Peter Stathas Dance: What We Hold

“A dance doesn’t stay in the past. It lives in the bodies that carry it forward. What We Hold is about honoring where we came from while asking how we support artists now, with the same care, risk, and belief that made everything possible in the first place.”

–Peter Stathas, Creative Principal

In the early 1980s, New York City was a crucible for dance innovation. Communities formed around care, rigor, and a shared belief in the body as a site of human truth. Choreographers took risks and were given the support necessary for the transformational experimentation that defined that era of dance. Out of that moment emerged artists whose work helped define postmodern American dance, including Marta Renzi, Gerri Houlihan, and Peter Stathas, as well as the visionary leaders who held space for them, most notably Liz Thompson, former Executive Director of Jacob’s Pillow.

More than 40 years later, these artists reunite for What We Hold, a rare, cross-generational dance program that brings seminal works from the 1980s into the present, now embodied by a new generation of dancers navigating New York City’s dance landscape in 2026. Presented by Peter Stathas Dance, the program runs February 13–14, 2026, at the Mark Morris Dance Center.

This reunion is not a nostalgia project. It is a living conversation across time, connecting artists who helped shape an era with four contemporary dancers carrying that lineage forward today: Lauren Twomley, Ty Graynor, Mariah Gravelin, and Paulina Meneses. Together, they ask a timeless question: What does it take to sustain a life in dance?