DC EMPTY
DC EMPTY is Dallas Contemporary’s performance programming presenting a wide range of time-based work, featuring regional and national artists and performers. These dynamic interventions activate our gallery spaces, offering audiences immersive and transformative experiences through short-term, site-specific works that push the boundaries of performance art.
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Water Work
Friday, 17 October 2025 | 8:00 PM
Saturday, 18 October 2025 | 4:00 PM
$10 GA | Free for Members
161 Glass St. Dallas, TX
Dallas Contemporary’s performance and film programming series DC EMPTY continues with Water Work, a duet by dance artists Lauren Kravitz (Dallas, TX) and Shantel Prado (Queens, NY).
Water Work draws inspiration from American cultures surrounding water. From pool decks to beach shores and the communal behaviors tied to leisure, sport, and gathering around aquatic spaces. Through a mix of improvisation and movement inspired by synchronized swimming and water athletics, the work ebbs between organic fluidity and sharp athletic form.
Created in collaboration with Tina Lee (set design), Yve Bee (costume design), Junlin He (costume design), and Silas C. Edgar (sound design), Water Work envelops audiences in the textures, sounds, and gestures of shared water environments.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Lauren Kravitz is a Dallas-based freelance dance artist, alumna of Booker T. Washington HSPVA and NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and founding contributor to Agora Artists. She has performed nationally with Seán Curran Company, Take Dance, and Indah Walsh Dance Company.
Shantel Prado is a Queens-based dance and video artist, graduate of NYU Tisch and the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, and co-creator of duet works with Kravitz. She also serves as Marketing Manager for the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Water Workshop + Artist Talk
Saturday, 18 October 2025 | 1:00-2:30 PM
Free Admission | 161 Glass St.
This workshop invites folks to dive into the world of Water Work through movement and group discussion. Kravitz and Prado will guide you through simple embodiment exercises, finding ebbs and flows unique to our own bodies, then end the movement portion with some creative play-time, exploring repetitive wave patterns and poolside postures. We'll save the last 30 minutes for an informal Q&A. No previous dance experience necessary. Come make waves and friends!
PAST
Danielle Georgiou Dance Group Friday, 11 July 2025
MATCH POINT is a public performance involving dance, clown, athletics, interactive elements, and many, many tennis balls. Set to the score of Antonio Vivaldi's “The Four Seasons,” this performance follows a group of athletes navigating distinct misinterpretations of the game of tennis. Why tennis? Because the game of tennis is a test of boundaries, a constant give and take of conversation and effort, and a battle between two sides.
The Danielle Georgiou Dance Group (DGDG) is an ensemble-based, collaborative dance theatre group that works within the ideas of contemporary dance and physical theatre. DGDG explores the experimental and avant-garde nature of dance and theatre in their creations of original dance musicals and dance plays. The artists of DGDG constantly strive to transform themselves, either in image or skill. They work to create pieces that question what dance is and can be while pushing the boundaries of theatre. The Danielle Georgiou Dance Group was selected as Best Dance Troupe by the Dallas Observer for 2020, 2017, and 2015 and Best Dance Company for 2016 by the readers of D Magazine. As Artistic Director Danielle Georgiou says, “Technique is your foundation—not your identity.”
Bombshell Dance Project: The Dallas Creation Lab
Monday, 22 July – Saturday, 27 July 27 2024
Bombshell Dance Project presented the first installment of the Dallas Creation Lab as part of the museum’s DC EMPTY programming. Curated by Bombshell’s Emily Bernet and Taylor Rodman, the project included a week of ideation at DC, culminating in a one-night-only performance. Visitors were invited to step into the creative process of seven Dallas-based artists during regular museum hours, and joined us on Saturday, July 27 to experience the result of their collaborative work. Following the performance, guests stayed for a discussion with the artists, along with sips, bites, and jams by Jeff Kinsey.
About Bombshell Dance Project
Bombshell Dance Project is a dance theatre company based in Dallas, Texas. The company creates innovative, audience-driven experiences with the goal of sparking community conversations and bringing audiences closer to dance.
image credit: representative image of a durational performance during INVERSE Performance Art Festival at the momentary in bentonville, ar. photo by stephen ironside.
