The Oath

Concept/Choreography: Annie-B Parsons
Director Editor: Alla Kovgan

On View: June 12 – September 5
Bates College Museum of the Arts | 75 Russell St, Lewiston, ME 04240
open Mon-Sat, 10-5 | Closed Sundays

Museum is closed on the following days:
Monday, June 1 – Thursday, June 11, 2026
Juneteenth – Friday, June 19, 2026
Independence Day – Saturday, July 4, 2026

“The very first time I met Alla she asked me – Did I want to create a capture document of my dance, or did I want to create Cinema? Of course, I wanted to make Cinema! I had 30 years of stage captures of my work and found them at best archival and ultimately depressing because what they could not capture was the energy between the audience and the dancers. I wondered if it was possible to create a film that could conjure this sharing of energy of live bodies in space. This became my goal for the film.”

– Annie-B Parson

About the Film

Since the beginning of time — in community, clan, congregation, and club — humans have developed systems of unison movement in large groups, for purpose and for pleasure, both utopian and dystopian. Set in a vivid universe of color and based on Annie-B Parson’s stage choreography, The Oath explores humanity’s shared history of vernacular and poetic unison movement. It features seventeen women and femmes (aged 24-80), moving as one to embody a larger statement.

About BIG DANCE THEATRE

Founded by Molly Hickok, Paul Lazar, and Annie-B Parson in 1991, Big Dance Theater is known for its inspired synthesis of dance, music, text, and visual design. For 33 years, Big Dance Theater has worked to create over 25 large-scale dance/theater works, and a dozen of these toured all over the world.

Commissions have come from Les Subsistances in Lyon, Chaillot Theater in Paris, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Walker Art Center, Wexner Arts Center, Carolina Performing Arts, American Dance Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, The Kitchen, La MaMa, Onassis Foundation, Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, NCCAkron, Carolina Performing Arts, and the Old Vic/Dance Umbrella, London.

Big Dance Theater received two New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards in 2002 and 2010, and the company was awarded an OBIE in 2000. In 2007 the company received the first-ever Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. In 2024, Big Dance co-published Dance History(s): Imagination as a Form of Study with Wesleyan Press and Dancing Foxes. 

Credits

A Big Dance Theatre production
Concept/Choreography: Annie-B Parson
Director/Editor: Alla Kovgan
Stage to Film Adaptation: Alla Kovgan and Elizabeth DeMent
Associate Choreographer:  Elizabeth DeMent
Producer: Sara Pereira da Silva
Director of Photography: Miko Malkhasyan
Sound Recordist & Boom Operator: Guido Schierano
Sound Design: Tei Blow
Sound Mix: Mark degli Antoni
Sound Mix Mastering: Timo Elliston
Costume Design: Sam McElrath

Cast:
Mawu Ama Ma’at Gora
Brooke Ashley Rucker
Stacy Dawson Stearns
Natalie Green
Meg Harper
Hsiao-Jou Tang
Jin Ju Song-Begin
Kashia Kancey
Joanna Kotze
Jen Nugent
Devin Oshiro
Pamela Pietro
Kendra Portier
Chanel Stone
Paz Tanjuaquio
Isabel Umali
devika wickremesinghe

FUNDED BY

National Endowment for the Arts
New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature
Big Dance Theater’s Board of Directors
Debra Simon Arts Consulting
The Howard Gilman Foundation
Starry Night Fund

WITH ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FROM

New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council
Materials for the Arts
RED

“The Oath” was originally commissioned by the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC), American Dance Festival, Spoleto Festival USA and the National Center for Choreography at the University of Akron (NCCAkron).