Boys in Trouble – Sean Dorsey Dance

About Boys in Trouble

BOYS IN TROUBLE is a timely and urgent commentary on contemporary masculinity – these powerful dances place a trans and queer lens onto intersectional questions of embodiment, violence, Black queer love, whiteness, shame and posturing. Trailblazing transgender choreographer Sean Dorsey led his company on a 17-city international tour of this work from 2018-2020.

BOYS IN TROUBLE is a fusion of full-throttle dance, risk-taking theater, raw emotion, irreverent humor, exquisite queer partnering and intimate storytelling … all performed with Sean Dorsey Dance’s signature technical precision, guts and deep humanity.

Photo: Lydia Daniller

Collaborators

Performed by:

  • Sean Dorsey
  • Brian Fisher
  • ArVejon Jones
  • Nol Simonse
  • Will Woodward

Original music composed by:

  • Alex Kelly
  • Ben Kessler
  • Anomie Belle
  • Jesse Olsen Bay
  • LD Brown

Lighting Design:

  • Clyde Sheets

Costume Design:

  • Tiffany Amundson

Technical Direction:

  • Emily Paulson

“lush, expansive dance … poignant”

(PBS-KQED)

“a visually stunning, emotionally rich, and profoundly timely examination of masculinity and gender by one of the nation’s most visionary choreographers”

(Bay Times)

“poignant … Dorsey’s signature mix of happiness, heartbreak, confessional dialogue, salty language, goofy humor and gorgeous partnering”

(San Francisco Chronicle)

In turns powerful, explosive, irreverent, devastatingly honest, sensual and humorous, BOYS IN TROUBLE is a groundbreaking trans and queer examination of American masculinity’s deep roots in Trouble.

Dorsey created BOYS IN TROUBLE over a 2-year period, after visiting communities across the US where he hosted community forums on Masculinity, recorded interviews, and taught free movement workshops for transgender, gender-non-conforming, cisgender, gay, bi, and queer people on the masculine spectrum.

Sean Dorsey is celebrated as the nation’s first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer. His works have been praised as “exquisite…poignant and important” (BalletTanz), “trailblazing” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “evocative, compelling, elegant” (LA Weekly). Sean Dorsey Dance has toured to 30 cities across the US and internationally.

Bookings

Contact Sean Dorsey Dance’s Managing Director with booking, teaching and residency inquiries about our current projects.

Support

If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to Sean Dorsey Dance, please contact our Production Coordinator or make a donation online.

Photos

BOYS IN TROUBLE was created with generous support from the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project (with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), National Performance Network, California Arts Council, Creative Work Fund (a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation), Fleishhacker Foundation, Queer Cultural Center, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission and the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation.

Commissioned By

  • Bates Dance Festival
  • Dance Place (Washington, DC)
  • Highways Performance Space (Los Angeles, CA)
  • Maui Arts & Cultural Center (Maui, HI)
  • 7 Stages (Atlanta, GA)
  • Queer Cultural Center (San Francisco, CA)