VISIONARY VOICES ON SOZO’S HORIZON
December 12, 2025
6 MIN READ
“We’re spotlighting creators whose visions spark our curiosity today and shape the cultural landscape of tomorrow. Their works hum with possibility, and we’re excited to champion these innovative voices as they imagine what comes next.”
Close Up: A New Dance and Music Collaboration by Stefanie Batten Bland & Daniel Bernard Roumain
Photo Credits: Robert Torres (left) and JC Dhien (right)
APAP Showcase
🗓️ Date: January 11, 2026
⏰ Time: 12:15pm-12:45pm EST
📍 Venue: Ailey Citigroup Theater
➡️ RSVP here
Join us for the first ever showing of Close Up, a new collaboration between three–time Bessie nominated artist Stefanie Batten Bland (SBB) and Emmy Award–winning composer and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR).
Close Up is an intimate new concert of music and dance, where sound and movement entwine to reveal the stories our bodies carry. Blending classical, jazz, and post modern influences into one expression, Close Up recreates the immediacy of a speakeasy—where the danger and thrill of proximity and truth can cut like a dagger or cradle us with love and acceptance, while exploring deeply rooted cultural narratives shaped by ancestry and memory.
Join Us for FOR REAL at APAP’s UP NEXT! Artist Pitch Session
Photo Credit: Petra Nieuwburg
🗓️ Date: January 9, 2026
⏰ Time: 3pm-4:30pm EST
📍 New York Hilton Midtown
Conceived by harpist and musical journalist Andrea Voets (Resonate Productions), FOR REAL is a theatrical radio show, part live podcast and part collective reckoning, that asks the question: What does it mean to matter? Blending original live music, storytelling, and unscripted conversation, FOR REAL amplifies the voices of women whose experiences expose society’s emotional blind spots. Each performance doubles as a podcast recording, inviting audiences to share their own reflections in real time. The musicians support these vulnerable and honest conversations as they unfold with a new technique of simultaneous interviewing and improvising, resulting in a raw, resonant act of collective listening where being taken seriously becomes revolutionary.
A Landmark Anniversary Commission: Limón Dance Company & Akram Khan
Photo Credits: Camilla Greenwell (left) and Kelly Puleio (right)
For its 80th Anniversary, the Limón Dance Company is undertaking its largest choreographic commission to date: a one-act reimagining of José Limón’s iconic The Moor’s Pavane by internationally acclaimed choreographer Akram Khan. Described by Khan as “an epic sweeping gesture of comment, on our sense of who we are not, rather than who we are,” this new work brings Limón and Khan into dialogue across generations, pairing a mid-century masterpiece with one of today’s most visionary voices in contemporary dance.
The new work commissioned in part by Northrup at the University of Minnesota will premiere in early 2027 and marks Khan’s first creation for an American dance company. We are currently seeking commissioning and touring partners to join this historic project and help bring the work to stages worldwide.
TOMORROW, LOVE… Reimagines Love as a Radical Inheritance for the Future
Photo Credit: Kim Lee
Created by longtime collaborators Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), TOMORROW, LOVE… is a new work for voice, violin, and piano exploring love as a transformational good. Inspired by bell hooks’ All About Love, Bamuthi’s spoken word traces the men, memories, and myths that shaped his understanding of love, while DBR’s intimate score rises into a gospel quartet, uplifting the work’s emotional core and creating a collective call to choose love as an ethic.
Slated for a Summer 2026 world premiere, TOMORROW, LOVE… is both inquiry and celebration: a tender, monumental reckoning with how we might reimagine love as a radical inheritance for the future. We are currently seeking commissioning and touring partners to bring this new work to life.
Phoenix Paradox Offers a Mythic Yet Deeply Human Meditation on Resilience
Photo Courtesy of Quinn Wharton
Phoenix Paradox, choreographed by Oakland based Babatunji Johnson and produced by SOZO, reimagines the myth of the phoenix as a theatrical dance work exploring shadow, contradiction, and collective transformation. Johnson merges the precision of ballet and contemporary technique with the vitality of street dance, crafting a visceral, architectural language that animates a world of fantastical, larger-than-life characters and echoes Oakland’s blend of upheaval and creative resistance.
Premiering in Spring 2027, Phoenix Paradox offers a mythic yet deeply human meditation on resilience—what it costs, what it heals, and how we rise together. We are currently seeking commissioning and touring partners to bring this transformational work to communities worldwide.
SOZO CURRENTS
DEC 17 • The Just and The Blind • West Palm Beach, FL
JAN 29-31 • Marc Bamuthi Joseph • Boston, MA
FEB 5 • Huang Yi • Abu Dhabi
FEB 20 • Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) • Oakland, CA
FEB 24-25 • Huang Yi • Heerlen, Netherlands
FEB 27-28 • The Just and The Blind • Detroit, MI
MAR 9 • Sonic Trails • East Lansing, MI
MAR 13 • Bora Yoon • Philadelphia, PA
MAR 28 • Marc Bamuthi Joseph • Los Angeles, CA
MAR 29 • Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) • Boston, MA
APR 4 • Alphabet Rockers • San Francisco, CA
MAY 17 • Ladies of Hip-Hop • Nashville, TN