Christian Cruz: Breaking Backs: A Solo Exhibition of Living Portraits
Saturday, 13 January 2024
Breaking Backs: A Solo Exhibition of Living Portraits is a one-day solo installation created by conceptual and multimedia artist and educator Christian Cruz, presented as part of Dallas Contemporary’s DC EMPTY programming. The installation features three durational performances spanning seven hours, presented during the museum’s open hours from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM. A reception follows the conclusion of the performances.
The day-long series of performances unfolds through the efforts of three compensated performers, each engaged in acts of labor throughout the gallery space. Breaking Backs critically explores tools of empowerment and resistance, encompassing hybridization, juxtaposition, and integration tactics. The installation, crafted in rasquachismo style—a term commonly used in Chicano and Mexican art movements to describe working-class aesthetics that make the most from the least—serves as a symbolic allegory for struggle, hope, and grief.
Breaking Backs: A Solo Exhibition of Living Portraits is supported by the City of Dallas Office of Arts & Culture and the National Endowment for the Arts through the “Culture of Value” grant.
About Christian Cruz
Christian Cruz (b. Dallas, 1989) is an independent educator, writer, and award-winning multimedia artist whose practice encompasses installation, sculpture, and performance within a visual arts context. Her performances have been presented nationally and internationally in galleries, museums, universities, festivals, and public spaces. Cruz earned a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts Management from Columbia College Chicago and is currently pursuing studies in Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is an artist-in-residence at The Cedars Union arts incubator. In addition to being a mother and a survivor, she is the founder of the Artist Mama Fund and the Dallas Performance Art Index.
CHRISTEENE
Saturday, 04 November 2023
As an ancillary program to the DC exhibition Chloe Chiasson: Keep Left at the Fork, which depicts queer figures in Texan landscapes, and in light of the State of Texas's recent legislation against the LGBTQI+ community, Dallas Contemporary presents CHRISTEENE.
CHRISTEENE is the dazzling alter ego of the multi-talented Paul Soileau. With a knack for pushing boundaries and embracing the unconventional, CHRISTEENE is a riotous force of nature, bringing chaos and artistry to the stage.
The artist has garnered tremendous critical acclaim for her high-octane, radical creative vision that continues to shatter all notions of normality. Spin magazine has called CHRISTEENE "a manic combination of Alice Cooper and Hedwig (of Hedwig and the Angry Inch)," and Interview described her as "...a feral, sexualized creature that takes a blowtorch to every norm society has to offer."
CHRISTEENE "...injects both hip-hop and gay culture with a much-needed dose of punk-rock humor and attitude," said The New Yorker.
At the heart of CHRISTEENE, however, is a message of joy and love, according to Dazed magazine, despite her shock value.
Iconoclastic designer Rick Owens, one of her longtime collaborators and friends, states, "CHRISTEENE to me represents the joy of abandon—abandoning hypocrisy and indulging your id and your primal instincts that are very innocent and very charming... CHRISTEENE is theater, a composition of commedia dell’arte, kabuki, Busby Berkeley Hollywood musicals... she counters false prudishness, false rules."
About CHRISTEENE | CHRISTEENE is a raw spirit of ferocious music, unabashed sexuality, and fiery intimate stank. Reports from live shows describe raw and intimate exchanges, distressed choreography, macabre scenes involving butt plugs tied to bouquets of balloons released from the singer’s ass, wardrobes styled from the forgotten scraps of society, and heated sermons on the state of the world as we know it. The artist has collaborated with, and performed alongside, numerous acclaimed musicians, including Faith No More, Peaches, Fever Ray, John Grant, Kembra Pfahler, Suicide, Roddy Bottum, Tribe 8, Narcissister, Marc Almond, Bronski Beat, and Justin Vivian Bond. Longtime collaborators include award-winning filmmaker PJ Raval, along with iconic fashion designer Rick Owens and artist Michèle Lamy. CHRISTEENE has been photographed by Juergen Teller, Katerina Jebb, Matt Lambert, and Wolfgang Tillmans, and featured in magazines such as Another, Noisey, Dazed, Artforum, Spin, Vice, Numéro, The New Yorker, Interview, and Man About Town.
Image: CHRISTEENE at Dallas Contemporary. Photo: Jovian Moons Photography.
