IN THE STUDIO With DGDC to Return to New York City Center
Choreographer Daniel Gwirtzman and company dancers will discuss the work in free sessions at the studios.
Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company will invite audiences inside the creative process this fall with two free IN THE STUDIO events at New York City Center Studios, ahead of the world premiere of the company's new evening-length work FRICTION.
The open studio events will take place Saturday, September 12 at 4 p.m. and Sunday, October 11 at 2 p.m. Building on two IN THE STUDIO programs presented in June, the events will offer audiences an up-close look at the development of the company's newest work.
Attendees will hear directly from the dancers about their creative process and from choreographer Daniel Gwirtzman about the ideas shaping the work. Audiences will also have opportunities to ask questions and participate in the conversation.
Both events are free and open to the public, in keeping with the company's mission to make concert dance more accessible.
The programs lead up to FRICTION, Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company's first full evening-length New York City work since 2019. The production will premiere at Ailey Citigroup Theater October 29 and 30 at 7 p.m. and October 31 at 3 p.m.
Exploring artificial intelligence, humanity and fractured relationships, FRICTION examines the tensions created where technology and human connection intersect. The work continues themes Gwirtzman has explored throughout his career, dating back to the company's 1999 evening-length work Plasma Field and continuing through 2023's e-Motion, which investigated questions surrounding sentience and AI.
At the center of the program is Flashpoint, an ensemble work developed at the American Dance Festival in 2024. The piece explores the push and pull between harmony and conflict in relationships and the boundaries separating intimacy from violence. Following its premiere in Ithaca, New York in July, Flashpoint will make its NYC debut as part of FRICTION.
The evening will also feature LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL, which was previewed during the company's June IN THE STUDIO programs at New York City Center. In the work, dancers become analogous to bytes of information, executing dense and intricate choreography at relentless speeds. The piece incorporates excerpts from the company's repertory that have been fragmented and recontextualized.
The score for FRICTION was generated in collaboration with the large language model Claude, with additional programs used to generate voices incorporated into the work.
The company of dancers includes Mariah Anton Arters, Derek Crescenti, Daniel Gwirtzman, Sarah Hillmon, Vanessa Martínez de Baños, Johnny Mathews and Aria Roach. Deb Sivigny serves as costumer, with lighting design by Bryan Ealey.
Tickets for FRICTION are $38 for general admission and $26 for students and children under 12.
ABOUT Daniel Gwirtzman DANCE COMPANY
Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, known for its optimistic ethos, was formed in 1998. Since its inception, it has demonstrated a commitment to education, operating with the philosophy and programming that everyone can join the dance. Incorporating dance and story into the film medium has been a consistent practice along with creating original programming for the stage. The repertory has earned praise for its humor, musicality, stylistic diversity, and accessibility. The Company's acclaimed creation, 'Dance With Us,' a free online educational resource, received leadership support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and is designed to demystify choreography and increase comfort viewing and speaking about dance. The digital resource showcases the Company's decade-long practice working in the dance for camera genre. Lincoln Center and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts presented the Company in 2023 during its 25th Anniversary season in a stand-alone program called Everybody Can Dance. In the summer of 2024, DGDC was in residence at the American Dance Festival where it developed its newest evening-length dance, Flashpoint. In 2025, the Company's AI-themed theater/dance work e-Motion, a collaboration with playwright Saviana Stanescu, made its NYC premiere at La MaMa during the La MaMa Moves! Festival, which Culturebot reviewed as 'profoundly chilling,' noting Daniel's performance as 'masterful.' Also in 2025, Framing Ménerbes, a film created by the Company in Provence, premiered in France, followed by its US premiere at the Dolby Screening Room in Manhattan with guests Donald Byrd and Jovani Furlan leading the post-screening conversation. Since then, the film has screened in theaters in Upstate New York-Binghamton, Ithaca, and Rochester-and in Ann Arbor, MI and Vancouver, WA. The film will screen next in San Francisco at the Alliance Française in January 2027. Other highlights include performances at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, The Kennedy Center, Battery Dance Festival, Fire Island Dance Festival, Bryant Park, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. The Company's robust summer 2026 season included two IN THE STUDIO programs at New York City Center along with a tour of its SUMMER MIX program to Ithaca, NY, with six performances at the Kitchen Theatre Company July 16-19, 2026: https://gwirtzmandance.org/summermix.
ABOUT Daniel Gwirtzman
Daniel Gwirtzman begins his fourth decade as a NYC company director and choreographer in 2026. Since co-founding Artichoke Dance Company in 1995, 'a welcome addition to the New York Dance scene' (The New York Times), he has choreographed and performed without pause. Reviews from Artichoke's debut concert earned him comparisons to Mark Morris, by Elizabeth Zimmer in The Village Voice, whose company he toured internationally with over several years as a guest. An artist/scholar, Daniel Gwirtzman is deeply immersed in multiple arenas: as a producer, dancer, educator, and filmmaker known for his blend of innovative and charismatic work. Collaborations blend genres, take risks, involve communities, promote optimism, and celebrate humanity. The New Yorker and The Village Voice describe him as 'a choreographer of high spirits and skill,' and 'an abundantly inventive artist with a subtle defiance of gender roles.' The New York Times writes, 'Mr. Gwirtzman does know that in dance, less can be more. He can evoke strong feelings with a few gestures.' He has been awarded commissions, residencies, and fellowships nationally and abroad. Daniel is also an Associate Professor at Ithaca College, helping to usher in a new Dance Major, a first for the school, that has gained national recognition for its unique degree. The BFA in Dance and Musical Theatre Choreography is the first of its kind anywhere and welcomes its first cohort this fall. His dance-theater production e-Motion, delving into the concerns of AI, premiered in 2023 and made its NYC debut in 2025. In 2024, he was in residence at the Dora Maar Cultural Center in Provence, France, where he produced the feature-length dance film Framing Ménerbes, for which he directed, choreographed, edited, and performed. The film will screen next on January 12, 2027 at the Alliance Française in San Francisco.
