Barnett Cohen: anyyywayyy whatever
Géza, 306 Maujer
anyyywayyy whatever is an hour-long performance composed and choreographed by artist Barnett Cohen. The score draws from Cohen’s long-standing practice of writing epic poems, which they later reconfigure into text-based arrangements for performance. Merging original writing with accumulated language from research, personal conversations, and digital encounters, the score incorporates sources ranging from text messages and dating app exchanges to speculative fiction and queer theory. These references are footnoted in chapbooks created by artist and poet Leslie Rosario-Olivo and distributed to the audience. Cohen’s kaleidoscopic writing fractures linear time, gender identity, and sexuality into precise yet elusive forms—figureless existences that gesture toward subversive political action.
Performed under monochromatic lighting inspired by queer nightlife spaces, designed by Bessie-nominated Sarai Frazier, the work features six performers engaged in choreographic clashes of movement vocabularies. Fragments of postmodern dance melt into cheerleading formations; beauty pageant gestures evolve into rave patterns; TikTok viral sequences morph into modern dance routines. This accumulative approach physically mirrors Cohen’s score, with choreography that dissolves and reforms like a digital stream.
Dressed in outfits by New York-based fashion designer Melitta Baumeister, the performers embody a movement gradient that reflects the turbulence of our current political moment. Carefully staged collisions, stylized combat, and queer touch unfold across the space: bodies crash safely into one another before settling into prolonged holds that become tender embraces. Performers initiate brief, consensual haptic connections with audience members. With a gentle palm on a shoulder, a finger tracing a forearm, they dissolve the traditional boundary between performer and spectator. Punctuating these intimate gestures are bursts of stylized violence: punches, kicks, chokes, and slaps rendered in choreographed sequences. This spectrum of movement reflects contemporary body politics, from burbling rage and fantasies of violence to strategic invisibility, defiant presence, and the desire for intimacy.
The New York premiere of anyyywayyy whatever at Amant is a new commission featuring six performers that originated from a two-person commission by Caterina Zevola for the inaugural edition of Performissima at the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles (CWB) in Paris on October 18, 2024 with a second presentation at Kunsthall Trondheim on October 24 and 25, 2024.
Amant programs are always free. anyyywayyy whatever will be presented across three performances in Géza, located at 306 Maujer. RSVPs are strongly encouraged, please select your preferred date and time, as each performance has limited capacity. Seating is first come, first served with some standing room available.
Performers
Laurel Atwell has been performing and building performance-driven work since graduating from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work and collaborations have been presented at MoMA PS1, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Danspace Project, Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church, Center for Performance Research, Gibney Dance, Abrons Arts Center, Dixon Place; as part of Sundays on Broadway, Performa ’11, CATCH, Offerings; have shown in Los Angeles, CA, Marfa, TX, Minneapolis, MN, and New Haven, CT. She has worked with luciana achugar, Phoebe Berglund, Kim Brandt, Milka Djordjevich (for which Atwell received a 2018 Bessie nomination for her performance in ANTHEM), Beth Gill, Ursula Eagly, Nikima Jagudajev, Melanie Maar, and Melinda Ring, among others. Atwell participated in the 2022 Maumaus Independent Study Program in Lisbon, Portugal, beginning corresponding live and video projects that attempt to decipher the new perceptions of reality, desire, and mortality thanks to the internet as well as merge the necessities and benefits of the organized group (towards policy, agenda, legible accomplishment) with the disorganized group (towards intuition, pleasure, the self maintained). She is a qi gong facilitator and Reiki practitioner.
Sally Butin is a Brooklyn based movement artist originally from Hastings on Hudson, NY. She graduated in 2020 from the University of Michigan with a BFA in dance where she performed works by Rosie Herrera, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Doug Varone, and Shannon Gillen, among many others. Since graduating she has performed and collaborated with Charli Brissey, Eva Dean, Johnny Mathews III, Tenaya Kelleher, Cam Arnold, Emily Van Duinen, Damien Muñoz, Virginia Garcia, and with the dance collective Dash M. As a choreographer and movement director her work has been presented at Triskelion Arts, Ars Nova, 3 Dollar Bill, Dixon Place, Arts on Site, and seen in music videos/live productions including Sally by Gigi Perez, Kids by Sextile and The Galas and There are people that are dying by Justine Gelfman. She also teaches Dance Church classes in NYC.
