We’re thrilled to announce that Shapes of Change: Time Lapse Dance’s 25th Anniversary Season will honor behind-the-scenes theatrical force Gail Merrifield Papp! As a founding Board Member of Time Lapse Dance, Gail harnessed her expertise and insight to launch the company and advance our mission. More broadly in the performing arts field, Gail is known for her involvement with the Public Theater since inception as a creative force developing innovative, socially-conscious, and award-winning theatrical productions.

Join us on Friday, April 24 at a post-show reception to raise a glass and celebrate Gail and her contributions to the field.
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GAIL MERRIFIELD PAPP was born in San Francisco into a family with a deep theater lineage. After joining Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival in 1965, she became Director of New Works Development for the Public Theater and was responsible for some of its best-remembered productions. These include The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer’s Tony Award-winning play about the AIDS crisis, for which she received the Human Rights Campaign Arts and Communication Award, and Rupert Holmes’s Tony Award-winning Best Musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Gail Merrifield amd Joseph Papp were married in 1976. She is the author of the memoir PUBLIC/PRIVATE: My Life with Joe Papp at The Public Theater, a Library of Congress best pick published in 2023 by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books and Audible.com. CLICK HEREfor more info and to purchase the book.

More about the 25th Anniversary Season

For two-and-a-half decades, choreographer Jody Sperlingand her Time Lapse Dance ensemble have been creating stunning spectacles that illuminate the relationship between the human body and the natural world while reckoning with climate change realities. Since 2022, Sperling and company have been Eco-Artists-in-Residence at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, co-presenting programs that embody an ethical and ecological ethos. Shapes of Change celebrates the 25th Anniversary of Time Lapse Dance and the 150th Anniversary of the New York Society for Ethical Culture with two unique performances (come to both!) featuring a world premiere and repertory favorites at the Society’s historic Adler Hall. 

The world premiere, Sea Change,is a poetic reimagining of humanity's relationship with water in the wake of rising sea levels. Performed by the company’s six exquisite dancers, the dance delves into somatic experiences of submersion and conjures a misty realm between sea and sky. The work continues a decade-long collaboration between Sperling and Emmy Award-winning environmental composer Matthew Burtner. For the season, Burtner performs live and conducts The New Consort vocal ensemble to evoke a hauntingly luminous sea of sound.

Program A features two other Sperling-Burtner collaborations: Fractal Memories, originally created for the documentary Obsessed with Light, which traces the entanglement of bodies through time; and Plastic Harvest, a romp about plastic proliferations. Performance followed by a reception honoring a special guest to be announced. Program B features the Sperling-Burtner collaborations:Wind Rose, visualizing patterns of atmospheric disturbance; and excerpts from the visually-hypnotic Arbor, dwelling on the intimacy of trees.

All of these works feature transformative costumes that abstract human movement into elemental and organic forces, with the dancers appearing to conjure the oceans eddies, a growing forest, or hovering storm clouds. The company's unique style of movement draws inspiration from and furthers the art form created by dance icon Loie Fuller (1862-1928) a century ago.

In keeping with an ethical ethos, all performance tickets are offered at pay-what-you-can pricing. 

Program A - Friday, April 24
Fractal Memories
Plastic Harvest
Sea Change
+Ticketed Reception

Program B - Saturday, April 25
Wind Rose
Arbor (excerpts)
Sea Change
+Artist Talkback

Time Lapse Dance ensemble: Frances Barker, Elinor Kleber Diggs, Tessa Fungo, Anika Hunter, Maki Kitahara,  Lo Poppy, Sarah Tracy, and Rathi Varma

The New Consort, vocal ensemble: Madeline Apple Healey (soprano), Heather Jones (mezzo-soprano), Noé Kains (tenor), Brian Mummert (artistic director & baritone)

Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance programs are made possible in part by an ongoing eco-artist-residency at The New York Society for Ethical Culture, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, with support from the Heinrich Böll Foundation Washington, DC, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance.