spec. Yellow

This excerpt of spec. Yellow questions how the historical layers in a physical place allow for unlikely connections. Inspired in part by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” interviews with female friends, and our own quarantine experiences, this work imagines a conversation between two women on either side of a divide -- separated both by wallpaper and by lifetimes. Each relates her own perspectives and experiences of reality, but is still able to glimpse the beauty and shared humanity of the other, even though she fears it.

Choreography: Abby Marchesseault
Dancers: Whitney Janis & Abby Marchesseault

Music: "Entr'acte" by Caroline Shaw (used with permission), recorded by Artists By Any Other Name

Videography by Shannon Yu

Shot at the Morris-Jumel Mansion, an historic Manhattan home formerly owned by the 19th-century self-made "mad" socialite Eliza Jumel.