Barnett Cohen is a visual artist and choreographer whose work proposes a kaleidoscopic queer surrealism. Their performances fracture linear time, gender identity, and sexuality through precise yet disjointed forms, engaging bodily shapes, and calls for subversive political action. Cohen has staged performances at The Centre Wallonie Bruxelles as part of Performissima, Kunsthall Trondheim, Canal Projects as part of Performa 2023, Judson Memorial Church (Movement Research & JUF), RECESS, The Center For Performance Research, The Exponential Festival, The Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, JOAN, LAXART, Human Resources, REDCAT, Rupert, and The Onassis Foundation. In 2021, Open Space/SFMOMA published a collection of their poems alongside those of artist and collaborator Simone Forti. Residencies include Skowhegan, MacDowell, NARS, Rupert, and Denniston Hill. They are a grant recipient from The Foundation For Contemporary Arts and their work has been reviewed and featured in BOMB, The New Yorker, The New York Times, T Magazine, Artforum, hyperallergic, Cultured, The Financial Times, and Riting. In 2017, Cohen founded and still operates the Mutual Aid Immigration Network (MAIN), a trilingual free assistance hotline for people detained in immigration detention centers across the United States. MAIN connects people who call with bond funds and legal services that can accelerate their freedom from incarceration.
Maddie Hopfield is a New York City-based dancer, performer, choreographer, writer, and taiko drummer. Her movement practice and history include shotokan karate, postmodern dance, contact improvisation, house, and waacking. She has shown work at Kestrels, LifeWorld, the MAAS building, Urban Movement Arts, The Art Room Studio, Vox Populi, and The Window Room. She has collaborated with Kayla Bobalek, Julia Bryck, and makes and performs work with Marin Day under the name PEPTALK. She has performed in the works of Jo Warren, Barnett Cohen, Amelia Heintzelman, Paris Cullen & Sarah Zucchero, Lindsey Jennings, Maya Lee-Parritz, Amalia Colón-Nava, Leah Stein Dance Company, Philly Kerplop (Vince Johnson), Jillian Jeatton, Lily Kind, Concept Kinetics (“Cricket” / James Colter), and others. She performs taiko with Casual Fifth (Philadelphia) and Taikoza (NYC), and dances with Christina Reaves’ company, The Creature (NYC). She graduated from Bard College in 2017 with a BA in Dance and Written Arts.
Deja Rion is a New York-based actor/performer. With a focus on heightened language and a strong empathic energy, she brings words to dynamic life. Recent credits include: Choreomania (BAM Fisher, dir. Marissa Joyce Stamps), Double Column (Wild Project, SFX Festival dir. Marissa Joyce Stamps), The Fate of The Online Cow (Chain Theater, dir. Marissa Joyce Stamps), whisper economies of black market thought (Judson Memorial Church, Barnett Cohen), im a pause im a ficiton im a pervert im a dream (Canal Projects, Barnett Cohen), noposition nolocation (Center For Performance Research, Barnett Cohen), The Complaint Society (The Brick as part of The Exponential Festival, Barnett Cohen), Forced Leisure Volume. I (Human Resources, dir. Kyle Patrick Roberts), MOUTHBRAIN (ICALA & JDJ, Barnett Cohen), somethingisalwayswrong (JOAN, Barnett Cohen.)
Fiona Smith is a dancer, performer, choreographer and teacher originally from Portland, Oregon, who loves to tell stories and connect with others through movement. They started their dance training at age 11 learning ballet, modern, jazz, contemporary, and tap at a public arts school. Since then, they have trained in a variety of other styles such as ballroom, hip hop, house, vogue fem and waacking and are always eager to learn more. Fiona graduated with a BS in Kinesiology from Oregon State University, and shares their scientific knowledge of the body and movement through teaching. Currently, they teach ballroom, social dance and creative movement to elementary school students in the New York City public schools. Fiona loves to perform in both live and recorded projects, such as musicals, music videos, backup dancing for local music artists, and participating in dance battles. Fiona loves choreographing for their own personal projects as well, and loves to collaborate with other dancers, artists and their students. They hope to continue to build community through their teaching and choreography.
Ray Tsung Jui Tsou is a Taiwanese multidisciplinary artist and performer. She holds a B.F.A in Acting from Taipei National University of the Arts. She experiments with various mediums, such as painting, textile art, sculpture, dance, acting, and performing arts. As a performer, Tsou performed im a pause im a fiction im a pervert im a dream by Barnett Cohen, as part of Performa Biennial 2023, presented by Canal Projects. In the same year she led Open Movement–i care more about why you move instead of how you move–at Performance Space New York. In 2024, Tsou performed in Barnett Cohen’s anyywayyy whatever at the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles in Paris as part Performissima, Kunsthall Trondheim in Norway, and at Judson Memorial Church (curated by JUF.) As a visual artist, she exhibited her artwork in Taiwan: A World of Orchids exhibition curated by Queens Botanical Garden and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York in 2022. Tsou’s two solo exhibitions Embroidered Emotions Project and A Strolling Person were showcased in Absence Theater Gallery and Atmosphere Cafe in Tainan, Taiwan in 2023.
