Gallim, in their Moving Women Residency, and more recently with New Dance Alliance as a Liftoff Artist. Here, she planted the seeds and developed Black Girls Who Don’t Like Watermelon Unite (2023). She was named the inaugural recipient of the Merce Cunningham Trust Barbara Ensley Award. Morgan has performed works by Wayne McGregor, Sidra Bell, Rashaun + Silas, and many others. Morgan has an ongoing collaborative practice with multidisciplinary musical artist Kilo Kish, in which they created the site-specific performance work Still Dreaming as a part of Time Square Arts Council x Woman in Windows Midnight Moment.

Gabriel Berry

Gabriel Berry (costume designer) designs costumes for theatre, dance, and opera. Specializing in the creation of new work, she has designed premieres of the works of artists including John Adams, David Adjmi, Samuel Beckett, Charles Ludlam, Caryl Churchill, Christopher Durang, Ethyl Eichelberger, Richard Foreman, The Five Lesbian Brothers, Maria Irene Fornes, John Guare, Lameece Issaq, Nick Jones, Craig Lucas, Naomi Wallace, Kia Corthron, Will Power, Marcus Gardley, Scott Z. Burns, Meredith Monk, Charles Mee, Tony Kushner, Peter Sellars, Philip Glass, Reinaldo Povod, Mabou Mines, Tennessee Williams, and Branden Jacob Jenkins. Her notable honors include Obie, Bessie, and Lucille Lotrel Awards and a silver medal from the Prague Quadrennial for her contribution to experimental theatre. Her upcoming projects include A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Stratford Festival and Stew and Heidi Rodewald’s The Total Bent for The Public Theater/NYSF.

Boris Charrion

Boris Charrion (dancer) is a French movement and performance artist. He studied at the National Superior Conservatory of Music and Dance of Lyon, where he had the opportunity to broaden his artistic horizons, notably through various collaborations with musicians, graphists, composers, and space designers. During his studies there, he has worked with different choreographers such as Eszter Salamon, DD Dorvillier, and Ashley Chen. He was also a member of SUB.LAB.PRO The Ensemble Program in Budapest where he worked with Jenna Jalonen, Máté Mészáros, Barnaby Booth, and Lander Patrick. Since then, he has been working on different projects in Dublin mostly with John Scott, Justine Doswell, and Abby Zbikowski.

Merce Cunningham

Merce Cunningham (1919–2009) was a celebrated dancer and choreographer renowned for his groundbreaking work and his profound influence on generations of dancemakers and artists. Born in Centralia, Washington, he attended the Cornish School in Seattle where he was introduced to the work of Martha Graham and met the composer John Cage who would become his closest collaborator and life partner. In 1939, Cunningham began a six-year tenure as a soloist in the Graham company and soon began presenting his choreography. In the summer of 1953, during a teaching residency at Black Mountain College, Cunningham formed a dance company to explore his innovative ideas. He choreographed 180 dances and over 700 events throughout his seventy-year career, premiering his final work at age ninety. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company remained in continuous operation until its closure in 2011, giving nearly 3000 performances in over forty countries. 

In collaboration with John Cage, Cunningham proposed a series of radical ideas including the separation of music and dance, the use of chance operations, and novel ways to utilize film and technology. He collaborated with such renowned artists and composers as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, and Takehisa Kosugi. Cunningham earned some of the highest honors bestowed in the arts including a MacArthur Fellowship (1985), a Kennedy Center Honor (1985), a Laurence Olivier Award (1985), the National Medal of Arts (1990), and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale (2005). In 2004, he was named Officier of the Legion d’Honneur. Today Cunningham’s work continues to be performed by professional and student dancers worldwide.

Magdalena Hylak

Magdalena Hylak (dancer) is a dance artist based in the west of Ireland. She is currently touring nationally and internationally with John Scott Dance (IE) and Nacera Belaza (FR), with over 170 performances in 64 venues across 12 countries to date. Since 2021, she has been developing her own body of work, where she questions the notion of performance. At the core of her research is the movement and sound outside of the question of style, genre, or technique. She is the Galway Dance Artist in Residence for 2023–2025. She is the recipient of funding from the Arts Council of Ireland, the Galway County Council, and the National Dance Residency Partnership.

