Franklin Stage Company continues its summer season with a visit from Dual Rivet Dance, the New York City-based company founded by choreographers and performers Jess Smith and Chelsea Ainsworth. Their program features three contemporary works that explore themes of human connection, technology, identity, and relationships through an athletic, theatrical style of movement.
The evening opens with Stuff Your Eyes, a 15-minute work examining the tension between technology and human interaction. The piece begins with one dancer transfixed by a television while the other attempts to pull her back into the real world. “It's about our relationship between human connection and the growing impact of technology on our humanity,” Ainsworth said, adding that the premise is “something that we can all relate to right now.”
The program also includes En Capsule, a dance film the pair co-choreographed and co-directed in 2022. The work explores “the boxes we put ourselves in, and/or the systems that we agree to be placed in,” Smith said. The evening concludes with Unravel, a duet that traces the many stages and complexities of human relationships. Together, the three works reflect the company's artistic mission. “We love to make work that is very human, very complex, yet very relatable for most of our viewers,” Ainsworth said.
Smith and Ainsworth met while dancing for another company in New York City in 2017 and quickly discovered a shared artistic vision. Their choreography blends demanding physical movement with theatrical storytelling, emphasizing partnership and trust. “We're two very strong women,” Smith said. “We like to throw each other around a lot,” she added with a laugh.
In addition to performing, the pair teach partnering and floor work at universities including Juilliard and Marymount Manhattan College. Their teaching emphasizes physics and shared technique rather than traditional gender roles. “We're two women that are similarly sized, so it's fun to constantly be swapping roles back and forth,” Ainsworth said. The company also organizes the Made by Women festival, which showcases women choreographers, filmmakers, and women-owned businesses.
The pandemic unexpectedly strengthened both their partnership and their artistic voice. Smith and Ainsworth quarantined together for more than two years, continuing to create new dance films while live performances were on hold. “We just kept staying in this creative practice,” Smith said. “People often say when they see our work, ‘You two dance so differently, but you dance as one.’”
That period also helped clarify what they wanted to communicate through both performance and teaching. “We were able to decide what we wanted to be sharing with the world,” Ainsworth said. “What things we believed in as a company, as a unit.”
Their creative process often begins not with movement, but with conversation. “Our rehearsals often start with eating snacks,” Ainsworth joked. Those conversations focus on the issues affecting their lives and the world around them before evolving into movement inspired by a compelling visual image, theme, or prop. “Once we land on an image or a way in that feels connected to where we're at, it just pours,” she said.
Because the company tours extensively, Smith and Ainsworth have also learned to embrace the unique challenges of performing in unfamiliar spaces. Every theater requires adjustments, but they see that flexibility as part of the artistic process. “Every space is just a new adventure,” Smith said. “We're constantly problem solving… and moving toward things that feel present or exciting for us.”
Dual Rivet Dance performs at Franklin Stage Company's Chapel Hall in Franklin on Thursday, July 31, and Friday, August 1, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, August 2, at 5 p.m. More information is available at FranklinStageCompany.org.