FRICTION by Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company to Make World Premiere at Ailey Citigroup Theater
Dancers: Derek Crescenti, Daniel Gwirtzman, Sarah Hillmon, Vanessa Martínez de Baños, Johnny Mathews, and more to be announced.
Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company is presenting FRICTION, the company's first full evening-length work in New York City since 2019, at Ailey Citigroup Theater, 9 on October 29 & 30 at 7pm and October 31 at 3pm. Tickets are $38 general admission, $26 for students and children under 12, and are available now. FRICTION: a dance exploring AI, humanity, and the sparks where tension, technology, and fractured relationships collide and ignite.
It prickles your skin. Pricks. Fastens. Adheres. Sticks. Is Stylized. Edgy. Of this moment. Fault Lines. Schisms. Chasms. Seismic action. Tectonic shifts. Land and people and minds. Tension. Fraying. Relationships. Relations to Self. Friction.
Friction is that moment a fire can start. It cannot start without. Neither intercourse. Neither love. Straddling the lines separating technology from humanity, a theme DGDC has portrayed since its first evening-length work, Plasma Field in 1999, through 2023's e-Motion, investigating sentience in AI, ahead of the curve [Dance Magazine on e-Motion].
FRICTION captures the tensions and tenor of our time, days before the midterm election, harnessing the fraught emotions that characterize our incivil society. FRICTION is very personal in some ways. Daniel has decided to continue dancing, as he has been fortunate to have had such a long career as a dancer, still dancing at a pitch which belies his age. Friction.
Overcoming inertia, getting out of bed, combatting aging, striving, hardships, perceptions, expectations, hopes, comparisons, disappointments, struggles, risks. Friction. The score has been generated in full in collaboration with the large language model Claude. Daniel has used a range of additional programs to generate various voices, which mirror the thicket of data on display in the dance. Dancers: Derek Crescenti, Daniel Gwirtzman, Sarah Hillmon, Vanessa Martínez de Baños, Johnny Mathews, and more to be announced.
The company will also present In The Studio at New York City Center Studios on Saturday, September 12, 2026 at 4pm and Sunday, October 11, 2026 at 2pm, where it will preview FRICTION in an intimate rehearsal-like setting. Free admission.
