Works

Zero Station

Zero Station works out shame, citing a felt understanding as part of the experience of abjection. Confronting hypersexualization as the limp white feminine byproduct of capitalism, we present movements derived from pregnancy, lactation, mental illness, physical illness, surgery, and aging, and then segment, otherize, and disappear these forms in trash. Through trauma we are greatly affected, and our capacity to be affected, to understand how we may affect one another, is heightened. Within this gained fluidity is potential to think beyond ourselves. Choreography and Performance by Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith. Lighting Design by Thomas Dunn. Commissioned by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for River to River 2023 as part of the Extended Life Residency. Premiered at Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center June 12, 2023.

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/853083224

gloria rehearsal (excerpt)

Collective feminism depends on many singular efforts at survival coming together and our work has emerged from a desire to create collaboratively. We each have a history of rape and sexual trauma. Our dance practice allows us to remember, metabolize and integrate these memories somatically and artistically. Our white cis bodies afford us the privilege to take on these vile acts of sexual trauma in performance. gloria rehearsal (excerpt) interrogates the silencing of women and the insidiousness of misogyny, portraying the times and ways we have been told we are too much. Molly screams and her scream endures. There is beauty in the relentlessness as we question what it means to be vocal despite being told to be quiet. Choreography and Performance by Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith. Sound Design by James Lo. Filmed and Edited by Tatyana Tenenbaum. Additional camera by Colin Nusbaum. Commissioned by Baryshnikov Arts Center. Premiered online January 10-24 at Baryshnikov Arts Center

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/670980760

Gloria

As objects of this work, the artists position themselves as recognizable images of female objectification, only to deconstruct and reconstitute these forms through embodied movement and connection. Within this arena of deeply understood femininity and friendship, images dissolve as feelings communicate viscerally. Gloria is explicit, speaking through the voice of women forced to identify with society’s framing as “already been f*#cked.” Dance, however, provides these women a different narrative, sculpted by them through the potentiality of their own bodies and as authors of their own work. In an age of grief, this performance focuses on the glory of survival, shining through tits and ass to show spine and uterus. Choreography and performance by Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith. Sound Design by Jame Lo. Lighting Design by Thomas Dunn. Commissioned by Abrons Arts Center. Review by Gia Kourlas for The New York Times. Premiered May 20-22, 2021 at Abrons Arts Center, NYC, through the Jerome Airspace Residency

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/594643432

Body Comes Apart

Memories take on a mythology and fantasy of their own, making shared experiences of sexual trauma alive in the moment and fodder for manipulation. Body Comes Apart is a collage of dance, monologue, of teaching fake workout classes, telling real and fake stories of our pasts, speaking to ourselves as children. There is shedding and trying on; clothes become analogous to history. Language becomes a vehicle for representation and a gateway to performing enlivened imagination. As we implicate ourselves and the audience with mirrors, we implicate fantasies forced upon us and derived from us with the text. Choreography and Performance by Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith. Sound Design by James Lo. Lighting Design by Thomas Dunn. Set Design by Liliana Dirks-Goodman. Commissioned by New York Live Arts. Documented by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Preview by Brian Seibert for The New York Times. Premiered 2019 at New York Live Arts.

https://vimeo.com/330593113

Beautiful Bone

Choreography and Performance by Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith
Lighting Design by Madeline Best
Sound Design by James Lo

Premiered 2012 at The Chocolate Factory Theater, commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/57326209

Blanket

Choreography and Performance by Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith
Sound Design by Aaron Harris and Yos Munro

Premiered 2010 at The Tank

https://vimeo.com/13472358