Theo Armstrong describes some cool moves and asks Noa Rui-Piin Weiss and Miranda Brown some silly yet probing questions after seeing !!simon says~~!:));)$$
Presented as part of the Out-FRONT! Festival 2025 by Pioneers Go East Collective in partnership with BAM and Judson Church
The dancers lie on the floor. As Noa and Miranda lie on the floor, appearing relaxed and wearing sort of normal dancer clothes, supertitles tell us what they are doing.
They release tension, noticing their alignment without fixing, changing, or judging. They imagine the spaces between each of their vertebrae expand gently
like many tiny air mattresses.
A litany of physical ideas scrolls over their supine bodies— ideas recognizable as postmodern dance class platitudes or nice things you might do if you found yourself lying on your back. They allow their heads to fall to the right, and then back to the left…
Already the audience is cracking up because we’re at Judson Church in the middle of a well-reviewed queer dance festival and many viewers are dancers who have heard this spiel before. But Noa and Miranda are performing ground their feet and root through the anus and let their weight fall to rise and now they’re standing, standing with exceptional posture, and
The dancers complete 4 and a half modern dance moves. A flurry of sweeping weight shifts, swirling arm gestures, spirals on spirals, moments of landed equilibrium, luscious paint-stroke limbs through space, and athletic lunges and pivots. A duet in synch, two bodies moving in unison with kinetic awareness and rhythmic dexterity. They are Barnard grads, after all.
TA: You have such chemistry as a duo. How did this collaboration come about?
NRW: College! We danced together in a bunch of different pieces in school, and started making work together with our friend uila marx as juniors. After graduation we began making duets and have been working together ever since.
MB: We co-ran an experimental performing arts group on campus called CoLab which I think was the start of our broader collaboration both as artists and administrators. During the pandemic we made a little video that was us trying on a bunch of wacky clothes in the format of exquisite corpse… that kept us entertained…for a day…
NRW: We also spent a lot of time doing bits in class to make each other laugh. That’s basically still how we make dances.
The dancers high-five. Another litany of text, but now in the style of affirmations. Setting intentions for the rest of the piece or having delusions of grandeur or lying barefaced or conceding weird truths, the dancers show everyone that they don’t care and and establish a 501(c)3 dance nonprofit in order to launder drug money and steal the declaration of independence as they walk up and down with brisk, purposeful strides, meeting in the middle of the space to slap hands and continuing on their pathway to meet again. Because they’re professionals, Noa and Miranda almost crack each other up. Almost.
TA: What unifies your artistic visions, and what do you disagree on?
MB: We agree on silliness and the importance of low-stakes jokes.
NRW: We also agree on the high stakes of perfection. We won’t perform something unless we know we can do it well.
MB: Sometimes we disagree on what we can do well.
NRW: We often disagree on which leg to balance on.
MB: We often question what jokes will “read” and if that even matters in the broader scheme of the piece we’re making.
NRW: That’s the most productive form of disagreement–Miranda will bring in an idea that I don’t feel sure about, and later I’ll get proved completely wrong. At this point we trust each other enough to try something we don’t initially love as long as the other person believes in it.
The dancers follow the arrows. Suddenly they’re stomping the arrows of a diabolically fast DDR routine and grinning with the thrill of accuracy and the joy of purposeful activity. The dancers touch the ceiling. A challenge begins in earnest. The lights brighten and the space fills with potential energy. The instructions become insistent, absurd, almost impossible. The music ramps up, pumping energetic cursed mashups of classical music and dance beats into the cavernous church. Noa and Miranda gamely hurry to complete the tasks, smiling and sweating and looking at each other with intense focus. It’s unclear what the reward is besides the promise of more tasks, but Noa and Miranda are eager, working in tandem to be sure that both of them slap the balcony as a provisional ceiling to satisfy the mysterious omniscient request. Who is asking? Why do they care? It’s irrelevant because the supertitles read The dancers glisten and abstraction has entered the chat. The physical answer is refreshingly far from abstract. A water spritz from a spray bottle? GLISTEN. Sparkles smeared across their faces? G L I S T E N! Tinsel wigs! Silver shorts!!!
