Interspecies Listening is a collaboration with equine trainer and jazz musician, Dan McCarthy. Our creation process began in October 2026 and will have spanned 9 months, with performances June 20-21, 2026.

 

A site-specific performance staged on McCarthy’s horse farm in Hobart NY, Interspecies Listening frames the groundbreaking horsemanship of equine trainer, Dan McCarthy.

This full-length work reveals the complex and nuanced language shared between humans and equines. We are collectively venturing into groundbreaking horsemanship territory.

 

McCarthy is also an accomplished professional jazz musician, playing steel string guitar. For years he has played out in pastures and paddocks, using the vibration, tonal texture and tempo of his guitar to create energetic co-regulation between himself and the horses’ nervous systems. He is establishing trust through patient, calm interactions which only ask for the animals’ curiosity.

 

McCarthy empowers horses to actively interact with him. In Interspecies Listening, sonic and kinetic interactions with the horses develop into human interactions between dancer and equine that range from athletic play and graceful spatial carving to quiet tactile connection, or an interlude of stillness. 

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