Lincoln Center COLLIDER May Open Studios

On Thursday, May 28th, join us for an exclusive marathon celebration of five innovative artists at the vanguard of their fields exploring how technology can enhance and deepen in-person performing arts. On campus at the Samuel B. & David Rose Building, our resident artists unveil their latest research, prototypes, and works-in-progress developed during their nine months in the Collider Fellowship at Lincoln Center. 

Experience firsthand the creative ideations and artistic processes behind their work as they share excerpts and insights into their craft.

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FULL SCHEDULE & ADDITIONAL DETAILS:

Lobby will open at 11:30am, with venues opening at 11:45am, and project start times beginning at 12pm. 

The Open Studio is structured in two blocks: an Afternoon Session and an Evening Session. All the presenting artists’ works will be scheduled in both blocks. Guests are welcome to arrive, depart, and return at any time throughout the day; some drop-in activations will be ongoing while others will occur at designated times across our multiple venues*. There will be a brief check-in at the door. Please see complete details below. 

 *The event will span three venues in the Samuel B. & David Rose Building: 

• The Clark Studio Theater (7th Floor) - Cinthia Chen, Kevin Peter He, Sam Rolfes 

• The Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse (10th Floor)  

• Kaplan SOUTH: Stephanie Dinkins  

• Kaplan NORTH: James Allister Sprang 

Cinthia Chen: Solar Solace (work in progress)  
How do we connect in an increasingly alienated world? Amid climate and socio-political upheaval, this performance-activated installation explores cannibalism as a metaphor for exploitation and integration, and our collective interdependence on one another. Performers guide participants through a cycle of movement and song, transforming a central bioplastic, touch-reactive installation into a communal space for connection. 

Medium/Format: A performance and interactive bioplastic installation. Runtime: ~ 35 minutes (20 minute performance, 15 minute interactive installation). 

Collaborators:
Cinthia Chen: Lead Artist, Biomaterials, Installation & Video Projections Designer
Hilary Brown-Istrefi: Choreographer & Performer
Abigail Linnemeyer: Performer Collaborator
Heather N. Dutton: Performer Collaborator
Wren Stark Haven: Sound Designer & Composer
Eliza Carlise: Sound Studio Assistant
Michelle Wu: Creative Technologist & Project Assistant
The Ritual Division: Fabrication
Ashton Posey: Fabrication Production Manager
Asami Morita: Lighting Designer
Maya Simone Z.: Producing Consultant
Liz Peterson: Show Doula
Elizabeth Sun: Voiceover

Special Thanks: Theater Mitu, Cornell Tech (Michael Byrne, Niti Parikh, Sebastian Bidegain), Adrian Comisso, Tina Hanaé Miller, Kayla Farrish, Cameron Ringness, The Sewing Circle (Rasim Alam, Julia Balas, Al Bailin, Andrew Benincasa, Camden Goetz, Emma Fitzgerald, Danielle Kong, Loulou von Kohl, Sibonay Koo, Tina Hanaé Miller, Carlos Jaimes Noriega, Iso Vento, Ada Westfall, Annie Jin Wang)

Voiceover text sourced from: Columbus and Other Cannibals by Jack Forbes, Little Apocolypes by Kaitlyn Teer, The Psychopomp by Annie Jin Wang

Presentation & Interactive Experience in The Clark Studio Theater (7th Fl.):

• 12pm-12:45pm

• 6pm-6:45pm

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Stephanie Dinkins: Polyphonic Cosmologies: Lift Every Voice   
A participatory social experiment where many voices gather to shape shared meaning. Moving through spontaneous encounters, participants meet in dialogue, offering stories as nuanced data gifts—shared with care, held in relation, never extracted. Invited artists and collaborators informally share their creative practices throughout the space, seeding new exchanges and openings. 
Contrapuntal in spirit and polyphonic in form, this environment holds difference without collapse. Voices do not resolve into one; they move alongside, in tension and rhythm, expanding what can be known together. A returning aria reminds us that a single voice can rise and be held within the many. 
Functioning as an open AI.Assembly, this work invites participants into the collective shaping of systems, stories, and futures. We are not observers here—We are participants. 
Through presence, exchange, and care, we build worlds—together. 

Medium/Format: Participation and sovereign presence as world-building infrastructure, in active relation with AI systems shaped, contested, and redirected collectively. 

Collaborators:  
Chloe Alexandra Thompson – Audio 
Genel Ambrose - Producer/Contributor 
Sam Appiah -- Piano 
Trisha Barton 
Driely Carter -- Photography/Video 
Talu Green – Djembe 
Innergalactic (Danielle McPhatter, Errol King, Tony Patrick, Peta-Gay Clarke) 
Kinfolk Tech 
Jan Melara 
LaJuné McMillian 
Maya Williams 
Sam Rose Williams - Mezzo Soprano  
Lauren Ruiz - Admin 

Drop-in from 2:30pm-7:45pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, SOUTH (10th Fl.) 

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Kevin Peter He: Vestige (work in progress) 
Vestige is a multimedia dance-theatre work about presence, absence, and the ways technology changes how bodies remain connected. The piece builds a duet across several forms: physical contact, mechanical extension, remote motion capture, and virtual embodiment. 
For Kevin Peter He, the screen is not a backdrop but a live space: a cinematic body that watches, responds, and becomes part of the choreography. Vestige asks what remains of human connection when the body is translated through apparatus, image, and code. 
The motion capture volume outside the theatre is part of the work’s larger system. During the performance, it allows a remote body to enter the stage as a live digital presence. Outside of performance times, audiences are invited to encounter and try the system themselves. 
Vestige is currently in development with its premiere at Southbank Centre in September. 