TA: Tell me more about the current work, and how it sits in relation to other things you’ve made together?
NRW: !!simon says~~!:));)$$ is exciting because we’ve managed to fold work from previous pieces into it. It’s a structure that can encompass almost anything, so that’s been really gratifying. Including pieces of past dances also makes sense emotionally, because throughout the years we’ve been working with the same themes and types of sources, they’ve just shown up in different structures.
MB: Said themes include the absurdity of originality, pop vs canonical art, memes and internet culture, etc. Said sources include Dance Dance Revolution, WikiHow, covers/remixes/mashups of popular music, and all of our postmodern dance training.
NRW: One of our goals is to surprise and delight the audience. Every piece we’ve made has been in service of that goal.
The dancers give the audience a shock. The audience groans. The laughter that has been building along with the music since the beginning of the piece popcorns and amplifies. Noa and Miranda try a big move, a jump scare, another jump scare. They grab signs that say LOOK UNDER YOUR SEATS. I can’t tell you what we found under there since they’re going to perform this again so all I can say is it worked. It worked too well. One of the dancers stops breathing and Noa hits the deck—
TA: The piece you showed at Judson offers a humorous take— perhaps even some satirical commentary— on process, agency, decision-making, and entertainment. So now I have to ask THE question: what is your process?
MB: Oh boy. Noa kinda summed it up earlier by saying we try to make each other laugh. Broader than that though, we often start with a structure or a base joke and then think of variations that fit inside of that frame.
NRW: Wish fulfillment is an important part of how we make dance. We see a lot of dance, so we try to make work based on what we wish we were seeing, as well as what we’re excited to do physically.
MB: Somehow that ends up with us doing push-up challenges and sprints but ya know…sometimes we want to show people we’re strong.
NRW: Arguably the most important part of our process is a Google Doc. We always start by making lists and drafting.
MB: Earth signs.
Noa lies on the floor. After an earnest, committed crisis, we see Noa up close through a camera held by Miranda. He’s panting. His stricken face is blown up on the screen, eyes wide and forehead sweaty with artistic labor. The camera moves over his body until it reaches his ankle. He focuses on spreading his weight into the floor. He focuses his mind in the present. And the soothing rosary of anatomical terms comes back on the screen, describing the ankle’s bony landmarks while Miranda annotates Noa’s foot with a marker and the result is a smiley face that somewhat resembles a dick. Noa’s going to make it. A miraculous recovery: he roots his anus, he sends energy out and
TA: What’s your stance on formalism? On camp? Visible queerness, or queer artifacts like glitter and wigs? Do they relate to each other?
NRW: Ironically our work is very invested in formalism as it pertains to composition: most of the dance we make is set material happening at specific times in relation to music. It’s just that the formal-ness of our work isn’t meant to impress the audience. We care more that people understand why we’re doing the moves we’re doing.
MB: I think now is a good time to also cite some sources/influences: drag, comedy, and experimental art has really guided our creative decision making. But we didn’t really set out to make work that was formal or camp or queer, it’s more that our value system comes from the things we enjoy–gags, stupid obvious jokes, clean unison movement, shiny things.
NRW: I would love for someone to tell us what is queer about our work. Personally, I don’t know. I think art by straight people is often boring, and our work is not, and that’s why people call our work queer.
The dancers dance to the music. Noa and Miranda, with the help of a WikiHow article, flail their limbs and shake their asses with confident abandon. A Lipps Inc and Nine Inch Nails mashup fuel the party. The lights dim to evoke the hazy intimacy of a club. The glistening future is on the horizon. Perhaps they’ve written the instructions for themselves all along.
TA: How do you see this piece evolving? What are your next steps for it?
MB: Dear Brooklyn Arts Council and NYFA, if you’re seeing this, we mean it. But also, we’ll do it anyway. Full length piece is coming.
NRW: We’ll stuff every idea into this sucker until it pops.
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