2026 NOW Festival: Week 1

The 23rd annual New Original Works kicks off with a program of works by Alfonso Abraham Cervera and Irvin Manuel Gonzalez, Scottie Harvey and Jeonghyeon Joo. About Alfonso Abraham Cervera and Irvin Manuel Gonzalez las cosas que enter(r)amos Drawing on Latinx American social and folk dance, storytelling, and contemporary dance, Alfonso Abraham Cervera and Irvin Manuel Gonzalez explore the (im)materiality of belonging in this new dance duet. Partners in life and on dance floors, they use movement to tell stories that foreground cuir/queer Mexicanidades. las cosas que enter(r)amos centers rhythm, aesthetics, and the body as sites of memory, mourning, and resistance. Set in Latinx nightlife, the duet presents grooving and exchange as living altars that honor past and present cuir/queer lives and transborder movidas (moves that expand possibilities for worldmaking). Rooted in rascuachismo —a Chicanx working-class aesthetic of creative resourcefulness—the duo dances between remembering and re-membering. Scottie Harvey Hole Gazers Hole Gazers is a comedic satire about fantasy, surveillance, and life online. Wearing a Halloween muscle costume, Scottie Harvey plays the role of MAN—a gay porn star—who feels violated when he finds his likeness is being used in workplace accident prevention videos. Alone in his claustrophobic apartment, MAN begins messaging the anonymous animator, who has crafted his online avatar, and imagines an escape from his life through the chat box of their relationship. Combining humor, animation, and performance, this piece probes the absurdity and possibility of safety and connection in our slippery virtual world. Jeonghyeon Joo how to bathe properly how to bathe properly is a solo work for haegeum , a two-string instrument, performed in a staged Korean sauna. The piece extends the gesture and sound of bowing an instrument to the repetitive, vigorous body scrubbing offered in a jjimjilbang , or Korean spa. As water flows onstage, Jeonghyeon Joo (Musical Arts PhD 2023) turns the private ritual of bathing into a public performance. Proposing that the labor of being spotless is an endless cycle of erasure, Joo asks what is left behind when we attempt to scrub away the history of our own skin. NOW 2026: Week One will be presented as one shared program of all three works on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Please note: las cosas que enter(r)amos contains strobe lights, nudity, mature content, and dried herbs; how to bathe properly contains mature content; Hole Gazers contains strobe lights and mature content. Read more Toggle Audio / Sound Multi-disciplinary Film / Video Performance / Live Art