Matty Davis + Ben Gould: Carriage Bearance Severance
Friday, 20 October 2023
Davis and Gould’s collaboration began as an exploration of reliance, control, and care. Matty Davis is an artist and choreographer engaged in collaborative, embodied explorations of the tension between our fragility and fortitude. His work frequently uses choreography as a tool to cultivate high-stakes relationships—ranging from the interpersonal to the cosmic—that push himself and others to creatively face and negotiate forces that drive some of the most important parts of our lives: trust, risk, love, empathy, commitment, and responsibility. After the sudden and late onset of Tourette syndrome, Ben Gould’s practice adapted to focus on the body, exploring loss of control, resistance, and energy systems within and outside our physiology. Through a growing mythos shaped by personal medical procedures, the history of disability treatment, and the embodiment of new narratives through art-making, Gould creates a space for fantasy and freedom—opposing the rigidity of physical limitation and societal norms. With the body as a source, Gould’s multidisciplinary practice is driven by his neurological condition, which provides both a choreographic motor and ideological framework for projects ranging from site-specific performances to sculpture and film.
This will be the U.S. museum premiere of Carriage Bearance Severance. The work has previously been performed at Palais de Tokyo, Bozar, Carnegie Mellon’s Miller ICA, Human Resources, the Chicago Cultural Center, Open Spaces, Creative Growth, Queenslab, as well as in a former military battery, a limestone cave network, and aboard a moving vessel on the Chicago River.
About Matty Davis | Over the last decade, Matty’s work has been presented by various institutions in the U.S. and abroad, as well as in many intentional site-specific locations integral to the meaning of a given work—from mountains to hurricane-churned shorelines, living rooms to the gritty concrete of New York City. Institutionally, his work has been presented by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Momentary (Bentonville, AR), the ICA Miller at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA), the Fine Arts Center at the University of Arkansas, The Anderson at Virginia Commonwealth University, Kanal Centre Pompidou (Brussels), Bozar (Brussels), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), the Arts Arena (Paris), the Max Ernst Museum (Brühl), Pioneer Works (NYC), Steppenwolf Theater (Chicago), among others. He is the author of six books and, since 2021, has been trailblazing a new form, “performance arranged for print,” with long-standing publishing collaborator Matt Wolff. As part of his collaborative practice, he has worked with artists including Hito Steyerl, writers Will Arbery and Chloé Cooper Jones, and many others across various fields: surgeons, carpenters, aviators, athletes, and environmentalists. He loves to teach and work with people of all ages and abilities and has done so at many colleges, universities, schools, and organizations. For more information: www.mattydavis.net.
About Ben Gould | Gould has exhibited work and performed site-specific projects throughout the country, from varied landscapes to institutional spaces—such as a hydroelectric power plant in New York, a quarry in Illinois, a limestone mine in Kansas City, a bunker in the Marin Headlands, and a moving vessel on the Chicago River. Gould received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2015, apprenticed with master craftsmen in California, and was a 2015 Ox-Bow Fellow. He was an artist-in-residence at Queenslab in New York City in 2018, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant recipient, a 2019 Haystack Open Studio resident, a 2020 Lighton International Artists Exchange Program Grant recipient, and a 2021 NYFA Fellow in Interdisciplinary Work. Most recently, Gould has presented and shown new works and performances at Kanal Centre Pompidou (Brussels, Belgium), Liberal Arts Roxbury (NY), Bozar (Brussels, Belgium), the Center for Craft (Asheville, NC), Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France), the Tarble Arts Center (Charleston, IL), and Lyles & King (NYC).
Image: Ben Gould and Matty Davis performing Carriage Bearance Severance. Photo by Steven Visneau for Dallas Contemporary.
Verdigris Ensemble: Beautification
Friday, 27 – Sunday, 29 October 2023
Verdigris Ensemble unites with Dallas Contemporary for this co-commission, bringing a memorable collaboration inspired by the museum’s site-specific fall exhibition with visual artist Bianca Bondi. Taking cues from Lady Bird Johnson’s Highway Beautification Act, which aimed to protect native plants from billboards along stretches of Texas highways, Bondi presents a monumental artificial landscape representing the struggle between the natural and commercial worlds. Using the exhibition as inspiration, Verdigris Ensemble is commissioning a group of women composers to weave together a narrative about Lady Bird Johnson’s efforts, comparing her actions to the resilient native flowers of Texas. The production will feature innovative lighting and projections to mimic the experience of highway driving, alongside archival audio of Lady Bird’s speeches.
