Alexa West
Amusement (2026)
For the 2026 Beach Sessions commision, Alexa West's Amusement operates both within and against the drama, romanticism, and leisure culturally coded onto its beach setting. Drawing on decades of cinematic and televisual dance that privileges entertainment, spectacle, and effortlessness—from 1940s Hollywood musicals to 1980s Italian variety shows—West reinterprets, and at times distorts, these onscreen choreographies, producing a work of pastiche that estranges as much as it cites.
Performers: Tim Bendernagel, Isabelle Dayton, Cayleen Del Rosario, Benin Gardner, Amelia Heintzelman, Jordan Lloyd, Owen Prum, Molly Ross
Artist Assistance: Olive Bonner
Dramaturgy: McClain Groff
Speaker Design and Fabrication: Material Service
Scenic Design by Alexa West and David Selig
Scenic Fabrication by Ozcelik Carpentry and NYC Parks Department
Produced by Morgan Griffin and Sasha Okshteyn
Rockaway Beach Brooklyn, NY
September 2026
PRESS:
Dancing at Rockaway Beach: Now That's Entertainment by Gia Kourlas for New York Times
New Yorker About Town "Dance" by Brian Seibert
Jawbreaker (2025-2026)
Jawbreaker Part 1 Part 2 unfolds as a two-part dance that continues an investigation of movement as an expression of patriotism and exhaustion. Part 1 features a high-energy sequence with performers in jeans and T-shirts, interrupted by a performative break in which the dancers change costumes as an aluminum lamp post set piece is pulled from the back of the stage. In Part 2, the dancers perform on the lamp post in pairs. Throughout the work, the dancers of Jawbreaker Part 1 Part 2 swim in a room covered in translucent aqua plastic, conceived by the team at CH & Herrero. The plastic encases them in a box with a pressurized focus on momentum that seeks to go nowhere.
Performed by: Cayleen Del Rosario, Benin Gardner, Amelia Heintzelman, Molly Ross, Isa Spector
Scenic Design: CH & Herrero
Lamp Post: Harrison Milne + Wyatt Acardi
Pageant Brooklyn, NY
September 2025
99 Canal New York, NY
November 2025
Tono Festival Mexico City, MX
March 2026
PRESS:
Sugar High by Quinn Schoen for Brooklyn Rail
New York Times Best Dance Performances of 2025
Occasion, Occasion, Occasion (2023)
Featuring five dancers responding to the space of the table — above, below, upon — Alexa West’s Occasion, occasion, occasion considers the social architecture of gathering. West’s placement of multiple tables provides both stage and platform, a space for presentation and for performance. The dancers embody different “character-ways,” — among them the go-go and ballet dancer, and the server, individuals whose actions occasionally coalesce to suggest a broader narrative.
Performed by Justin Faircloth, Amelia Heintzelman, Jade Manns, Michael Miles, and Sophia Parker
Photos by: Maria Baranova, Carolyne Loree Teston, Video by Kayhl Cooper
Sound and music by Lucy Lie
Bard College, Tivoli, NY
July 2023
Performa Biennial curated by Mark Beasley
The HubNew York. NY
November 2023
99 Canal x Untitled
Untitled Art Fair, Miami, FL
December 2023
Procession (2023)
Performed by Isa Spector, Savannah Lyons Anthony, Amelia Heintzelman, Anna Thérèse Witenberg, Lena Engelstein, and Noa Weiss.
With songs by Ryan Woodhall
Video by Kayhl Cooper