About us

Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance is a dance company based in NYC whose mission is to deploy dance to enact a more embodied, sustainable, and equitable future. The work has two intersecting threads: creatively engaging with climate change; and expanding the legacy of dance icon Loïe Fuller. The company’s signature style uses transformative costuming, à la Fuller, to conjure magical spectacles of elemental and organic forces. Repertory includes dances visualizing such phenomena as melting ice, shifting atmospheric patterns, plastic pollution, and tree ecology. Choreographer Jody Sperling, the world’s leading Fuller exponent, founded the company and directs the ensemble of six women-identifying dance artists. Emmy award-winning environmental composer Matthew Burtner has been creating original music for company works for a decade. Since 2022, Sperling and company have been Eco-Artists-in-Residence at The New York Society for Ethical Culture. TLD’s programs are accessible to multigenerational audiences. The work has been seen on global stages, on city streets and site-specific locations, as well as on screen, in such films as the French feature film “The Dancer” (2016) and the Fuller documentary “Obsessed with Light” (2023).

Programming / Repertoire / Offerings

We offer a range of performances and educational programs for general audiences, college and university students, and K-12. The company is represented by Cadence Arts Network, Inc. Please contact us to discuss a booking.

Our current full-company touring program is SOUND~EARTH~MOTION featuring climate-engaged works. “Arbor” celebrates the splendid intimacy of trees. “Wind Rose” visualizes changing atmospheric patterns. “Piece for a Northern Sky” is a meditation on planetary motion. All works display the company’s singular style, using expansive costumes after Loïe Fuller, to abstract human movement into elemental and organic forms. The work may be presented onstage or adapted for site-specific locations.

We offer interdisciplinary college/university residencies that include such activities as performances, masterclasses, presentations, panels, setting repertory and more.

“Commun-i-tree” is our K-12 school program that includes a performance of “Arbor” and a participatory workshop on the lessons that trees can teach humans.

Choreographer Jody Sperling is also available, either on her own or with composer Matthew Burtner, for museum and institutional lecture-demonstrations.

Organization/Business Type + Areas of Expertise

Dance Styles & Movement Techniques