The Kitchen Presents: Jonathan González: Swerve Fatigue (April 10–11)

The Kitchen presents Jonathan González: Swerve Fatigue (April 10–11), a new performance work unfolding at the boundaries of dance and sound. Performed by a five-person ensemble including artists Ananda Naima González, India Lena González, Marguerite Hemmings, Kingsley Ibeneche, AJ Wilmore, and Wayne Arthur Paul, alongside two sonic practitioners Alexis De La Rosa (Delabae) and GENG PTP. The work, developed in-part through a three-week residency at The Kitchen at Westbeth, investigates questions of Black life, pastoral histories, desire, and the environments that hold and negate the body.

Swerve Fatigue asks, how else to talk about issues of agency, identity, or territoriality? Working across choreography, installation, sound, image, and text, González’s practice as a choreographer, artist, and writer approaches performance as a mode of research, investigating how movement operates as a form of spatial, aesthetic, and cultural inquiry. Swerve Fatigue creates a rich, immersive space where bodies move in intimate proximity to the audience, applying performative pressure to the illusion of the individual through a performance of the group motioning persistently in a setting that continues to test its resolve. Reaching towards each other, the ensemble becomes a metaphor for deindividuated matter – or, the clinamen in early physics relating to the deviant group choreographies of the atom – and the power of the commons.

At its core, Swerve Fatigue is about endurance; performers remain in physical and sonic motion. Dancing unfolds in a center of heat, stretching ecstasy to the threshold where song and body merge, testing how far that union can be sustained. The work begins with an analog voice and gradually shifts toward an electronically mediated blur, tracing a journey from singularity to multiplicity. What kind of intimacy does fatigue engender? What kind of exhaustion reveals a deeper capacity to feel? Through sustained skin-to- skin contact and tightly woven group choreography, the ensemble builds a psychic and physical closeness that exceeds representation. Natural light, mist and haze fill the space, activating the tactility of the architecture of the loft.

Here, theoretical inquiry is brought directly into the body, transforming abstraction into sweat, breath, and trembling muscle. Through live DJ experimentation and sound design, the ensemble explores the friction between abstraction, the R&B voice, and pop, toying with what it means to desire popular sound while resisting its capture. Its social currency is both embraced and disrupted. Vocalist Wayne Arthur Paul animates the work’s sonic arc, channeling operatic resonance alongside R&B inflection. Each collaborator within the project remains actively inside of its making, influencing structure, texture, and tone, where the group experiments expansively with proximity, duration, and live sonic manipulation. The pastoral surroundings of Westbeth inflect the work’s engagement with land, environment, and the charged longings embedded in pastoral imaginaries. Swerve Fatigue crystallizes these investigations into a focused work, where the enduring blur of sound and body is sharpened by live presence.

Bios

Jonathan González is a choreographer, artist, and writer whose interdisciplinary practice engages site, sensation, memory, and embodiment as core materials of performance. Working across choreography, installation, sound, image, and text, González explores how embodied practices shape spatial, cultural, and perceptual experience. His work will be featured in the 2026 Carnegie International, reflecting his continued investigation into the possibilities of site-responsive and durational performance within contemporary Black performance. González is the author of the recent book Ways to Move: Black Insurgent Grammars (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2025), which extends his choreographic thinking into prose and poetic form. Major awards, including the Pew Fellowship, the Herb Alpert Award in Dance, and the MAP Fund, have supported his creative practice.

Ananda Naima González is a multidisciplinary artist and educator residing in Harlem, NY. She carries both a BA and an MFA from Columbia University, in poetry and fiction respectively. Ananda has trained professionally in ballet, pointe, modern, contemporary, and contact improvisation at institutions including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Barnard College, Dance Theatre of Harlem, The Rock School for Dance Education, and Maryland Youth Ballet. She has had the privilege of working with distinguished choreographers such as Molissa Fenley, Chase Brock, Patricia Hoffbauer, Lance Gries, Bill Young, Reggie Wilson, and Jonathan González, and has performed at New York Live Arts, La MaMa, St. Mark's Church, The Kitchen, 92nd Street Y, and The Kennedy Center, among others. She has choreographed two dance films and an evening-length work alongside her twin sister. Her creative mission is to honor the inherently sacred ritual of living.