Medium/Format: Dance-theatre performance with human movement, sensor-based armature, live motion capture, remote presence, and sound. Runtime ~38 minutes 

Collaborators: 
Kevin Peter He - Director, Producer, Digital Artist 
Mio Ishikawa - Performer, Choreographer 
Ben Green - Performer, Choreographer 
Robert Ruth - Lead Engineer 
Eric Chang - Technical Director 
Alex Baumann - Animation Director, Technical Artist 
Maxwell Neely-Cohen – Dramaturg 
Elanur Erdogan - Costume Designer 
Brandon Liew – Designer 
Austin Yeap - Production Designer 
Yung-Hung Sung & Neil Qiu - Lighting Designer 
Fitnesss – Composer 
 
Supported by - Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Onassis ONX, WLab, NYU Tandon, ZeroSpace 

Performances in The Clark Studio Theater (7th Fl.)

• 1:45pm-2:30pm

• 7:45pm-8:30pm

Interactive Motion Capture Installation: Drop-in between performances in the 7th Fl. Lobby 

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Sam Rolfes: Mustang Speedrun [Story Prototype] 
Mustang Speedrun is Team Rolfes' flagship project, in development during the Collider program, depicting a surreal world of semi-virtual showbiz as it struggles for survival inside the heart of a monolithic military apparatus. The 'story prototype' depicts two siblings piloting a decommissioned mech across a Southwestern frontier, chasing glory in a cutthroat competition where the tech used to dazzle the crowd is repurposed from the same defense and surveillance networks that define daily life. 
The project, designed as touring 'club theatre' performance and eventual downloadable experience and audience-interactive vignette series, runs on what Team Rolfes and their colleagues call 'embodied technology': motorized racing sim chairs, motion capture, VR puppetry, rolling LED panels, and live camerawork. These tools, like those in the world of Mustang, are treacherously intertwined with the growing surveillance and military state — the latest expression of a frontier ideology that wraps expansion and control in the language of progress. 

Medium/Format: Real-Time 3D Game Engine, Motion Capture, VR Puppetry. Runtime ~ 40 minutes. 

Collaborators: 
Concept & Direction by Sam Rolfes & Andy Rolfes 
Written by Jacob Bakkila, Adapted by Sam Rolfes & Andy Rolfes 
A & Z Played by Erin Noll & Frankie Placidi 
Broadcast Host: Jacob Bakkila 
Pump Jockey Voice: Sam Rolfes 
Narrator: JC Martin 
MoNA Design: S.A. Mayer 
Environmental & Logic Design: Robert Ruth 
Responsive Sound Design: Matthew Gantt 
FX & Scenic Design: Ben Adman 
Pump Jockey & Cop Design: Alex Baumann 
Soundtrack by Petal Supply & Fitnesss, with additional soundtrack support by James Ginzberg & Gonçalo Peñas 

Special Thanks to Lincoln Center, Soft Centre, & ZeroSpace NYC 

Performances in The Clark Studio Theater (7th Fl.):

• 3:15pm-4:00pm

• 9:15pm-10:00pm

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James Allister Sprang: Audiovisual Works and Spatial Sound 
James Allister Sprang invites you into the studio and into his work with 4DSound, a rare immersive audio system that renders sound in three dimensions. Only six 4DSound systems exist worldwide; Sprang is the only artist of color to own and regularly create with one.
His Open Studio sharing includes two Listening Sessions for Rest Within the Wake (50 minutes). Vocalist Nio Levon will be accompanied by a spatialized orchestral spiritual jazz score featuring 17 instruments, including first-chair orchestra players, world-class jazz musicians, and Grammy Award-winning choral artists. The piece was originally commissioned by Baryshnikov Arts, and has been presented at the Concertgebouw, ICA Maine, and others. 
Additionally, throughout the day, James will be sharing excerpts from his work-in-progress, LIME (working title), an evening length composition with narration and photographs created during travel to international Caribbean carnivals.  

Medium/Format:  
- Rest Within the Wake: Listening session featuring live performance Runtime ~50 minutes
- LIME (working title): printed photographs and video Drop-In Experience

Collaborators: 
James Allister Sprang, composer and artist 
Nio Levon, vocalist, Rest Within the Wake 
Arielle M. John, voice over: LIME 
Brendan McGeehan, Audio Engineer 
Michael Hernandez, Audio Engineer  
Cory Seals, Stage Manager 
ShowShow, Producer  
Producer Hub, Fiscal Sponsor  

For full Rest Within the Wake credits, visit jamesallistersprang.com/work/rest-within-the-wake 

Listening Sessions: Rest Within the Wake 

• 12:30pm - 1:30pm 

• 8:15pm - 9:15pm 

Open Studio: Drop-in anytime from 2:00pm - 3:45pm and 5:00pm - 6:30pm to speak with James and learn more about spatialized sound and LIME, his current work-in-progress. 

All in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, NORTH (10th Fl.) 

​2025-2026 Collider Artists: Cinthia Chen, Stephanie Dinkins, Kevin Peter He, Rashaad Newsome, Sam Rolfes, and James Allister Sprang

The Collider Fellowship at Lincoln Center  
Open Studios on Thursday, May 28th from 12:00pm-10:00pm 
165 W. 65th Street, 7th and 10th Floors
New York, NY 10023