Crystal Michelle is a choreographer, teacher, professor, and performer. She has received the Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, the Josie Award (which recognizes exceptional performance in the art of dance), and a Princess Grace Honoraria. Michelle has collaborated with the Dayton Philharmonic, Blackbird String Quartet, Khalid Moss Jazz Trio, Cutno Dance, SMAG Dance Collective, New Orleans Ballet Association/NOLA, Augusta Ballet Company, Compton Dance Theatre, and The Moving Architects. Crystal Michelle traveled to Ougadougou, Burkina Faso where she began The Beautiful Archive Project, an audio archive centered on the perception of black female embodiment in contemporary dance. She serves as the Associate Artistic Director of the internationally renowned Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, with whom she also performed for nine seasons.

What is love at the end of the world? How do we endure the dailiness which demands that we love and grieve, witness and testify, prosper and depart — all at once? Is survival possible? Breath, Flesh, and Bone / A Manual for Lovers at the end of the world asks these questions and becomes a field guide for those considering love. The half-evening is an immersive experience for audiences, utilizing original sound design and projection, sensorially inviting audiences into a world that moves through tenderness, resistance, arrival, grief, and care. The choreographer’s inquiry is grounded in embodied Black feminist poetics, harking to bell hooks, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde. Choreographer Crystal Michelle describes it as “an urgent excavation” that considers possible futures. It offers a blueprint for living within the raw realities of breath, flesh, and bone.

Hannah Williamson has had the honor of performing works by Dwight Rhoden and Clifford Williams of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Gina Walther formerly of Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and numerous Mutual Dance Theatre guest artists like Sidra Bell, Kyle Sangil (Dance Magazine 25 to Watch), Achinta S. McDaniel (Artistic Director of Blue13 Dance Company), and many others. She was also an apprentice for Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre. Her choreographic work has included residencies with Columbus Modern Dance Company, as well as inclusion in the Yes! Virginia Dance Festival, Synergy Dance Series, Contemporary Dance Theater’s Area Choreographers Festivals, and three prior commissions for Mutual Dance Theatre. She has served as a faculty member at Wright State’s prestigious dance program and is MDT’s rehearsal director whilst performing in her 9th season with the company.

Hannah Williamson’s Look Thrice views life as connecting all of us, albeit through different perspectives. While we may share experiences, Williamson highlights how different each individual’s thoughts or feelings may differ from each other. This new work will be her fourth commission from MDT, and promises to continue a theme of psychological journeys with thrilling, mysterious, and time-period elements.