India Lena González is a dancer, choreographer, and multidisciplinary artist. She received her BA from Columbia University and her MFA from New York University. India has studied at the prestigious Dance Theatre of Harlem, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Maryland Youth Ballet, and the Rock School for Dance Education, among others, and has had the pleasure of working with choreographers Faye Driscoll, Molissa Fenley, Lance Gries, Patricia Hoffbauer, Jodi Melnick, and Reggie Wilson. She has performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, St. Mark’s Church, La Mama, New York Live Arts, and other such venues. fox woman get out! (BOA Editions, 2023) is her debut poetry collection and was a finalist for Poetry Society of America’s 2024 Norma Farber First Book Award. For more information, visit: indialenagonzalez.com.

Marguerite Hemmings specializes in emergent, improvisational and social movement styles and technologies. They research the subversive role of dance and music throughout the African Diaspora and channel this research through performance, body, text, social/public media, and moving image. Hemmings’ work is also embedded in alternative pedagogy and social practice/research and they have worked at University of the Arts in the School of Dance, Arizona State University, Princeton University, and many afterschool programs and community centers. Marguerite has received grants and fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, Brooklyn Arts Council, Harlem Stage, University Settlement, Dancing While Black, Urban Bush Women’s Choreographic Center Initiative, Arizona State University’s Projecting All Voices Fellowship, Abrons Arts Center, Headlong Performance Institute, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Mural Arts, Black Spatial Relics, and Independence Public Media Foundation to further their research.

Kingsley Ibeneche is a Nigerian-American Choreographer, Musician, Writer and DJ, raised in Camden, New Jersey. He currently works out of Philadelphia and New York. Kingsley received his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts in Ballet Performance, and a Masters of Fine Arts in dance pedagogy at Bennington College. Kingsley has been a part of notable companies such as Philadanco 2, Balance Dance Theater in NY, and a company member with Just Sole Street Theater. He later joined Pilobolus Dance Theater in 2015 working on their production of “Shadowland.” Getting to tour around 5 continents with the company for 3 years. After company life Kingsley signed with Bloc Talent Agency & is currently signed with United Talent Agency. He has worked with & danced background for known acts and platforms such as Alicia Keys (VMA’s), Swae Lee, Halsey (SNL), James Blake, Travis Scott (VMA’s), GAP, and NIKE. His musicianship has helped him create 3 completed bodies of musical work including Udo his debut album, as well as a generous amount of vocal features and sharing the stage with acts such as Boddhi Satva, IvySole, Solchyld, and Lee Clarke, Bilal, Skip Marley, Ali Shaheed, Adrian Younge,Madison Mcferrin, Sunshine Anderson, Maya. His music has been featured in publications and platforms such as:The FADER, Paste Mag, okayafrica, NPR, afropunk, KEXP, The Creative Independent and SOFAR. Kingsley’s debut album “Udo” came out last September and garnered a lot of eyes on the artist who is blending mediums through the lens of his Nigerian culture. Kingsley is currently at Bennington College as visiting professor.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, on the land known as Lenapehoking, the ancestral home of the Lenni- Lenape people, AJ Wilmore is an artist and performer whose work explores storytelling, identity, and the complexities of Black familial relationships. Through her practice, she excavates desire while navigating questions of visibility, intimacy, and selfhood. A 2020 graduate of The University of the Arts, she refined her approach to movement investigation. Recent performances include adaku part 1: the road opens (2023) by Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born, and Joan Jonas’s Mirror Piece I and II at MoMA. Wilmore’s work embraces fear, vulnerability, and the textures of social and sexual life.

Wayne Arthur Paul is a vocalist and interdisciplinary performance artist whose work bridges opera, concert music, and contemporary performance. He is currently developing NEW OAK, an orchestral song cycle created with composer Matthew Ricketts and poet Dante Micheaux, supported by a 2025 NYSCA grant. NEW OAK is scheduled for its world premiere in October 2026. Wayne has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Detroit Opera, and the Seattle Opera. Alongside his operatic work, he collaborates across disciplines, including performing in Spectral Dances, created by Jonathan González. Wayne also did vocal score work on González’ film Blues Time, which exhibited at the Swiss Institute in 2022. Wayne is a third-prize winner at the 2024 George Shirley Vocal Competition. Wayne has trained at Bard College Vocal Arts, Boston University Opera Institute, and New England Conservatory.

