A dance about dances about love.

Interested in the human impulse for connection, BABYBABYBABY (2024) taps into feelings of budding romance, when falling in love is silly and fast and sexy and devastating and you are brilliant and stupid and spellbound. With reference points ranging from early aughts romantic comedies and So You Think You Can Dance duets, to archival footage of live performances by Roberta Flack and Nina Simone, to obstacle course TV game shows and clowning, the work stumbles through shades of silliness, irrationality, passion, and grief, calling into question the role of sincerity, earnesty, and truthfulness in performance, and the power of physical states.

BABYBABYBABY seeks to explore how we contend with the precarity of trust, impulsivity, and continuity via malleable agreements and disagreements, in its physical acts and in its overarching theme. It is a work that is interested in companionship and partnership, exploring the ways we give and receive care. Performers: Michael Figueroa, Laila J. Franklin, Jenna Gross, Andrea Muñiz, Marissa Molinar, Sarah Pacheco, Sasha Peterson and Marcel Santiago Marcelino, with contributions from Alexander Davis.

Lighting Design: Anne Dresbach
Dramaturgy: Kate Gow & Eliza Malecki
Rehearsal Direction: Mira Göksel
Rehearsal Assistance: Abby Fuller & Justine Schmaltz

Motion State Arts is thrilled to present the only Rhode Island performance of this piece.