Verdigris Ensemble: The Endangered
Friday, 27 - Sunday, 29 October 2023
The Endangered highlights cultural efforts to preserve the planet and showcases stunning images of plants and animals, along with music and poetry created by local artists. Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider's Mass for the Endangered, which celebrates and mourns the natural world, is the centerpiece of the series. The mass urges people to become more aware of environmental issues and take action, drawing on musical styles that encourage contemplation of non-human life. The mass is accompanied by segments of Edie Hill’s Spectral Spirits and three world premiere compositions by Samuel K. Sweet (Dallas), Kyle Brenn (NYC), and Anuj Bhutani (Dallas), documenting five primary endangered species endemic to the region: the Greasewood Moth, Eskimo Curlew, Passenger Pigeon, Whooping Crane, and Black-capped Vireo.
Anuj Bhutani, making his Verdigris Ensemble compositional debut, documents the Black-capped Vireo. Using the natural sounds of the bird, Bhutani illustrates a tapestry of sound, from beautiful harmonic melodies to surprising extended vocal techniques. Bhutani, winner of Verdigris’ 2019 Ion Composer Competition, is a local composer and a rapidly emerging talent in the national new music industry. Recent accolades include being awarded Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Grant and first prize in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award.
Verdigris Artistic Director Sam Brukhman recounts how Bhutani’s early work paved a unique path for his return to Verdigris: “Anuj Bhutani was a rising talent we knew we’d see again someday. Premiering his work with the full ensemble this October is a testament both to his growth and a step forward for us in highlighting the depth of Dallas culture.” The Endangered is a multi-sensory experience, with music supported by visual projections created by Courtney Ware. Utilizing the unique aspects of Dallas Contemporary’s industrial architecture, Ware will project onto a 110-foot-wide wall using artificial intelligence technology to generate scenes and videos that immerse audiences directly into the narrative of the endangered animals of our city and state. By curating images and video in artistic partnership with Dallas Contemporary, the use of artificial intelligence will create a storytelling arc that envelops the audience.
About Verdigris Ensemble | Verdigris Ensemble is a choral ensemble with the vision to transform the world through the alchemy of stories and the power of the human voice. Its mission is to create a new music movement by commissioning works and incorporating various genres to tell compelling stories, investing in diverse vocal musicians through music education and community infrastructure development, and redefining vocal music through creative programming and technological innovation.
Image: Verdigris Ensemble. Photo by Rachel Hill Photography.
Agora Artists: The Eldert Lofts
Friday, 03 March 2023
The Eldert Lofts is a collaborative dance work with creative direction by co-founders Lauren Kravitz and Avery-Jai Andrews.
Ever wonder about those strange noises coming from the apartment upstairs? Waltz through the hallways of The Eldert Lofts as a unique cast of characters explores the intimacies and intricacies of community. Take a peek behind closed doors to catch that familiar fight in the kitchen, or hide among the curtains as the woman downstairs dances alone. This original movement-based work presents a series of vignettes following the stories of five tenants as they investigate their relationships, exploring themes of connection, isolation, and identity.
Organized by Dallas Contemporary’s Communications and Graphic Design Manager, Alexandra Hulsey.
Created by Avery-Jai Andrews and Lauren Kravitz in collaboration with Cami Holman, Jennifer Mabus, and Omar Humphrey.
Excerpts performed by: Avery-Jai Andrews, Cami Holman, Jennifer Mabus, and Lauren Kravitz
Original sound by: Brittany Padilla
Costumes by: Kelsey Olver
Set by: Tori Reynolds
Lighting by: Ryan Burkle
About Agora Artists
Agora Artists is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization focused on providing programming and resources that contribute to a supportive ecosystem for dance in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Through workshops, forums, and other creative assets, Agora Artists aims to help individual dancers maintain an active and sustainable creative life. Led by Booker T. Washington HSPVA and NYU Tisch School of the Arts alumni Avery-Jai Andrews and Lauren Kravitz, the organization collaborates with local and regional movement artists to cultivate new opportunities for dance in DFW. Agora Artists hosts much of its programming at Arts Mission Oak Cliff and has partnered with other local arts spaces—including Odyssey Studios and Sweet Pass Sculpture Park—to offer dance programming in non-traditional spaces.
