BREAKING GROUND 2026
Saturday, January 31
Special Thanks to our sponsors:
Arizona Commission on the Arts
City of Tempe
Dark Moon
Choreographer:
Carley Conder in collaboration with the dancers
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Sound:
"Dark Moon" by Bonnie Guitar, "Nightmare" by X-Minus One for NBC Radio, "Hide" by Dorian Concept
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Lighting Design:
Jordan Daniels​
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Costume Design:​
Original by Ashleigh Leite
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Performers:
Kina Connor-Ortiz, Kelsey Metz, Amy Symonds​
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Dark Moon is a trio set within a world of “future nostalgia,” where past and future continually converge. With a score that blends historical and futuristic soundscapes, the work investigates the intersections of machine, alien, and animal, asking how we might live more harmoniously with the technologies that shape us.
Carley Conder is the Artistic Director of CONDER/dance, established in Arizona in 2003. Based in Tempe, she has dedicated her career to fostering opportunities for contemporary dance artists in the region through initiatives such as the Breaking Ground Festival and Tiny Dances. Her company, CONDER/dance, holds artist-in-residence status at the Tempe Center for the Arts, where it continues to push the boundaries of dance innovation. Recent projects include the AQUA Project with Opus Ballet in Santa Barbara and a choreographic collaboration with Keith Thompson (danceTactics, Trisha Brown Dance Company). Carley is also a Clinical Associate Professor of Dance in the School of Music, Dance, and Theater at Arizona State University.
Ache of Recognition
Choreographer:
Eryn Waltman
Sound:
Hyperborea - Biosphere The air outside is crazy right now - Perila Joyce - Ian William Craig & Daniel Lentz
Edited and Mixed By: Eryn Waltman
Lighting Design:
Eryn Waltman
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Costume Design: Eryn Waltman
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Performers:
Jackson Lee and Melanie De Melo
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"Ache of Recognition" is a contemporary duet exploring intimacy in a technologically saturated world. Using headphones as both object and metaphor, the work examines how individualized sensory experiences shape and strain connection - what soothes one body may destabilize another. As shared language fractures, communication becomes fragile. Moving between closeness and separation, the piece asks how we remain connected when our experiences no longer align, and what it means to be truly felt, understood, and seen.
Eryn Waltman is a Toronto-based choreographer and visionary storyteller with over two decades of experience in creation and education. Founder and Artistic Director of Conteur Dance Company, she creates work rooted in authenticity, emotional depth, and fearless exploration. Holding a degree in Social Psychology, Waltman weaves insight into the human condition throughout her choreography. Her contemporary style - marked by intricate floorwork, dynamic partnering, and detail-driven movement - has earned national recognition and multiple awards. She has presented work across Canada and the United States and continues to push the boundaries of her art form, crafting work that is both viscerally physical and profoundly human.
Who's Afraid of Forever?
Choreographer:
Cristina Camacho aka MACHO.,
in collaboration with her cast​
Sound: ​
Original song: Hey Ya! by Outkast; Cover song: Hey Ya! by Lusanda; Edited by Cristina Camacho
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Lighting Design:
Cristina Camacho​
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Costume Design:
Cristina Camacho​
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Performers:
Quill Huntley, Duncan Oldham, Hayoung Roh,
Alice Wu ​
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Who’s Afraid of Forever? blends contemporary and Hip Hop elements to reimagine Edward Albee's Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Set to a deconstructed version of OutKast’s Hey Ya!, the piece reframes Albee’s two couples as one relationship split across time—its younger and older selves coexisting in the same space, ultimately asking: If nothing lasts forever, what makes love the exception?
MACHO is a professional dancer and choreographer based between Los Angeles and New York, originally from the DMV area. A graduate of the University of Maryland College Park (B.A. Dance / B.S. Kinesiology), she has performed in the commercial dance and entertainment industry with credits including the MTV VMA’s, Telemundo Upfronts, The Soul Spot by Candace Brown, The CW, and BET. As a choreographer and educator, MACHO has taught and presented work across the East Coast, Canada, and Barcelona, with performances at 92NY, PACE University with DanceLab NY, Steps on Broadway, Olney Theater, Roundhouse Theater, the Peabody Dance Festival, and the Mobile Dance Film Festival. Her artistic practice fuses street styles with modern and contemporary dance, and she is deeply invested in breaking boundaries between concert and commercial forms. She also works with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Communications, where she creates and directs movement-driven digital content.
Functioning As Title
Choreographers:
Esteban Rosales and Avery Polster
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Sound:
"SIREN - Basement Jaxx Joy Ride Mix" - Shygirl, Basement Jaxx | Miscellaneous sound scapes
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Lighting Design:
Esteban Rosales
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Costume Design:
Esteban Rosales and Avery Polster
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Performers:
Esteban Rosales and Avery Polster
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Functioning as Title unfolds in a living room left in disarray—fragile moving boxes scattered, a couch that seems impossible to leave. Through task-based exploration of this environment, the duet moves between image-driven solo material and intimate partnering to investigate the expected, intended, and lived meanings of identity labels. Not straight, brown, gay, Jewish, skinny, short—the list goes on. The work searches for the space between who we are told to be and who we actually become.
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Esteban Rosales is a multidisciplinary performance artist of Mestizo descent from Phoenix, Arizona, whose work blends abstract composition, theatricality, and a flair for the absurd. Drawing inspiration from existential nihilism, glamour, and embodied storytelling, he performs with the Charlie’s Show Dancers, Depth Dance, and Safos Dance Theatre. Esteban recently premiered his first evening-length production, ROBOTICA, a two-year creative undertaking presented at Phoenix Center for the Arts in October 2025—marking a significant milestone in his expanding artistic practice.