Lindsey Jones

Lindsey Jones (dancer) is a dancer and herbalist based in New York City, originally from St. Louis, MO. A SUNY Purchase alum, she is a long-time member of Dance Heginbotham and Pam Tanowitz Dance. She has danced with the Trisha Brown Dance Company, Kimberly Bartosik, Sally Silvers, Bill Young, and Caleb Teicher, among others. Since 2012, she has worked regularly with the Merce Cunningham Trust on restaging and workshops, including the Bessie-award-winning Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event, at BAM and Alla Kovgan’s 3D film CUNNINGHAM. She has taught at SUNY Purchase, Marymount Manhattan, Case Western University, University of Oklahoma, and Montclair University. Jones currently teaches a weekly Cunningham Technique® class at 100 Grand St. She was a 2022 New York Public Library fellow, researching dance and ecology, and is a graduate of Arbor Vitae School of Traditional Herbalism.

John King

John King (music) is a composer, guitarist, and violist who has worked collaboratively with and been commissioned by Kronos Quartet, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, String Noise, Bang On A Can All-Stars, Avant Media, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, New York City Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Mannheim Ballett, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Würzburg Ballet, and Ballet BC. He has written several operas including ping and what is the word, with texts by Samuel Beckett; impropera, using randomly selected text messages from the singers’ cell phones; herzstück/heartpiece, with text by Heiner Müller; la belle captive with texts by Alain Robbe-Grillet; and Dice Thrown, based on the Stéphane Mallarmé poem, as well as his most recent SapphOpera, using fragments of Sappho’s poetry. At Knockdown Center in October 2018, he premiered his 4-hour long KOSMOS for string quartet and live electronics. King has worked on five productions with CultureHub involving telematic performance practices.

Joe Levasseur

Joe Levasseur (lighting designer) has collaborated with many artists including Pavel Zuštiak/Palissimo, John Jasperse, Sarah Michelson, Jodi Melnick, Jennifer Monson, Neil Greenberg, and Beth Gill. He lit Wendy Whelan's 2013 breakout Restless Creature and her subsequent collaboration with Brian Brooks, Some of a Thousand Words (2016). He has received two Bessie awards (including one with Big Dance Theater) and a Knight of Illumination Award for his work on Meredith Monk’s Cellular Songs. When not designing Levasseur also engages in a visual art practice.

François Malbranque

François Malbranque (dancer) is one of France’s rising star of contemporary dance. Born in Rom in Northern France, he developed an interest in Polish folk dance from a young age. He later studied at the Lille Conservatory and then was accepted to the Conservatoire Superieur National de Musique et de Danse de Paris. He obtained his diploma in 2021. Since graduating, Mr. Malbranque has been working with major French choreographers Boris Charmatz, Dimitri Chamblas, and Olga Dukhovna.

Vinícius Martins Araújo

Vinícius Martins Araújo (dancer) is a versatile dancer from Brazil, specializes in jazz, jazz funk, street dance, ballet, and contemporary styles. He relocated to Ireland in 2024 and has been working with John Scott, performing his choreographies, HYPERACTIVE and Actions (NOW). Vini has showcased his talent at Electric Picnic and Funtropolis and is currently teaching jazz funk and femme style at Drop Studios in Dublin. His diverse experience reflects a strong commitment to dance and artistic expression.

Danny McCarthy

Danny McCarthy (cassette tape audio) studied at the National College of Art and Design. He currently lectures in sound art, improvisation, and listening as part of the MA in experimental sound practice, University College Cork, and is a visiting lecturer and workshop facilitator in numerous other art institutions. He is a founder of both the Triskel Arts Centre and the National Sculpture Factory. In 2006 he founded The Quiet Club (with Mick O’Shea), a floating membership sound art improvisation performance group and has presented works all over Ireland and internationally including the U.S., China, Japan, Poland, Canada, Germany, and more. He founded several festivals including INTERMEDIA, Sonic Vigil, Site Of Sound, and has been a member of several groups including Strange Attractor, The Barflies Of Osaka, and Cork Free Improvisers Orchestra. A new CD with sleeve notes by David Toop and Sr. Eleanor Campion entitled Haunted By Silence is due for release on Farpoint Recordings shortly.

