Lisa Fagan + Lena Engelstein: Deepe Darknesse
Friday, August 1, 2025 at 8:30pm
Saturday, August 2, 2025 at 8:00pm, ASL Interpretation
60 minutes
West Coast Premiere
ODC is offering a group discount of 10% off orders of 6+ tickets. Use code ODC10 at checkout. For groups of 8+ use code SOPGROUP8 for $15 tickets.
Deepe Darknesse (pronounced dee-pee dark-ness-ay) is a physically maximal, experimental dance-theater work by choreographers/theater makers Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein. In a transmogrification regiment of their own design, the performers push past their physical limits and press the edges of the playing space in a frenetic, oddball, unrelentingly theatrical Rube Goldberg machine of “curiositas improspera” or unhappy curiosity. The attempt to become something “better” (a bird?) backfires: the shows’ three worlds tangle into a gordian knot and their climactic moment is overshadowed by the glamourous entrance of underrated 1960s Italian songstress Cocki Mazzetti.
Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein are NYC-based experimental dance makers and performers whose work has been dubbed “The High Weird” by critics. They are current Live Feed artists in residence at New York Live Arts where they premiered their most recent work Friday Night Rat Catchers in Spring 2025. They are recipients of a 2025 Foundation for Contemporary Arts' Artists Grant in dance. They have performed at Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Collapsable Hole, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in DC, Exponential Festival, Prelude Festival, CATCH, and many other stages across NYC and beyond.
"These performers are fully committed comics, unafraid to make donkeys of themselves, and they keep up the tension of potential peril... You don’t know what these zanies might do." - New York Times
CREATED AND PERFORMED BY Lisa Fagan + Lena Engelstein WITH PERFORMANCE BY Hannah Mitchell LIGHTING DESIGN Masha Tsimring + Christina Tang SOUND DESIGN Tei Blow SONGS Stasera by Cocki Mazzetti, All Knowing Big God by Mother Cell, Tango Italiano by Cocki Mazzetti PRODUCTION MANAGER Daniel Nelson PROPS Ana-Miren San Millan + Lily Guerin CO-PRODUCED BY Immediate Medium DRAMATURGICAL SUPPORT Alex Tatarsky, Morgan Green, Max Dana. Produced in association with Immediate Medium’s AGENCY program. This project was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.
Accessibility at ODC
ODC is ADA Accessible. Additional wheelchair seating is provided for select shows. ODC Theater seats are 17 inches wide. Getting to second floor studios in the ODC Dance Commons and ODC Theater involves riding an elevator or climbing one flight of stairs. The majority of the ODC Annex is carpeted.
Land Acknowledgement
ODC is on the ancestral lands of the Ramaytush People in Yelamu. We pay respects to elders past and present, who are still here and part of our community. We recognize that regenerative land management is not new, but is a continuation of practices from Native cultures and from our own ancestors. It is our responsibility to steward the land with care, as our elders did before us.
Arts Access Tickets
ODC offers a limited number of free and/or lower-cost Art Access tickets to every ODC presented performance. For most performances in B. Way Theater, twenty tickets are allocated to the Arts Access tiers. These additionally subsidized tickets, available on a first-come, first-serve basis, are reserved for those for whom price is a barrier. Please contact boxoffice@odc.dance if you or your organization is interested in underwriting the cost of additional Arts Access tickets.
About the Theater
ODC Theater exists to empower and develop innovative artists. It participates in the creation of new works through commissioning, presenting, mentorship and space access; it develops informed, engaged and committed audiences; and advocates for the performing arts as an essential component to the economic and cultural development of our community. This 170-seat venue is the site of over 150 performances a year involving nearly 1,000 local, regional, national and international artists.
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