Avery Polster is a Jewish Queer movement artist who pulls from elements of surrealism, eroticism, and DRAMA. Currently based out of Los Angeles, he was born and raised in Arizona where he graduated from ASU in 2021 with a BFA in Dance. Avery has spent the past 3 years as a teaching artist through EDLA! and a collaborator with LADP. Along with his work with Ate9, Avery has choreographed for Contrition Pageant a play by Siena Foster-Soltis, and music videos for artists such as Lu-ee and Nervous Surface. He enjoys the simplicities of life such as learning Kpop dances in his living room, handstands, and orange Gatorade.
INTERMISSION
Whitney Houston Mega Mix
Choreographer:
Lolita Hernandez​
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Lighting Design:
Cari Koch
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Costume Design:
Ferrah-James Designs
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Performers:
Lolita Hernandez
Who Doesn't Love Whitney Houston!
Brandon Lombardo (Choreographer) holds an MFA in Dance from Arizona State University with an emphasis in gender performance and choreography, and a BFA in Theatre Arts (Dance) from Sonoma State University. He is currently on faculty at Mesa Community College, where he continues to explore identity, unpredictability, and self-discovery through movement.
Dinner's at 9
Choreographers:
Leah M. Friedman and Juan Carlos García Gutiérrez
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Sound: ​
"Also With Each Other" by Requisit​
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Performers:
Leah M. Friedman and Juan Carlos García Gutiérrez
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"Dinner's at 9" reveals an evolving conflict over manners and traditions between two friends hosting a dinner party where the audience are the guests. Through movement, audience interaction, and conversation in English, Russian, and Spanish, the dancers struggle with the way that they interpret, inherit, and enact manners and traditions from their own families.
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Leah M. Friedman is a dance artist, creator, and researcher, originally from Philadelphia, PA; she has performed and toured with Philadanco!, #dbdanceproject, Waheedworks, and others, has presented multimedia work in Philadelphia and Phoenix, and is a PhD candidate at Arizona State University.
Juan Carlos García Gutiérrez (JC CHAOS) is a multimedia dance artist and current Gay Arizona America Esquire 2025; he has performed with Instinct Dance Corps, Tranza Danza, and Rosenkrans Dance, has presented work around Arizona, and is a multi-time Maricopa Artist of Promise award winner. Leah and Juan Carlos met while performing with CONDER|dance between 2023-2025. They found mutual interest in creating multi-media dance theater that engages audiences and explores interpersonal relationships. This is their first (of hopefully many) dance works together.
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The Hold
Choreographers: ​
Kim Dae Hee & Ha Ga Eun (G&D Dance Project)
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Sound:
Yechan Lee – Original composition for "The Hold"
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Lighting Design:
Ha Ga Eun ​
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Costume Design:
Ha Ga Eun
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Performers: ​
Ha Ga Eun, Kim Dae Hee
​In "The Hold", chairs serve as both the center of the relationship and symbols of control. Within a confined space, shifting moments of movement and stillness reveal power dynamics and emotional tension between two performers. Through gestures of contact, resistance, pulling, and pushing, the work explores how balance in a relationship is never fixed but constantly renegotiated.​
G&D Dance Project is a choreographic partnership between Seoul-based artists Ha Ga-eun and Kim Dae-hee, bringing together shared research interests in tension, control, and human connection.
Ha Ga-eun is a choreographer and dancer currently completing her Ph.D. in Dance Studies at Sejong University, where she also earned her BFA and MFA in Dance. Her work merges emotional depth with physical precision, focusing on sensory space, memory, and relational dynamics.
Kim Dae-hee is a contemporary dancer and co-choreographer of G&D Dance Project. He holds a B.A. in Dance and an M.A. in Convergence Arts from Sejong University and is currently a Ph.D. candidate. A company member of Toetmaru Dance Company, he also serves as a lecturer in the Department of Theater & Film at Anyang Arts High School. Together, their collaboration reflects a rigorous, research-driven approach to choreography grounded in both academic inquiry and embodied practice.
Its Motion Keeps
Choreographer - BG26 Student Artist:
Megan Keen
Sound: "Its Motion Keeps" by Caroline Shaw, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Dianne Berkun Menaker​
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Lighting Design:
Ashley Koclanis​
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Costume Design:
Megan Keen​
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Performers:
Shayla Bergene, Kayleigh Berman, Giana Garcia, Zora Griffin Todd, Katherine Hillier, Rajeigh Keller, Amanda Ortega, Emmy Pickrum, Darby Rikhoff, Kambria Simon, Alana Skiera
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"Its Motion Keeps" reflects on belonging and exclusion, examining the human need for connection through community, and the grief that follows the absence of such bonds. Even so, time remains in motion, urging perseverance, self-reflection, and transformation.
Megan Keen is a visual and performing artist whose work explores the body’s capacity for healing and its relationship to self and environment. Born and raised in the Midwest, she is a lifelong dancer focused on choreography and mentorship. Her practice treats the body as a site of memory, emotion, and transformation, using movement to investigate these layers. Megan is currently pursuing a BFA in Expanded Arts at Arizona State University, where she explores documenting and preserving ephemeral performance through photo and video work, shown in galleries and film festivals.