21 Yeses is a dance of light and void, a theatrical form of sensory perception that soothes and mesmerizes as it awakens into a luminous hyperdream. Taking on the tech-aesthetic of a space odyssey, New Dialect plays with hi-grade electricity, the presence of absence, and the geometries of choreography to encounter light as a sentient form of movement and darkness itself as an action, a vast stillness. 

21 Yeses premieres this month at Tennessee Performing Arts Center on November 22, 23, 24. Combining the practice of contemporary dance with lighting technologies borrowed from the concert industry, choreographer Banning Bouldin and production designer Michael Brown (Bon Iver) create an experience where motion and light capture and release one another inside the awe of an endless distance. 

Throughout the piece, dancers Madison Brott, Lenin Fernandez, Emma Morrison, and Shabaz Ujima wield multi-color LED tubes in and out of interlocking group movements and passionate affirmations—a choreography that orchestrates dance and vibrant lighting design simultaneously.

In 2023, Tracey Ford commissioned New Dialect to create an installation for Nashville Design Week. They took her prompt and made a short work based on the notion of dancers creating their own lighting design in real time. On November 2, 2023, they conducted a first experiment at SoHo House Nashville and a second during the 10th anniversary of OZ Arts in April 2024. 

The work has now being expanded into an evening-length theatrical production under the direction of production designer Michael Brown. Tracey Ford is the executive producer, Teten is creative producer, Banning Bouldin is the choreographer + lighting designer, Michael Brown is production + lighting designer, Tonya Lewis is associate producer, costumes by Katrina Huckerby, and the residency host for Centennial Performing Arts Studios is Kathryn Wilkening.

21 Yeses exists in three acts. The typography of those acts was inspired by Hannah Emerson and her poem “Center of the Universe,” which reads as an invocation to act, to react, to be, and to be again.

“Center of the Universe”
by Hannah Emerson

Please try to go
to hell frequently
because you will
find the light there

yes yes — please
try to kiss the ideas
that you find there
yes yes — please

try to get that
it is the center
of the universe
yes yes — please

try to help yourself
by kissing the hot hot
hot life that is born
there yes yes — please

try to yell in hell
yes yes — please
try to free yourself
by pouring yourself

into the gutter all
guttural guttural yell
yes yes yes — please
try to get that you

become the being
that you came there
to be yes yes — please
try to go to the great

great great fire that you
created because you
become the light
that the fire makes

inside of you
yes yes — please
try to kiss yourself
for going there

yes yes — please
get that you are
reborn there
yes yes — please

begin your day