Upon entering The Woods, you may encounter moments of unexpected connection. You are encouraged to engage with what you are drawn to. The Hosts of The Woods, its dancers and musicians, will move freely through the space and on and off stages; please make room for them as they travel their winding paths. They may need to gently move you or make you aware of their presence as they cross The Woods. 

The Woods runs approximately 75 minutes and depicts scenarios including sexuality, bright and flashing lights, and loud music. By purchasing a ticket and/or attending The Woods, you voluntarily accept all risks associated with this immersive experience, including emotional intensity, physical interaction, and movement through low-lit or uneven spaces. You agree to release the producers, performers, venue, and staff from any claims arising out of your participation, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

CO-CREATOR, DIRECTOR & CHOREOGRAPHER
Troy Schumacher

CO-CREATOR, COMPOSER & MUSIC DIRECTOR
Ellis Ludwig-Leone

STAGE DESIGNER & SOURCE ARTIST
Jason Ardizzone-West

COSTUME DESIGNER
Elena Velez

STYLIST
Vivian Chuang

WARDROBE ASSISTANT
Gem Brookes

LIGHTING DESIGNER
Ben Rawson

SOUND DESIGNER
DJ Potts

A1
Connor Davis 

MUSIC ASSISTANT
Leo Major

DIRECTOR’S ASSISTANT
Parker Whitehead-Bust

STAGE MANAGER
Zach Jenkins

ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER
Sarah Nichols

REHEARSAL VOCAL COACH
Matthew Stephens

REHEARSAL DIRECTOR
Marzia Memoli

REHEARSAL DIRECTOR
Nicole Ashley Morris

REHEARSAL DIRECTOR
Lorenzo Pagano

CAMPAIGN VIDEOGRAPHER
Philip Nix

CAMPAIGN PHOTOGRAPHER
Meyrem Bulucek

SAN FERMIN

Ellis Ludwig-Leone Allen Tate Claire Wellin Stephen Chen Tyler McDiarmid Griffin Brown

FEATURED PERFORMERS

Mckenzie Cahill Annalise Gehling Sophie Rose Shapiro Thomas Hogan Mizuho Kappa Leslie Andrea Williams

ENSEMBLE PERFORMERS

Arcadian Broad Justin Daniels Shizu Higa Salma Kiuhan Devin Loh Marzia Memoli Solange Rodrigues Annika Wong

MUSICIANS

Colin Brookes Andy Clausen Lauren Cauley Kalal Addison Maye-Saxon

Click here to learn more about the artists and performers

BalletCollective

Founded in 2010 by Troy Schumacher, BalletCollective creates and performs forward-thinking works that reflect the world we live in. BalletCollective commissions emerging, established and acclaimed choreographers, composers, writers and visual artists to collaborate on ballet-based works. BalletCollective exclusively performs commissioned, collaborative work.

Each BalletCollective project takes as its source a contemporary work of art in any medium chosen or commissioned by its choreographer and composer. From this starting point, the choreographer and composer collaborate to make a work that interprets, explores, or responds to its source. The result of the collaboration is performed live. By its nature, BalletCollective consists of a rotating group of artists and collaborators, and with each new collective there are new ideas, new challenges, and, ultimately, new forms of expression that emerge.

BalletCollective has collaborated with more than 330 acclaimed artists, choreographers, composers, musicians, designers and dancers, including Zaria Forman, Ellis Ludwig-Leone, Karen Russell, James Ramsey, Ken Liu, Julianna Barwick, David Salle, Dafy Hagai, Judd Greenstein and Cynthia Zarin. It has produced 26 new ballets with commissioned music, including two full-length works. Its previous full-length work, The Night Falls, was honored by The New York Times as a “Best of 2023.”

BalletCollective’s work has been presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Joyce Theater, NYU Skirball Center, Guggenheim Works & Process, PEAK Performances, Guggenheim Bilbao, Vail Dance Festival, the Fire Island Dance Festival, Telluride’s Michael D. Palm Theatre, and the Savannah Music Festival. 