Producer
Erin Leland is an actor and writer based in Brooklyn and previously worked as the founding director of Bridget Donahue from 2015-2022, where she curated and produced numerous exhibitions. She first acted in The African Desperate by Martine Syms, which premiered at New Directors New Films in 2022 at Lincoln Center and had her New York theater debut in the cast of Doomers in 2025, written by Matthew Gasda. She has recently held readings at Anat Ebgi Gallery and Ryan Lee Gallery, and as part of the literary event series Hard to Read in New York and on Montez Press Radio. Her writings have appeared in Spike Magazine and Cultured Magazine, among others. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree from The University of Illinois at Chicago with a focus in writing, photography and performance.
Lighting Designer
Sarai Frazier is Bessie nominated lighting designer, technical producer, and artist born and raised in New York City. Her work spans performance art exploring the presence of disappearing, and isolated bodies through light. Sarai is interested in lighting design as its own medium to view, engage, interact with as it aids in storytelling. She is currently curating a series of workshops at PSNY for technicians that emphasizes community, collaboration, and professional development, with a particular focus on supporting QTBIPOC folks. Some of her selected works as an LD include Art Workers Are Artists Too (PSNY) , im a pause im a fiction im a pevert im a dream (Canal Projects, Performa), and All Things Under Dog: where two things are always true (PSNY + HAU2).
Wardrobe
Melitta Baumeister is a German-born, New York-based fashion designer who creates sculptural, avant-garde clothing that exaggerates volume and reshapes silhouettes through innovative techniques and uncommon materials. Known for her futuristic, minimalist aesthetic that rejects trends and beauty ideals, Baumeister has dressed high-profile clients including Rihanna and Lady Gaga, and her designs are featured in cutting-edge retailers like Dover Street Market and H. Lorenzo. After earning her MFA in Fashion Design from Parsons in 2013 and launching her brand the same year, she achieved major recognition by winning the 2023 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and the 2025 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Fashion Design. In September 2024, she made her highly anticipated New York Fashion Week runway debut, closing out NYFW with her Spring/Summer 2025 collection that featured athletic motifs reimagined through her sculptural lens. Working closely with partner Michal Plata, Baumeister’s 10-year-old label continues to push boundaries in contemporary fashion, creating garments designed to impact not only the wearer but also the space around them.
Stylist
JenniLee has previously collaborated with Barnett Cohen on im a pause im a fiction im a pervert im a dream, The Complaint Society, noposition nolocation, MOUTHBRAIN, and somethingisalwayswrong. Her distinctive aesthetic—forged in NYC’s indie music and fashion scenes—has made her a sought-after collaborator for artists who refuse conventional categorization. When not styling performance, she specializes in modern and refined styling for private clients, as well as celebrities, fashion magazines, working with internationally renowned brands such as Harper’s Bazaar, Heineken, Bloomingdale’s, Diesel, Atlantic Records, and Sony. She has lent her fluid sensibility to icons including Elton John, Greta Gerwig, Sebastian Stan, Lana Condor, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, Lauryn Hill, Mos Def, Death Cab for Cutie, and Paramore. Drawing from her philosophy that “the most powerful statements often come from the most subtle choices,” JenniLee approaches each collaboration as an opportunity to transform authentic expression into a powerful visual narrative. She has collaborated with top-tier photographers and creative directors for television, advertising, print, and online media across international stages and numerous editorial spreads.
Zine Design
Leslie Rosario-Olivo is a book-artist, educator, and musician from New York City. They present their works in book-form, readings, performances, and recordings. Their publishing work is marked by the use of alternative book forms and democratic multiples to present ideas around spirituality, ecology, and social problems. They are interested in deconstructionism, and the exposure of assumptions underlying cultural absolutes. Liminal Spaces Fan Club is a musical project formed by a collagist approach to composition, and a wide range of ambient, DIY, electronic, and punk influences. They attended Wesleyan University where they graduated with a BA in English. You can find their work in various university collections, Art book fairs, and at Printed Matter, Inc.
Images
Andrew Hallinan has been shooting since they were a teenager and has worked in the photography industry for many years. They have spent recent years photographing underground music in Brooklyn, forming a close relationship with Melting Point, a rave collective that raises funds for immigrant rights. As the George Floyd uprisings grew, they looped back to their street photography roots and have been bringing their camera into the world of protest, documenting the police and anti-fascist action.
Intimacy Coordinator
Willow Funkhouser is a Brooklyn-based director and intimacy/fight choreographer. She is drawn towards work about women, flesh, and messy relationships. She has been a part of works developed and performed at New World Stages, MCC Theater, The Flea, Keen Company, Theater Row, Soho Playhouse, Delaware Rep, Syracuse Stage, The Brick, and Good Apples Collective. Willow holds a degree from Syracuse University where she developed a course of study in intimacy practice alongside directing and has served as the intimacy coordinator for dozens of short and feature films. She is also a script reader for Primary Stages and a Corps member of Good Apples Collective.