Born and raised in Uptown New York, Alexis De La Rosa, known as Delabae, is a multidisciplinary creative working across music, fashion, and film. As a DJ, Alexis weaves club, techno, house, disco, and Caribbean rhythms into high–energy sets that celebrate movement, identity, and liberation. Alexis has performed at venues such as Nowadays, Basement, Signal, Good Room, and Nocturnal Emissions, where he currently holds a residency. Most recently, he toured Sydney, Australia with HOUSE OF MINCE during their PRIDE festival, cementing his growing global reach. Beyond music, Alexis works professionally as an actor and model, represented by Innovative Artists and Kev Mgmt. His work has appeared in Vogue México, GQ, i-D, and Wonderland, and he has also worked with brands including Nike, Coach, Calvin Klein, and most notably LUAR. Alexis is also currently filming his first pilot series, set to release in 2028. Alexis has also collaborated with Jonathan as both a movement and music collaborator during his past residencies at David Zwirner and BOFFO. Across music, fashion and film, Alexis is driven by a commitment to expand and reshape queer Latin narratives.

GENG PTP is a Manhattan-born, Queens NYC-based sound practitioner, DJ, poet, educator, archivist, visual designer, organizer, and physical trainer. With 3+ decades of participatory roots in NYC's DIY communities, he has been making work through a multitude of solo and collaborative processes. Most currently, he performs as KING VISION ULTRA (est. 2017). He also makes up half of CENTENNIAL GARDENS - a duo with Dreamcrusher - and RIGHTQUICK - a duo with Yaz Lancaster. GENG's organizing work extends to the visionary collective, PTP (Protect The Peace fka Purple Tape Pedigree), which he established in 2009. PTP operates in spaces as "counter-industrial purveyors of weaponized media and information."

Funding Credits

The Kitchen’s programs are made possible in part with support from The Kitchen’s Board of Directors, The Kitchen Global Council, Leadership Fund, and the Director’s Council, as well as through generous support from The Amphion Foundation, Inc., Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Cowles Charitable Trust, Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, Marta Heflin Foundation, The New York Community Trust, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Lambent Foundation Fund, a fund of Tides Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, and in part by public funds from the Manhattan Borough President, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

The Kitchen acknowledges the generous support provided by the Collaborative Arts Network New York (CANNY). As a coalition of small to mid-sized multidisciplinary arts organizations, CANNY is committed to strengthening the infrastructure of arts nonprofits throughout New York.

About The Kitchen

Founded in 1971 as an artist-driven collective, The Kitchen today reaffirms and expands upon its originating vision as a dynamic cultural institution that centers artists, prioritizes people, and puts process first. Programming in a kunsthalle model that brings together live performances, exhibition making, and public programming under one roof, The Kitchen empowers its audiences and communities to think creatively and radically about what it means to shape a multivalent and sustainable future in art. The Kitchen seeks to cultivate and hold space for wild thought, risky play, and innovative and experimental making, encouraging artists and cultural workers alike to defy boundaries and sending them into the world to remake art history and catalyze creative change.

Among the artists who have presented significant work at The Kitchen are Muhal Richard Abrams, Laurie Anderson, ANOHNI, Robert Ashley, Charles Atlas, Kevin Beasley, Beastie Boys, Gretchen Bender, Dara Birnbaum, Anthony Braxton, John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Julius Eastman, Philip Glass, Leslie Hewitt, Darius Jones, Joan Jonas, Bill T. Jones, Devin Kenny, Simone Leigh, Ralph Lemon, George Lewis, Robert Longo, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sarah Michelson, Tere O’Connor, Okwui Okpokwasili, Nam June Paik, Charlemagne Palestine, Sondra Perry, Vernon Reid, Arthur Russell, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Spiegel, Talking Heads, Greg Tate, Cecil Taylor, Urban Bush Women, Danh Vō, Lawrence Weiner, Anicka Yi, and many more.

Website: thekitchen.org Instagram: @TheKitchen_NYC

Press contact for The Kitchen: Gilberto Rosa-Duran, gilberto@thekitchen.org and Gregory Werbowsky, gregory.werbowsky@purplepr.com and thekitchen@purple.com