VERBAL ANIMAL
STAR SPANGLED MANOR

RUNTIME: 90 minutes with an intermission.
This performance contains the use of water based haze, strobe lighting, and the use of bright lights.
Content advisory: This performance includes nudity.

Photo by Blue

Creation / Direction: Lavy

Collaborators:
Ragin Smith
Kenley Hardwick
Makaila Chiplin
Marcus Sarjeant
Annalise Gehling

Sound Design: Lavy
Lighting: Connor Sale
Director of Production: Anna Wotring
Set Design: Lavy with VERBAL ANIMAL collaborators and Anna Wotring
Audio Reactive Environment + Sound Design: Angel Burner
Pre-Show Sound Scape: Arewa Basit
Projection Design: Haley Morgan Miller
Costumes: Timo Sassen

STAR SPANGLED MANOR is an interdisciplinary dance-theater work structured as a live laboratory for interrogating the colonialist ideology of “The American Dream.” Through dance theater, projection, set design, sound scoring, and bodily prosthetics, the piece navigates aesthetics of surveillance and rave culture to expose how systems of power shape collective consciousness. Framed through a queer lens, the body becomes a charged site of resistance, rupture, and transformation. The work traces the tension between order and chaos, revealing how stabilizing structures often expose their own contradictions. By staging this unraveling, it gestures toward the fragile veneer of national ideals and how quickly they fracture under pressure. Yet the piece does not end in dissolution; as chaos mounts and clarity emerges, it opens portals, moments that invite our participants to reconsider the architectures governing daily life and imagine the possibility of remaking, and collective futures beyond constraint.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

LAVY
Lavy is a choreographic dance artist, producer, and DJ. In 2021, they founded VERBAL ANIMAL, a rotating cohort of interdisciplinary collaborators. They have been commissioned by the 14th St Y, TADA! Theater, 3 Dollar Bill, and Triskelion Arts. Lavy was a returning choreographer with Mare Nostrum Elements, premiering an evening-length work at Laguardia Performing Arts Center, and was later commissioned to create a new piece for the 2024 Making Moves Festival. They closed Triskelion Arts’ 2024 season with IN EXCHANGE FOR ANONYMITY and recently received an NYFA grant to premiere CONCRETE GULP as part of the Queensborough Dance Festival’s 2025 tour. Additionally, Lavy is Co-Producer of the NY show Kiss My Face and founder of PLAY ME TECHNO, an experimental rave centering risk-forward performance art in decentralized spaces. Further, they received a NYSCA Support for Artists grant and serve as the 2026 Production Resident Artist at Triskelion Arts. @xlavvvy

KENLEY HARDWICK
Kenley Hardwick is a recent graduate from Marymount Manhattan College. Before coming to New York for college he began his training in South Carolina where he attended the South Carolina Governor's School for Arts and Humanities. Upon Graduation, Kenley began studies with Gibney Pro, working with choreographers such as Rena Butler, Maleek Washington, Laja Field, and Elia Mark. Recently, Hardwick joined VERBAL ANIMAL as a company member for their 2023 season. @kvnlvy

MAKAILA CHIPLINMakaila Chiplin (she/her) is a New York based freelance artist, originally from Austin, Texas. She graduated from the University of the Arts, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance. She has been involved as a performer and collaborator with BigKid Dance, Kayla Farrish, Katie Swords Thurman, Sheer Spectacle, Marcella Lewis, and Emily Wexler, among others. @chip_lol

