Ghost Factory (excerpts)
Choreography and Performance:  Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer
Video: Peter Bobrow
Lighting Design: Frank DenDanto III
Music and Sound Score: Ansel Bobrow
Costumes: Anna-Alisa Belous
Johnson City Community Liaison: Corinna Johnson

Ghost Factory is inspired by the residents and vast deserted factories of Johnson City, an upstate New York town. Thriving in the first half of the 20th century, over 20,000 people, mostly Eastern European immigrants, worked for the Endicott Johnson Shoe Company. At its peak, it produced 52 million pairs of shoes a year.

The creation of Ghost Factory was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a National Dance Project Finalist Grant Award, and commissioning support from the American Dance Asylum. Bridgman|Packer Dance is a 2020 NDP Finalist Grant Award recipient. Support was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W Mellon Foundation.

The video projections in Ghost Factory are sourced from footage recorded on site in Johnson City in the former factories and buildings of the Endicott Johnson Shoe Company and the Lestershire Spool & Mfg. Co. The sound score includes the voices of current and former residents of Johnson City, NY: Julie Dyno, Carol Cass, Jerry Kane, Jack Lane, Bernadette Quaglia, Diane Marusich, Ken Summers, Bob Egan, and Emalie Tipton.

Under The Skin
Choreography and Performance:  Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer
Video: Peter Bobrow and Jim Monroe
Music: Ken Field
Lighting Design: Frank DenDanto III
Costume Consultant: Margaret Auer

Under The Skin is a co-commissioning project of Contemporary Dance Theater (Cincinnati, OH) in partnership with The Dance Place (Washington, D.C.) and the National Performance Network Creation Fund. The NPN Creation Fund is sponsored by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, Altria, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The creation of Under The Skin was also supported by funds from the 92^nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund, NYC. Technological support was provided by SUNY Rockland: Communications/Media Arts.

Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer, Co-Artistic Directors of Bridgman|Packer Dance, are collaborators in choreography and performance. In 2001, they expanded their choreographic vision, stretching the boundaries of dance by merging it with video technology. They continue to receive international critical praise for seamlessly melding these two art forms. In 2017, they received a New York Dance and Performance Award for Outstanding Production (The Bessies) for their work Voyeur. In New York City they have been presented by Lincoln Center, City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival, 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), Dance New Amsterdam, Central Park Summerstage, The Sheen Center, and the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Bridgman|Packer Dance has toured throughout the USA, performing at festivals and art centers, including Spoleto Festival USA, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Florida Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Dance St. Louis, and Philadelphia’s Annenberg Center. They have appeared abroad in Europe, Asia, The Middle East, and Central America in festivals including Munich International Dance Festival, Festival Internacional de Artes Escenicas (Panama), Kintetsu Theater (Osaka, Japan), Festival Internacional Chihuahua (Mexico), The Beirut Spring Festival (Lebanon), High Fest International Arts Festival (Armenia), and Tancforum (Budapest).

The 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship awarded to Bridgman and Packer was the first in the history of the Guggenheim Foundation to be given to two individuals for their collaborative work. They are also recipients of twelve National Endowment for the Arts Grants (2007-2021), a 2013 National Dance Project Touring Award, a 2020 NDP Finalist Grant Award, NEFA Expeditions Grants (2008, 2012, 2015), three Choreography Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts (including 2022), two New York State Council for the Arts Grant (including 2025), and four National Performance Network’s Creation Fund Awards. They have received five choreography commissions from DTW (now New York Live Arts), a Danspace Project Commissioning Initiative, as well as commissions from the 92^nd Street Y New Works in Dance, Portland Ovations, and American Dance Asylum. Their international touring has been supported by USArtists International, American Dance Abroad, Performing Americas Project, National Performance Network, and La Red de Promotores CentroAmericana y El Caribe.

Bridgman|Packer Dance’s New York City Season at The Sheen Center was chosen as “Best of 2016” in both The Village Voice and Huffington Post, and their performance at Dallas City Performance Hall was chosen as “Best of 2017” by theatrejones.com. Their stand-alone dance film Look Out (2018) in collaboration with drone camera cinematographer Gavin Preuss was selected for Screendance Miami and received Best Cinematography at the Los Angeles Experimental Dance & Music Film Festival and Best Drone Film at the Beyond Earth Festival. Their film Embrace in the Time of COVID-19 (2020) received Best Choreography Award at the Global Shorts Film Festival and Best Dance Film at the Los Angeles Experimental Dance & Music Film Festival. For more information, visit: bridgmanpacker.org, @bridgmanPacker on facebook, and @BridgmanPackerDance on Instagram and twitter.

