THE TOP (2016) is an experiment in cultivating intimacy.

A playful interrogation of the tension between stillness and motion, minimalism and dynamism, silence and pop music, THE TOP invites audiences into an open and direct relationship with its three performers. All are viewers; all are on view. Taking cues from pop and minimalist music, the choreography plays with viewers’ sense of time and expectation, creating a world of nonverbal exchange that is both spare and charged with possibility.

With grace, humor, and style, THE TOP takes a wry look at the co-existence of public and private presence, blurring the lines between dancing for others and dancing for ourselves. The piece’s wry restraint defies expectation, development, resolution to reveal its beating heart: THE TOP is a platform for interrogating the delicious and thrilling role of desire within performance and without.

Creation and Performance: Mel Krodman, Jaime Maseda, Mark McCloughan

Design: Andrew Thompson

Initial research & development: Chelsea Murphy, Magda San-Millan

THE TOP premiered at JACK in Brooklyn, NY in May 2016, followed by a tour to Links Hall in Chicago in August 2016. Philadelphia premiere: FringeArts, May 31 - June 3.

No Face performed various abridged and work-in- progress iterations of THE TOP at CATCH takes Philly (2014), Night Kitchen (2014), and CATCH at the new Collapsable Hole (2016).

Development of THE TOP was supported through a guest artist teaching appointment at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia (Feb-March 2015).