Cara Hagan
Choose a Spot in the Sun (Working Title)
Work in progress showing
Wed | July 15 | 7:30pm
Gannett Theater
Free and open to the public
Using our current geopolitical moment as a point of ignition, Choose a Spot in the Sun channels global tensions, uncertainty, and transformation into a call for embodied activation and creative response. The work invites us to move beyond passive observation and instead engage physically, emotionally, and intellectually with the possibilities of change. By foregrounding radical imagination, the project encourages envisioning futures that break from extractive or hierarchical systems. It centers practices and structures rooted in collective sovereignty, mutual care, and shared agency, proposing new ways communities might organize, sustain themselves, and reclaim power in an era defined by instability and urgent social reconfiguration.
Performer Credits:
Cara Hagan: Director/Choreographer
Maria J. Hackett: Cinematographer
Dancer/collaborators:
Tammy Carrasco
Kayla Farrish
Laura Gutierrez
Belinda McGuire
Yara Travieso
Tamara Williams
About the Artist
Cara Hagan (She/They) is a mover, maker, writer, curator, champion of just communities, and a dreamer. She believes in the power of art to upend the laws of time and physics, a necessary occurrence in pursuit of liberation. In their work, no object or outcome is sacred; but the ritual to get there is. Hagan’s adventures take place as live performance, on screen, as installation, on the page, and in collaboration with others in a multitude of contexts.
Mama Piranha, Hagan’s most recent work for stage, is a solo work of physical theatre that explores themes of loss and reclamation of agency and what happens when we decide to tear down a world that no longer serves us to build a new one. The work premiered at JACK! Brooklyn in June of 2025 and was subsequently performed at PhysFestNYC in January 2026. The Dance Enthusiast described Mama Piranha as “concise and evocative; precisely-executed stage magic.”
Hagan’s most recent short film, “Cut Me Summa Dat Noise,” premiered at the Grrl Haus Film Festival in Cambridge, MA in December of 2024. In 2025, the film garnered eight awards, including “best dance film” at the Bronze Lens Film Festival, “best film score” at the Carpool’s Drive-In Film Festival, “best music video” at the Allentown Film Festival and “best choreography for the camera” at the festival Videodanza de Puerto Rico.
Hagan is the author of many publications, including the book, Screendance from Film to Festival: Celebration and Curatorial Practice published by McFarland in 2022. Articles have been published in the International Journal of Screendance, the Snapdragon Journal of Art and Healing, the Journal of Dance Education, The Journal of Sustainable Education, Dance Magazine, and more.
Hagan Joined the faculty of The New School in 2022 and works as an Associate Professor in the MFA in Contemporary Theatre Performance. Hagan also works for Dance on Camera, the world’s longest-running dance film festival as its Executive Director since 2025. They were a co-curator for the festival for the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
