“blessing the boats”: A Night of Poetry and Music with aracelis girmay and Ross Gay

Paul Taylor Dance Company is a modern dance company, formed by dancer and choreographer Paul Taylor (1930—2018). The company is based in New York, New York, and was founded in 1954.

Pam Tanowitz is an American dancer, choreographer, professor, and founder of the company, Pam Tanowitz Dance. She is a current staff member at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts where she teaches dance and choreography.

Sarah Crowner is a dance artist whose work has appeared in New York City performance contexts, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s Works & Process series. She has been presented alongside the Paul Taylor Dance Company and choreographer Pam Tanowitz, in programs that place established repertory in dialogue with contemporary makers.

Aracelis Girmay is a poet, teacher, and editor from the U.S. Girmay also works with collage and essays, and has collaborated with film and sound artists. She is the author of the poetry collections GREEN OF ALL HEADS (2025), the black maria (2016), Kingdom Animalia (2011), and Teeth (2007).

Ross Gay is an American poet, essayist, and professor of English at Indiana University who won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his 2014 book Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, which was also a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry.