Bret Easterling is a multidisciplinary artist, director, and educator whose work uses movement to spark connection, inquiry, and collective experience. He received his BFA and the Hector Zaraspe Prize for Choreography from The Juilliard School, and became a formative member of Gallim Dance and a prominent performer and creative contributor with Ohad Naharin’s internationally renowned Batsheva Dance Company.
Easterling has created and presented work across live performance, film, and interdisciplinary platforms at institutions including Jacob’s Pillow, Lincoln Center, REDCAT, 92NY, Opera Philadelphia, LA Dance Project, AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company), Whim W’Him, Backhausdance, b12, Dance on Camera Festival, and Hauser & Wirth. His collaborative practice includes projects with Anthony Roth Costanzo, Kesha, Ai Bendr, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, and Jurassic Spine. He also maintains an artistic partnership with Julia Eichten as EICHTERLING, spanning choreography, curation, film, and fashion.
As Founder and Artistic Director of the LGBTQ+ nonprofit BEMOVING, Easterling builds infrastructure supporting the creation, presentation, and sustainability of dance. He is on faculty at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, co-director of Ghost Light Residency, co-founder of PAY DANCERS, and an Ilan Lev Method practitioner, grounding his work in care for artists and the individual body.
Julia Eichten works between opera, theatre, and dance as a director, choreographer, educator and performer. They received their BFA and the Hector Zaraspe Prize for Choreography from The Juilliard School, were a founding member of L.A. Dance Project, and are a current member of AMOC* (American Modern Opera Company.) Their work has been shown at the Joyce Theater, Baryshnikov Arts Center (NYC), L.A. Dance Project, The Gardens of Versailles, and LUMA in Arles, FR. Last year, Eichten performed in Joan Jonas’ iconic Mirror Piece I & II at The Getty Museum, which inspired the hat company PAY DANCERS. Most recently, Eichten had their Lincoln Center premiere, with a duet by EICHTERLING (Bret Easterling + Eichten), Dance in the Park. Rome is Falling, a new opera composed by Doug Balliett with direction by Eichten, also premiered at RUN AMOC* Festival as a part of Summer in the City at Lincoln Center.
Emi Ferguson is a 2023 recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and can be heard live in concerts and festivals with groups including the Handel and Haydn Society, AMOC*, Ruckus, the New York New Music Ensemble, the Manhattan Chamber Players, and as the music director of Camerata Pacifica Baroque. Her recordings By George!, Amour Cruel, and Fly the Coop: Bach Sonatas and Preludes, celebrate her fascination with reinvigorating music and instruments of the past for the present. Ferguson is the founder of interdisciplinary ensemble Exquisite Corpse, and has spoken and performed at TEDx events and has been featured on the Discovery Channel, Amazon Prime, WQXR, and Vox talking about how music relates to our world today. As part of WQXR’s Artist Propulsion Lab, she created the series This Composer is SICK! exploring the impact of Syphilis on composers Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, and Scott Joplin. She is also a host of WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase and Once Upon A Composer and her book for music lovers of all ages,Iconic Composers, was released in 2023. Born in Japan and raised in London and Boston, she now resides in New York.