In 2020, BalletCollective commissioned and safely produced both the first world-premiere one-act ballet, Natural History, and the first world-premiere full-length ballet, The Nutcracker at Wethersfield, to be performed in-person in the United States during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Click here to learn more about BalletCollective

San Fermin

Founded in 2013, San Fermin rose to early acclaim on the strength of their self-titled debut, which bandleader Ellis Ludwig-Leone had initially envisioned as a one-off featuring more than 20 collaborators. NPR hailed the album as “one of the year's most surprising, ambitious, evocative and moving records,” while Pitchfork called breakout single “Sonsick” “deliriously infectious.” Buoyed by the record’s success, Ludwig-Leone put together a full-time band and hit the road, performing everywhere from the Tiny Desk to Lollapalooza and sharing bills with the likes of alt-J, Courtney Barnett, The National, and St. Vincent. In the years to come, the group would go on to release four similarly lauded albums, playing on television and music festivals around the world. Their records have reached the top ten on the Billboard Heatseekers charts and have amassed over 100 million streams.

San Fermin’s ambitious scope has taken them across a variety of genres, attracting an eclectic group of collaborators that reflect Ludwig-Leone’s own wide-ranging musical background. Prominent indie musicians (Wye Oak, Thao, The Districts), contemporary classical luminaries (Nico Muhly, Attacca Quartet, Lavinia Meijer), folk artists (Sam Amidon), and notable featured vocalists (Lucius, Samia), have lent their efforts to the breadth of San Fermin’s studio albums, belying Ludwig-Leone’s restless musical imagination and desire for constant reinvention and collaboration.

Follow San Fermin on Instagram and visit their website for announcements.

CO-CREATOR, DIRECTOR & CHOREOGRAPHER Troy Schumacher

Troy Schumacher is an American choreographer, dancer, and director living in New York, NY. His athletic aesthetic draws upon the artists he collaborates with to produce fresh, unexpected results. He is a soloist dancer with New York City Ballet and the founder and Artistic Director of BalletCollective. He has been dubbed a “visionary artist” by TMagazine and is “one of his generation’s most acclaimed choreographers” (PBS). His work has been featured on The New York Times’ Annual “Best Of” list and on the “Highbrow/Brilliant” quadrant of New York Magazine’s Approval Matrix multiple times.

Schumacher’s work has been presented by New York City Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, Performa, Danspace Project, Guggenheim Works & Process, Guggenheim Bilbao, Peak Performances, the Joyce Theater, the Savannah Music Festival, and NYU Skirball Center, among others. He has collaborated with many internationally famous artists including Jeff Koons, Karen Russell, Zaria Forman, Thom Browne, Ken Liu, Ellis Ludwig-Leone, Maddie Ziegler, and David Salle, in addition to famous ballet dancers, Broadway and opera performers, and super models. In addition to live performances, Schumacher has choreographed numerous art, fashion and commercial shoots, including works for Google, Sony PlayStation, Capezio, HP, Aritzia, CRFashion Book, Tom Ford, and The New York Times.

Click here to learn more about Schumacher

CO-CREATOR, COMPOSER & MUSIC DIRECTOR Ellis Ludwig-Leone

Ellis Ludwig-Leone writes music distinguished by its narrative sweep and attention to subtle shifts in emotional valence. Lauded by The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino for his “knack for simultaneously expressing beauty and crisis,” Ludwig-Leone writes works that combine lush, naturalistic textures with moments of thorny complexity to walk the line between wonder and dread. Since coming to international attention as the songwriter behind the celebrated indie band San Fermin—with whom he has released five records, three EPs, and two live albums while touring extensively—Ludwig-Leone has enjoyed a musical double life as a composer of works for the concert hall and stage. 

