kNoname Artist | Roderick George: The Grave’s Tears

The Grave’s Tears is a full-length choreographic work that expands on themes first explored in kNoname Artist’s Venom (2024), taking a deeper and more expansive look at the psychological toll of systemic oppression and the hatred directed toward the LGBTQIA+ community. Begun with seven male dancers, the work centers queer bodies as vessels of memory—sites where grief, resistance, intimacy, and survival coexist. Drawing from the liberatory spirit of the Disco era, The Grave’s Tears reflects on a time when joy, music, and collective celebration became radical acts of defiance for queer communities forced to the margins. As gay men were alienated from society—denied safety, visibility, and institutional care—they built refuge through chosen family, physical closeness, and shared movement. Love emerged not as sentiment, but as a necessary practice of survival.

Set against the enduring legacy of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and widespread social and governmental abandonment, the work confronts the fragility of communities left to grieve in isolation. In response to neglect and erasure, queer communities forged their own systems of care—holding one another through loss while insisting on presence in a world that sought their disappearance. The Grave’s Tears unfolds as a live art love letter to those forgotten and erased, honoring LGBTQIA+ lives through memory, embodiment, and collective resilience. Haunting and skeletal in its physical language, the work operates as both mourning and refusal—affirming that joy, intimacy, and remembrance remain powerful acts of resistance against historical and ongoing erasure.

The Grave’s Tears

Artistic Director & Choreographer: Roderick George
Music: Jace Clayton
Lighting Designer: Tanja Rühl

Associate Lighting Designer: Connor Sale
Costume Design: Lauren Carmen
Rehearsal Director: Daniel Harder

Performers:
MJ Edwards
Roderick George
Peter Mazurowski
Dimitris Michailidis
Zack Sommer
Alex Soulliere
Jonathan Wade

The first iteration of the production was commissioned by Gibney as part of the organization’s DoublePlus program for the 2023-2024 Season, curated by Gibney Center Artistic Director Nigel Campbell and Kyle Abraham.

The Grave’s Tears was developed as part of the Guild Hall William P. Rayner Artist-in-Residence program and the support of New York Live Arts, Williams College and the Schwarzman Center at Yale University. Additional residency support provided by La Villette – Paris. An earlier iteration of The Grave’s Tears received the inaugural Jacob’s Pillow Men Dancers Award.

kNoname Artist – Roderick George is a 2025 NDP Finalist Grant Award recipient. Support was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project with funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation in support of The Grave’s Tears and to address continued sustainability needs.

The production received support from the National Performance Network Creation & Development Fund.

The Grave’s Tears is commissioned by Le Manège, Scène Nationale – Reims.