World Premiere by Nick Sciscione

Help us meet our goal to Match a Major Grant from The O'Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation to create a new solo and musical composition!

Your gift supports artist, composer and designer fees and is 100% tax-deductible!

Founding company member Nicholas Sciscione will create a World Premiere solo for himself that will debut at our 2018 New York Season June 7 - 10, 2018 at Baryshnikov Arts Center.  Composer/Musician Ofer Pelz will create a new score and play his composition live at all New York Season performances. This is Nick's first choreographic commission.

Nicholas Sciscione

Nicholas Sciscione in Randy James' "Rook"

Sciscione stated, “My intent as an artist is to explore the relationship between Performative and Non-performative states within a performative setting. The pursuit of another artist's vision has often been the focus of my professional career as a dancer. However, my formative experiences in movement began within social settings and personal improvised explorations. My formal education emphasized Improvisation as a tool to inform one's way of moving and their movement vocabulary for Choreographic purposes. Now, in my professional career, I have been able to work in ways that blend the Improvisational and Choreographic modes, the former often informing the inception of the latter. The dichotomy between the two is incredibly subtle and changes throughout any performance or social interaction. This is an opportunity for me to be relieved of the pressure of fulfilling another's artistic vision, opening the door as a mover to begin to toe the line between two states of Performativity in ways only an improvised structure can provide.” 

Sciscione, 2017 Bessie Award Nominee for Outstanding Performance by an Individual Artist, is currently a member of the Stephen Petronio Company, also serving as its Rehearsal Director. Nick hails from Elizabeth, New Jersey. He graduated magna cum laude with a BFA in Dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University in 2011. While at Rutgers he performed works by Danielle Agami, Randy James, Ohad Naharin, Benoit-Swan Pouffer and Xiao-xiong Zhang. Nick is a founding member of 10 Hairy Legs. This is his first choreographic commission.

Ofer Pelz, Composer and Musician


Ofer Pelz was born in Haifa (Israel) and lives in Montreal. His music explores the concept he defines as "unstable repetition" - repetitive fragments which always vary from repetition to repetition, all the while trying to keep a perceivable tension. Pelz composes music for diverse combinations of instruments and electroacoustic media, he is also an active improviser. He has studied composition and music theory at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Subsequently, Pelz moved to Paris for three years in order to participate in music technology and instrumental composition courses at the Conservatory of Blanc-Mesnil, the Paris Conservatory and IRCAM. Currently, he is finishing his doctorate at the University of Montreal. The work of Ofer Pelz has been recognized by the reception of many international prizes including two ACUM awards and the Ernst Von Siemens Grant. His music is played regularly in Europe, USA, Canada and Israel in festivals such as Manifeste (IRCAM), La Biennale di Venezia, MATA Festival, Nuova Consonanza, and Heidelberger Biennale für Neue Musik. Meitar Ensemble, Cairn Ensemble, Ardeo String Quartet, The Israel Contemporary Players, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne and Architek Percussion are among the ensembles that played Pelz's music. Pelz has collaborated with several dance choreographers, among them the French choreographer François Raffinot.

 Pelz stated, “On the verge of composed and improvised music, I create percussive landscapes by inventing instrument modifications and techniques to build an unusually rich sound world. I place found objects on the instruments to explore complex timbres, textures, and harmonies. My music sounds electroacoustic in nature by the way I interface with the instruments to create noise, timbre, and resonances. I push the boundaries of modern performance techniques by inventing new ways to generate sound and color. By playing beyond the ‘traditional’ way, I am able to expand the range of musical expression. I explore “fake repetition” that suggests music on the border of repetition and variation. In a complex joining of events, simple repetition directs the listener towards new elements and insights. Each reappearance of a given material allows the listener to absorb more and more details. Variating the repetitive structure guides the listener towards taking in the subtle differences; accenting or blurring certain elements, changing the dimension of a gesture, focusing on smaller elements of the entire gesture, etc. I have worked with choreographers on several occasions in my career as a composer, notably with French choreographer François Raffinot. Our biggest collaboration was LeçonsDeTenebre, an hour-long piece that deals with space, light, and music in a parallel way. Working with dance performance is a wonderful collaboration that changes the usual habits of the concert composition process. The nature of collaboration where several ideas join together to create an entire show, forcing discussion and exchange to find the right path is an inspiring and enriching mechanism. More than that, a dance that usually derives from improvisation and the exploration of the body and movement has an important impact on the musical creation process.”