Kevin McNally

Kevin McNally (musician) is an Irish musician with particular interests in Javanese Gamelan, guitar, and community music. As a performer, he has played in traditional Irish music bands and rock bands, and more recently leads a community music project that encourages participatory music sessions in rural areas. He has over twenty years of experience as a music educator and workshop facilitator, creating concerts, installations, and film soundtracks. He is co-director of the Clonakilty International Guitar Festival and assistant director of the Irish Gamelan Orchestra. He teaches central Javanese Gamelan performance courses at University College Cork and the University of Limerick.

Mel Mercier

Mel Mercier (musician) is a multi-disciplinary, award-winning, Tony-nominated artist with an international reputation as a performer, composer, and sound designer. Renowned as an innovative musician, rooted in traditional music, he is committed to collaborating across art forms, music genres, and traditions. Mel is the director of the Irish Gamelan Orchestra, which released its debut album The Three Forges to critical acclaim in August 2015. In January 2019, his album of theatre scores, Testament, was released on Heresy Records. He is the director of the Irish Gamelan Orchestra, MÓNCKK new music ensemble, and PULSUS, the first Irish traditional percussion ensemble. He was lecturer/professor of music at University College Cork, Ireland, from 1992 to 2016, and professor/inaugural chair of performing arts at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, Ireland, from 2016 to 2022. 

Ryan O'Neill

Ryan O'Neill (dancer) trained at Ulster University and studied for his masters in dance performance at Laban, as part of a professional postgraduate company Transitions. Since then Ryan has worked with Maiden Voyage Dance, Off The Rails, ponydance, Tinderbox, Primecut, Oona Doherty Works, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Junk Ensemble, Panpan, Company Philip Connaughton, Coisceim, Liz Roche Company, Emma Martin/United Fall, Luke Murphy/Attic Projects, THISISPOPBABY, Michael Keegan-Dolan/Teac Damsa, Gwyn Emberton Dance, and Punchdrunk’s immersive show Sleep No More in Shanghai and The Burnt City, London. Ryan is dancer artist in residence with Luail, Irelands national dance company.

Mick O'Shea

Mick O’Shea (musician) is a member and director of the Cork Artists Collective and The Guesthouse Project, and has been instrumental in establishing a vibrant and growing sound art scene in Cork City. In 2006 he formed The Quiet Club with Danny McCarthy and in 2010 he formed the 5-piece Strange Attractor. He has performed with Rhodri Davies, The Quiet Music Ensemble, John Godfrey, Rajesh Meta, Pauline Oliveros, Karen Power, Steve Roden, Damo Suzuki, David Toop, Stephen Vitiello, Iarla Ó Lionáird, and Jennifer Walshe and has performed in UK, EU, Norway, Tasmania, USA, China, and Japan.

Gus Papagiannis

Gus Papagiannis (chief LX) is a senior technician at the Pavilion Theatre in Dublin and is originally from Greece. Currently studying at The Lir Academy, Gus specializes in modern lighting design and programming, particularly for dance performances. He has also worked as a stage manager on various productions in Ireland. His experience spans prestigious venues such as the Gaiety Theatre, as well as international productions in New York. Gus combines technical expertise with a creative vision to deliver innovative and immersive lighting experiences that enhance every production.

Claudia Schwab

Claudia Schwab (musician) is an Irish-based, Austrian violinist, singer, yodeler, and composer. She has performed on numerous recordings and collaborated with a range of cross-genre artists. She has published three CDs of original work in 2014 and 2017, and her latest solo album, Went To Walk, was released in July 2024. Her work received a variety of reviews by magazines such as FATEA, Folkworld, Songlines, and Roots. She has been commissioned to write for the National Concert Hall and has been awarded a Neuer Deutscher Jazzpreise (2019) and a Hubert Von Goisern Förderpreis (2020).