Kasey Short: The Tuna, the Whale, the Hillbilly and the Subterranean
Saturday, 18 February 2023
Kasey Short: The Tuna, the Whale, the Hillbilly and the Subterranean is an immersive, interactive multimedia installation that challenges relationships between humans and animals, the environment and technology. The project integrates elements from the artist’s family history, mythology, and objects inspired by trauma, popular culture, poetry, and theater.
The experience is delivered through new media methods, including video, performance, sound, sculpture, and augmented reality.
Organized by Dallas Contemporary’s Louis L. Borick Foundation Renaissance Intern, Seth Tarango.
About Kasey Short
Kasey Short is an interdisciplinary artist working in installation, performance, sculpture, and new media, with an interest in expanded media through immersive ecosystems. His work explores intersections of art and technology, urbanism, ecology, video, sound, and site-specific exchanges through time-based and interactive platforms.
Short holds an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and a BFA from Texas State University. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and he has participated in residencies including Vermont Studio Center; ACRE Projects, Chicago, IL; and AVL-Mundo Foundation, Rotterdam, NL. He is a recipient of the Charles Addams Memorial Prize, the Vermont Studio Center Scholarship Award, the Dallas Chamber of Commerce Emerging Artist Award, and a grant from the Houston Arts Alliance Support for Artists and Creative Individuals.
College Night + DC EMPTY: Anti-Avant Garde Avant Garde Artist Collective
Saturday, 04 February 2023
College Night featured an after-hours experience at the museum with a new DC EMPTY performance by UNT-based arts collective Anti-Avant Garde Avant Garde Artist Collective, alongside gallery exhibitions by Shepard Fairey and Gabrielle Goliath, and art-making activities with local artists.
Anti-Avant Garde Avant Garde Artist Collective presented the piece Cooperative Conundrum, which explores notions of community and methods of gathering and connectivity through an allegorical performance of movements, conflicts, compromises, and synchronicities. Utilizing a spool of yarn, members of the collective embodied archetypal figures—providers, weavers, community—and engaged in a connective act that exhausted collective resources.
Colton James White: They Love Me, They Love Me Not
Sunday, 08 January 2023
For the second presentation of DC EMPTY, Dallas artist Colton James White presented They Love Me, They Love Me Not, a 5-hour durational performance piece that explored themes of uncertainty, infatuation, delusion, and the challenges of personal relationships—monogamy/polyamory and platonic/romantic. Centered on a copious mound of flowers, White performed a series of repetitive actions, aiming to activate an atmosphere of rococo neo-romance and create an overwhelming dramatic tone within the space. The performance was organized by Dallas Contemporary’s Louis L. Borick Foundation Renaissance Intern, Seth Tarango.
About the Artist
Colton James White is a fake pop-star, 28-year-old queer artist from Dallas, Texas, with a BFA in New Media Studio Arts from the University of North Texas. Their work primarily focuses on durational and interactive performance art, but it also extends into installation, photography, and video. White’s work explores themes of queerness, sexual frustration, intimacy, and persona, all presented through a glittery lens of “70’s glamour wanting to be grit.” Follow on Instagram @juliaroberts275.
Kitchen Sink Performa
Saturday, 03 December 2022
The first project to launch DC EMPTY was Kitchen Sink Performa, a multimedia happening curated in collaboration with artist and University of North Texas professor Kasey Short and Dallas Contemporary’s Louis L. Borick Foundation Renaissance Intern Seth Tarango. Showcasing a group of artists working in performance and time-based mediums, Kitchen Sink Performa served as a platform for exploring performative and reactive aesthetics across performance art, performative computing, experimental cinema, and video art. The project examined genres such as narrativity, abstraction, artificial intelligence, identity, and gender.
Participating artists included:
Brandy Michele Adams (@brandymicheleadams), in collaboration with Lynné Bowman Cravens (@lynnebowmancravens) and Julie McKendrick (@momwow); Gren Bee (@itmegrenbee); Melanie Clemmons (@auraquartz), in collaboration with Zak Loyd; Diana Gonzalez (@dimagogo.art); Zak Loyd (@zakloyd); Connor Mizell (@connor.mizell); Erick Ortiz (@vive_somnia); Teresita Navidad (@sourmoonjuice); Kamyrn Robins (@okamco); Kasey Short (@sirdukeofkasey); and Colin Stokes (@colinstokes22).