RAGIN SMITH
Ragin Smith (she/her) is a dance artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She received her BFA in dance at Marymount Manhattan College in 2020, where she performed works by Andrea Miller, Kyle Abraham, Loni Landon, Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish and others. Since then she has had the pleasure of performing works by Brendan Fernandes, Evan Ray Suzuki, Valeria Gonzalez, Morgan Bobrow-Williams, Ryan Bailey, Troy Ogilvie, La Intrusa Company, Michelle Thompson Ulerich, and more. Alongside these freelance projects, Ragin is a collaborator with Hivewild, Verbal Animal, Wet Hairy Women, Headlights Theater, MORISATO, and Alison Chase Performance Group. She has presented some of her own work at The Tank, Fabled Narcissism, ESTIA Day Fest, and as an artist in residence at the Jonah Bokaer Arts Foundation and the Cell Theatre. Ragin also partners with Haley Morgan Miller to direct and produce the Fabled Narcissism arts events. @thats_so_ragin

MARCUS SARJEANT
Marcus Sarjeant is a 25 year old dancer from Southern California where he trained with Westside Dance Project, as well as attended the Orange County School of the Arts. In 2022 he graduated Summa Cum Laude from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in Dance. He has performed the works of choreographers such as Annamari Keskinen, Connie Shiau, Kayla Farrish, Hofesh Shechter, and Johannes Wieland. In addition he’s danced for many New York based companies such as VERBAL ANIMAL, Decent Structures Arts, Gaudanse, and most currently is a member of Cardinal Movement and Company. @m4rcuhz_

ANNALISE GEHLING
Annalise Gehling is a movement artist, choreographer, performer, shapeshifter and zen screamer based in NYC. A graduate of Loyola Marymount University’s Dance and Theatre Arts programs, their work crafts immersive experiences at the intersection of movement, music, fashion, film, visual art, and digital media. Film credits include Amanda Kramer’s feature film By Design (Sundance) and Heavy Boots’ short film Moullier (Cannes Straight 8). They have collaborated with and performed for music artists Shygirl, Allie X, Audrey Nuna, King Woman, Garzi, and RY X and fashion brands such as Nike and Dreamhouse. They are a founding member of Trin Dance Theatre and co-creator of the performance project FLESH VESSEL with Keilan Stafford. Influenced by experiences in the underground, Annalise’s work explores the body as an altar to evoke transformation, expression, and rebellion. Their practice lives at the intersection of the sacred and the visceral, inviting audiences into embodied ritual. @annalise_gehling

ANGEL BURNER
Angel Burner is a curator, composer, and sonic sculptor focused on sub sonics. They currently curate Varispeed, a New York-based sonic performance platform dedicated to exploring the relationship between long-form auditory experiences and subsonic frequencies. Additionally, Angel Burner is part of a sound and movement performance duo with Laila Rosen based in Brooklyn, NY.
Angel Burner does live sound across the city at venues such as Elsewhere, Basement NY, Knockdown Center, Elsewhere, Artists Space, Market Hotel, Trans Pecos, Fridman Gallery, David Zwirner, ISSUE Project Room, Dweller Festival and as Daniel Neumann's audio assistant.

CONNOR SALE
Connor Sale is a Brooklyn-based Lighting Designer and the Resident Lighting Designer of Triskelion Arts. Recent collaborations include: The Closties Variety Hour; Farewell My Fool; til infiniti; The Suite; ENUF (Triskelion Arts), The Missing Fruit, Part 1 (New York City Center/Fall For Dance), Das Ersatz (The Brick), I want to hold onto something beautiful and empty (The Brick), MEOW! (Exponential Festival), With Tears (BEAMS), Femenine (PS21), the body || dust (Gibney), But, Soft (PAGEANT), and Sea Change (Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago). He’s toured internationally with Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring (École des Sables/Sadler’s Wells co-production), Akram Khan’s Gigenis, and Faye Driscoll’s Weathering. He’s interested in using the temporary nature of light to make people more active in space. More of his work can be found at connorsale.com and at @connorsalelight.

We respectfully acknowledge that the work of Triskelion Arts is situated on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of Lenapehoking, the homeland of the Lenape peoples. We pay our respects to their land, water, and ancestors, past, present, and future. This acknowledgment demonstrates a commitment to the process of working to dismantle the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism and to learning to be better stewards of this land.