ADTA61 Site-Specific Dance & Movement Choir
Thursday, November 5, 2026 | 4:05–5:10 PM
Santa Cruz Park, Long Beach, California
Led by Marylee Hardenbergh, CMA, BC-DMT, LICSW
All ADTA61 conference and workshop attendees are invited to take part in a special site-specific dance experience in nearby Santa Cruz Park.
Together, we will gather at the hotel’s main entrance at 4:05 PM and walk approximately 15 minutes to the park. As we travel, we will begin creating shared movement patterns, allowing the journey itself to become part of the experience.
Once at the park, participants will witness a short site-specific performance by a group of Alpha Dancers, followed by an invitation for everyone to join in a participatory Movement Choir.
This Ground Remembers
The site-specific dance, This Ground Remembers, invites us to listen through the body—to one another, to the environment, and to the histories held within the land.
Through attunement, kinesthetic empathy, and embodied listening, we will explore how an open and valuing presence can honor both the dancers and the site itself. The land becomes an active part of the experience, connecting our individual embodied responses with our relationship to the larger group.
Santa Cruz Park carries the history of Tongva presence and stewardship along this coastline. The site invites reflection on creation, erasure, displacement, persistence, memory, and relationship to place. Our shared movement will hold an intention of honoring the land through embodied presence, connection, and collective dance.
All conference attendees are welcome to participate. No prior preparation or dance experience is required.
What to Expect
Participants will:
- Meet at the hotel main front entrance at 4:05 PM
- Walk together approximately 15 minutes each way
- Engage in simple, shared movement during the walk
- Experience a short performance by the Alpha Dancers
- Participate in a collective Movement Choir
- Spend approximately 35 minutes at the park
- Return to the conference hotel by approximately 5:10 PM
Please wear clothing and shoes that are comfortable for walking and moving outdoors.
About Marylee Hardenbergh
Marylee Hardenbergh, CMA, BC-DMT, LICSW, had the honor of studying directly with Penny Lewis Bernstein and Irmgard Bartenieff and was the Marian Chace Foundation speaker at the 2015 ADTA Conference.
For more than 40 years, she has created site-specific dances in locations ranging from a sewage treatment plant and an aerial lift bridge to skyscrapers, cherry pickers, and a bombed-out Parliament Building in Sarajevo, Bosnia. She has received numerous honors, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the McKnight and Soros Foundations.
Hardenbergh has also designed Movement Choirs for conference openings and closings and created site-specific dances for previous ADTA conferences in Raleigh, New Orleans, Portland, Brooklyn, and Washington, DC. She looks forward to bringing this tradition of embodied community-making to Long Beach.
At a Glance
Event: This Ground Remembers: Site-Specific Dance & Movement Choir
Date: Thursday, November 5, 2026
Time: 4:05–5:10 PM
Gathering Location: Main front entrance of the conference hotel
Performance Site: Santa Cruz Park
Facilitator: Marylee Hardenbergh, CMA, BC-DMT, LICSW
|