Peter Bobrow (Video Design) is a filmmaker who has spent over 20 years producing, shooting and editing documentary and scripted projects of all types.  He’s been collaborating with Bridgman|Packer Dance since 2003. Some of Peter’s recent projects include producing profiles of individuals on the frontlines of the Pandemic, following immigrants on the verge of deportation by ICE; looking behind the scenes at a Chanel Couture show in Paris; searching the jungles of Colombia for buried narco treasure with associates of Pablo Escobar; filming the NASA / JPL crew during the final moments of the Cassini Saturn Mission and chasing dogsledders under the shadow of Denali in minus 40°. Peter has worked on projects featuring Robert De Niro, Mark Ruffalo, Liam Neeson, Spike Lee, Idina Menzel, Edward James Olmos, Mahershala Ali, Nick Nolte, Ice-T, Mira Sorvino, Tina Fey, and many others. His documentary and unscripted work include projects for Netflix, Amazon, Discovery, History, NatGeo and A&E.

Frank DenDanto III (Lighting Designer) received his MFA in Design from NYU’s Tisch School. His design credits include Full Circle’s Solar Powered at the New Victory Theater, HBO’s Reel Sex 24 and Off-Broadway productions of Blind Alley at the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Only You at the Jewish American Theater, and Shadow Box at the Hudson Guild Theater. He has designed for Spalding Gray, Eric Bogosian, Karen Finley, Tim Miller, Deb Margolin, Ann Magnuson, John Kelly, Holly Hughes, Sarah Michelson, Lava Love, Stacy Dawson, David Neumann and the White Oak Dance Project. Awards for his light installation/sculptures include First Runner Up in Light Forums 98, and a Jerome commission in 2002. His work and designs have been displayed at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, The Museum of Art and Architecture and The New Museum of Contemporary Art in NYC. He has worked with Bridgman|Packer Dance since 1997. 

Ansel Bobrow (Soundscore, Ghost Factory) is a composer and classical guitarist and a graduate of Yale in music and computer science. He studied classical guitar with Ben Verdery at Yale, Tali Roth at Juilliard Pre-College, and Jonathan Trotta at the Rockland Conservatory of Music. As a member of the New York Youth Symphony, he performed at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, and the National Arts Club in a flute and guitar duet, participated in workshops with Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, Du Yun, and other prominent composers, and had original compositions premiered at Symphony Space and the DiMenna Center for Classical Music. Ansel was also selected as a YoungArts winner in classical music, where—aside from enjoying a week of exhibits and masterclasses by peers and professionals—he took part in an interdisciplinary performance involving experimental animation, dance, and classical music. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.

Anna-Alisa Belous (Costume Designer, Ghost Factory) holds an MFA in Textile and Interior Design from the Art and Design Academy St. Petersburg, Russia and an MFA in Costume Design from Brandeis University, Boston. Anna-Alisa designs costumes for dance and theatre companies, such as Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre, Philadanco (PA), Rebecca Kelly Ballet, Carolyn Dorfman Dance, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Co., Ailey School, Marymount Manhattan College Dance Department, Actor’s Shakespeare Project (MA), Portland Stage Company (ME), Manhattan School of Music Opera Department. www.aabelous.com

Kristen Paige (Production Manager) is a Production Coordinator at the Center For Performance Research and lighting designer for dance and performance based in NYC. Her work hopes to explore an obsession with light, texture, transportation, and moving bodies. Kristen is a graduate of NYU Tisch with an M.F.A. in Design for Stage and Film and Muhlenberg College with a B.A. in Theater. The best kinds of stories envelop you in a world of their own.

Ken Field (Music, Under The Skin) is a Boston-based saxophonist, flautist, percussionist, and composer. Since 1988 he has been a member of the internationally acclaimed modern music ensemble Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. Field also leads the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, an improvisational brass band whose albums have been included on best-of-year lists in the Village Voice, KMUW (Wichita, Kansas), the Postimees (Estonia), Gambit Weekly (New Orleans) Radio Popolare (Milan, Italy), WNYC Radio, and others.