John Scott

John Scott (choreographer) is a Dublin-born choreographer, performer, founder of John Scott Dance, dancer from the Dance Festival, and member of Aosdána—an Irish affiliation of Ireland's 250 most outstanding creative artists under the patronage of President Michael D. Higgins. He studied and performed at the Irish National College of Dance/Dublin City Ballet (1982–1985) in works by Anton Dolin, Anna Sokolow, Pearl Gaden, and Babil Gandara. His choreographic works include Migration Sonata, Heroes, Evolutions, Dances for Inside and Outside, Divine Madness, Inventions, Cloud Study, Lear, Fall and Recover, and Actions, performed in Ireland and internationally at New York Live Arts, La MaMa, Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, PS 122 (New York), Dance Base (Scotland), Festival Racconti di Altre Danze (Italy), l'Espace Culturel Hermine, Les Hivernales, Centre Culturel Irlandais (France), Sounded Bodies Festival, Queer Zagreb (Croatia), Tanzmesse (Germany), and Forum Cultural Mundial (Brazil). He dances in Oona Doherty's Hard To Be Soft and danced in Meredith Monk's Quarry and for Yoshiko Chuma, Sarah Rudner, Anna Sokolow, Chris Yon, and Thomas Lehman. John was awarded the African Refugee Network's Culture Award for his work with refugees and survivors of torture and is a subject of Sadler Wells' 52 Portraits by Johnathan Burrows, Matteo Fargion, and Hugo Glendinning. He has taught at the Irish World Academy, the University of Limerick, The Body in Performance, the Drama Department at NUIG, and Drexel University in Philadelphia.

About Irish Arts Center

Founded in 1972 and based in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, Irish Arts Center is a home for artists and audiences of all backgrounds who share a passion or appreciation for the evolving arts and culture of contemporary Ireland and Irish America. We present, develop, and celebrate work from established and emerging artists and cultural practitioners, providing audiences with emotionally and intellectually engaging experiences in an environment of Irish hospitality. Steeped in grassroots traditions, we also provide community education programs and access to the arts for people of all ages and ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds. In a historic partnership of the people of Ireland and New York, Irish Arts Center recently completed construction on a fully-funded $60MM state-of-the-art new facility to support this mission for the 21st century.

Irish Arts Center Staff

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Gerrard Boyle 
Andrew Breslin
Aidan Connolly
Kristine Covillo
John S. Daly
Robert M. Devlin
Celestine Donaghy
John Duffy
Russell Gioiella
Loretta Brennan Glucksman
Shaun Kelly 
John Martin
Robert J. McCann
Shane Naughton
Sharon Patrick
James E. Quinn
Pauline Turley

STAFF 

Elise Bargman (Ticketing and Marketing Data Manager)
Zohra Coday (Programming and Education Associate)
Aidan Connolly (Executive Director)
Manuel Da Silva (Production Manager and Lighting Supervisor)
Shannon Ducey (Administrative Manager)
Fiona Farrell (Communications and Marketing Associate)
Vivian Fong (Director of Communications and Marketing)
Rachael W. Gilkey (Director of Programming and Education)
Laney Granito (Special Events Producer)
Jon Harper (Chief Operating Officer)
Anah Klate (Audience Services Manager)
Gabe Lozada (Associate Director of Development for Major Gifts)
Andy O'Reilly (Artist Services Manager)
Barry Ó Séanáin (Director of Development)
Ciara O'Shea (Communications and Marketing Associate)
Emma Reifschneider (Executive Assistant)
Jessie Reilly (Director of Education, Family and Community Programming)
Thomas Short (Stage Supervisor)
Mac Smith (Director of Production)
Pauline Turley (Vice Chair)
Dennis Walls (Director of Facility Operations)
Kestrel Wolgemuth (Associate Director of Programming)

Tehmina Anjum (Senior Accountant, NCheng)
Desaann Legzim (Senior Accountant, NCheng)
Wenbin Nie (Supervising Senior, NCheng)
Vera Wong (Senior Accountant, NCheng)

Pat Morin (Graphic Designer)
Taylor Panetti (Graphic Designer)

Blake Zidell (Public Relations Consultant, Blake Zidell & Associates) 

Maya Ryan (Communications and Marketing Intern)
Caelinn Ní Bhroin  (Development Intern)
Sarah Shanahan (Development Intern)
Matt Storti (Programming Intern)