Together with his bandmate Allen Tate, Ludwig-Leone is a founding partner of Better Company Records, a Brooklyn-based label with an eclectic roster and an emphasis on collaboration. Headquartered out of Better Company Studios in Fort Greene, the label has seen over 150 releases from more than 50 artists since it was founded in 2020. Ludwig-Leone is the recipient of the 2024 Ellis-Beauregard Composer Award, awarded to one composer each year, and is a recipient of residencies from MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. He has been the composer-in-residence for the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, and his concert works have been recorded for Sony Classical, New Amsterdam, and Better Company Records. He has composed for a wide range of ensembles and soloists, including ACME, ADAM Quartet, Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Attacca Quartet, BalletCollective, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, The Crossing, Decoda, Grand Rapids Ballet, Het Gelders Orkest, Indianapolis Symphony, International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, NOW Ensemble, The Knights, New York City Ballet, Orchester im Treppenhaus, Sandbox Percussion, yarn/wire, vocalist Eliza Bagg, harpist Lavinia Meijer, violist Nadia Sirota, pianist Simone Dinnerstein, and more. 

Click here to learn more about Ludwig-Leone

STAGE DESIGNER & SOURCE ARTIST Jason Ardizzone-West

Jason Ardizzone-West is an Emmy Award-winning stage designer based in New York whose work spans theater, concerts, dance, film, and architecture. From intimate black-box theaters to massive stadium arenas, he creates embracing environments that transform storytelling into shared, deeply human experiences. Originally trained as an architect, Jason brings an innate understanding of space, light, and time to his designs, crafting visual narratives that bridge the physical and emotional landscapes of performance. Most recently, he designed the broadway musical Redwood, which Jesse Green of The New York Times described as “among the most beautiful and wondrous theatrical creations I can recall.”

Jason has collaborated with visionary theater-makers such as Tina Landau, Julie Taymor, Richard Nelson, Es Devlin, Pam Mackinnon, Mira Nair, David Leveaux, Sheryl Kaller, Susan Stroman, Awoye Timpo, Kenny Leon, Robert Barry Fleming, and more. His work also extends to global superstars, including Lady Gaga, Lana Del Rey, The Weeknd, Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Idina Menzel, Hikaru Utada, Usher, Phish, Pentatonix, and Florence + The Machine.

His achievements include an Emmy Award for Jesus Christ Superstar Live (NBC) and multiple nominations for his innovative contributions to theater and live performance. His designs have appeared in renowned institutions such as The Public Theater, The Atlantic Theater Company, American Conservatory Theater, The Apollo, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, The Huntington, and St. Ann’s Warehouse, among many others.

Jason holds a Bachelor Of Architecture from Cornell University’s College Of Architecture, Art & Planning and an MFA in stage & film design from New York University. He is a proud member of USA 829.

Click here to learn more about Ardizzone-West

COSTUME DESIGNER Elena Velez

Elena Velez is an American fashion designer and entrepreneur from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Her work is known for its non-traditional synthesis of metalwork and high fashion. Velez graduated from Parsons School of Design and completed her studies at Central Saint Martins in London. Of Puerto Rican heritage but raised in the rust belt, Velez claims that the industrial nature of her nontraditional upbringing as the only child to a single mother who is a ship's captain on the Great Lakes influenced her current artistic identity, one which she says draws heavily on the relationship between femininity and force. Her company was subsequently featured in Forbes for its work with Midwestern makers and mission to 'democratize resources and recognition' for artists outside of traditional creative capitals. Velez is the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s 2022 Emerging Designer of the Year, Elle Magazine’s 2023 Women of Impact recognizé, a 2022 Vogue Fashion Fund winner, recipient of the Fashion Trust US Sustainability Award, she is part of the 2023 Dazed 100 list, attended the 2023 Met Gala, and is a semi finalist for the 2024 LVMH Prize. Her work has been presented in institutions such as the V&A Museum and Barbican Centre. 

Click here to learn more about Velez

ACT ONE

The Woods

Open

Casanova

No Promises

The Woods Interlude I

The Hunger

The Count

The Woods Interlude II

True Love, Asleep

Oh Darling

ACT TWO

The Woods Interlude III

Parasites

Cruel Equation

Bones

Palisades/Storm

ACT THREE

The Myth

Two Scenes

Freedom (Yeah, Yeah!)

The Woods Interlude IV

The Living

Jackrabbit

Click here to sing along