Kizuna Dance presents

Bread & Circus
Part of Culture Lab LIC's New Works Festival 2025 collection

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Thursday, November 20, 7:30pm
Friday, November 21, 4pm
Saturday, November 22, 7:30pm
Sunday, November 23, 7:30pm

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A blended dance-form performance that questions the allure of escapism through dynamic dream-inspired sequences.

Inspired in part by the vivid worlds within the works of Seijun Suzuki, Oscar Oiwa, and Tomokazu Matsuyama, Kizuna Dance’s BREAD & CIRCUS questions the allure of escapism by using dreams as a lens for both self-discovery and for confrontations with reality/the status quo. The company’s idiosyncratic mix of contemporary floorwork, streetdance styles, and capoeira hyperphysicalizes the surreal progression of dreams — from familiar yet uncanny beginnings to vibrant, chaotic twists and turns — and investigates the paradox of boundless imagination constrained by individual perspective.

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Kizuna Dance is an international repertory ensemble that blends streetdance with contemporary floorwork to create dances that celebrate Japanese culture. The company has performed nationally and internationally at prestigious institutions and festivals such as Kobe College, The Japan Society, Performatica, the Let’s Dance International Frontiers Festival, Middlebury Institute for International Studies, and La Halle aux Grains. With more than 20 years of Japanese language study, award-winning Artistic Director Cameron McKinney has received fellowships from the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission, The School at Jacob’s Pillow, Princeton University, the Alvin Ailey New Directions Lab, and the Asian Cultural Council. He has presented work and taught in over 20 states and in Mexico, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Japan, Ireland, France, and the UK. In 2020, he performed his original choreography alongside Sayo Homma (Dance Barbizon) in Tokyo, Japan in the U.S. Ambassador's Residence. He has received over 30 commissions from institutions across the U.S. and abroad, including The Ailey School, Marymount Manhattan College, Princeton University, Montclair University, three times from the Let’s Dance International Frontiers Festival (UK), Slippery Rock University, Swarthmore College, and Brigham Young University, among numerous others. He has been on faculty at Montclair State University and NYU Tisch, among other universities and festivals. Each year, he organizes Kizuna Dance’s Open Intensive, a week of day-long intensives made entirely free for all participants.

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Performers include Isabele Rosso, Lesar Stepputat, Juan Ospina, Emily Aslin, Rachel Calabrese, and Eric Blovits

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This performance and creation of this work has been supported through a Peridance Center Artist Residency.