Illuminated Echoes is a new full-length work by award-winning choreographer Tommie-Waheed Evans for COCAdance, COCA’s pre-professional modern and contemporary dance company. Inspired by James Turrell’s light installations, it fuses dance, sound, and visual art into an immersive sensory experience.
Audience Experience
The powerful performance of Illuminated Echoes brings together COCA dancers and a narrator to set the scene. Across three chapters, it challenges traditional performance, blurring the line between dance and installation art. Illuminated Echoes can be experienced from any angle, with on-stage seating available.
“I want the audience to be moved on every level,” says Tommie.
Light, sound, and costume dissolve boundaries and create a sense of infinity. The dancers are the core as they push technique, imagination, and courage, and invite the audience to witness something bold and transformative.
Choreography
COCAdance in Rehearsal for Performance
Tommie encourages the dancers to be co-creators, shaping movement and bringing their identities into the work. He and his assistant, Donovan, guide them to adapt the choreography to their bodies and training. It is less about perfect execution and more about creating a world where they can express themselves freely.
Lighting
Illuminated Echoes Lighting Sculpture Mockup by Sean Savoie
Drawing inspiration from James Turrell, lighting not only illuminates the dancers but also shapes their movements and shifts the audience’s perception of space.
Lighting designer Sean Savoie is creating a suspended light sculpture that shifts throughout the performance, giving each chapter its own distinct feel.
Music
Uwazi Zamani’s sound design brings together the performance, syncing smoothly with every shift in light. The soundtrack includes samples from Dawn Richard, Travis Scott, ClicheMorph, and St. Louis’ own Sexyy Red and Josephine Baker.
“Hearing these women maps out a sonic and cultural landscape where the past is never fully gone and the present speaks loudly,” says Uwazi Zamani. “My goal is for listeners in the audience to feel how St. Louis women have always shaped culture across different eras, styles, and sound worlds.”
Costuming
Costume design starts with the concept of an echo: repetition, reverb, and reflected energy. This inspires visual themes including spirals, geometry, optical illusions, textured surfaces, and extended trails of fabric that behave like visual sound waves.
Influences include Pierre Cardin’s 1960s space-age silhouettes, Yohji Yamamoto’s asymmetrical designs of the 1990s, and Iris van Herpen’s laser-cut futurism.
Costume Design created by Shevaré Perry with assistance from Cody Floyd.
Promotional Imagery
Lighting leads the theme of Illuminated Echoes, highlighting dancers as they move through the space. Their poses emphasize motion, while striped costumes create echo-like visuals.
Promotional imagery by Pratt + Kreidich.
COCApresents Season Presenting Sponsor is Amy, Sacha, & Gray Lefton.
