2021
THE RETURN STUDIES.
music: bRYCE DESSNER.DANCERS: Dominika Afanasenkov, alec knight, ruby lister, Samuel Melnikov, emma von enck, andres zuniga. FILM: QUINN WHARTON. DRAMATURG: sarah lunnie.New York Choreographic Institute - Fall Session 2021. Lincoln Center, NYC, USA.
After participating in the New York Choreographic Institute’s first-ever virtual session, the NYCI invited Houston Thomas for an in-studio session in the fall of 2021. For his second piece for the NYCI, Houston created The Return Studies, featuring dancers from New York City Ballet and The School of American Ballet, with music by American composer Bryce Dessner.
The Return Studies brings together the new and old from Houston’s artistic journey thus far. Taking inspiration directly from the music of Dessner’s El Chan and the core fundamentals of his training at the School of American Ballet, Houston combines it with the experience of his career in Europe in order to build a common language for this four-part work.
A homecoming of many sorts, The Return Studies acknowledges the return of the NYCB dancers to the studio after an 18-month hiatus as well as the return for Houston to a former artistic home at New York City’s Lincoln Center. The Return Studies aims to reflect the current state of our world as we try to make a return to ‘normality’ and familiar spaces. During the two-week session, Houston and the dancers worked to encompass all of this, resulting in a studio showing as well as this film with cinematography by Quinn Wharton.
