Hoist

The Chocolate Factory

AIR Showing April 13th, 2025 Queens NY

Photos: Brian Rogers

Apples, bitter appliances, wooden shoes wander and convene in a solo study, Hoist, created and improvised by Jesi Cook. The body is electric, lonely, then sagging. The physicality of sound making. Time unrolls like a wet carpet turned tumbleweed. An undetermined collection of scores meddle and fidget, playing the architecture of the Chocolate Factory Theater.

 
 

*Wedge

La Mama Moves Festival, NYC . May 1-3, 2025

Choreographed and Performed: Jesi Cook with collaborators Amelia Heintzelman, Ayano Elson, Mina Nishimura

Photos by Steven Pisano

Wedge is a new performance work by Jesi Cook. A tangle of improvisation scores examine high frequency interruptions. A fly in your soup. A looping circuit, shorted. Did a rat chew the wires? Holes begin to pockmark your newspaper, the dances. A movement phrase is wedged in an oblong theater, the front lobby faucet is leaking. You can’t scratch your itch.

 
 

Whole body in my ear

2024 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s River to River Festival

Choreography, Sound Scores, Installation, Costume: Jesi Cook

Performers: Ayano Elson, Amelia Heintzelman, Mina Nishimura.

Sound Technician: Jeff Aaron Bryant. Lighting: Daniele Sarti

Photos: Cherylyn Tsushima. Trailer: Sophia Peer

Whole body in my ear was a performance in which sound and body emerged as one fluid and dynamic textural form. The work saw performers splice and patch text, movement, and sound scores to create new languages and porous realities. This endurance-based auditory fantasy pushed toward dissonance, using it as a means to explore and amplify otherness. The scores built, heightened, and eroded an ouroboric circuit—with patterns repeating, leaking, and breaking apart throughout a shifting sculptural landscape.

 
 

Seed Scores

Roulette Intermedium

Improvisations for Livestream Nov 19-21, 2020

Images: Daniele Sarti

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Improvisation with organist Steven Long, 2023

Stone Circle Theater. Queens, NY.

Photo: Jon Tehel

 

Interiors

Fresh Tracks 2022 AIR Showing

Photo: Maria Baranova, courtesy of New York Live Arts

 

Endling, 2022

Movement Research AIR showing

Judson Memorial Church, NYC

Photos : Whitney Browne Video: Alex Romania

 

Igoo Chamna/ Forgot my Keys 2018

LmAK Gallery NY, NY

Photo/ Videos: Jen Rodewald Curation: David Smith

 

Dogflats, 2018

Roulette Intermedium

Performers: Jesi Cook, Katie Dean, Ayano Elson

Lighting: LD De Armon

Video/Photos: Wolf Daniels

Dogflats Feb 6-7, 2016Roulette IntermediumVideo/Photos: Wolf DanielsPerformed with Katie Dean and Ayano Elson. Lighting by LD De Armon, sound technician Stephe Cooper. Additional Support provided by the Mertz Gillmore Late Stages Grant.
 
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Tundra Baby Body , 2018

MoMA PS1 Dome

In collaboration with Laurel Atwell

Photo: Whitney Browne, Video: Daniele Sarti

Video: Carlton Bright

 
MisukAUNTS: Rockaway BEACH SESSIONS August 2018“At any given time, several performances were happening in different places, so it wasn’t possible to catch everything. But wandering on whim was in the spirit of the event. And several bits seemed best…

Misuk, 2018

AUNTS x BEACH SESSIONS

Rockaway Beach

Photo: Lilliana Dirks-Goodman

A durational dsico kimchi prep, as a gut ritual for Misuk Choi.

 

Condensing, 2019

MANA Contemporary Open House

photo courtesy: MANA Contemporary

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Condensing: MANA Contemporary Open HouseApril 2019photo courtesy: MANA ContemporaryView event page here.
 
Rat Shoes 2018Pieter Performance Space LA

Rat Shoes, 2018

Pieter Performance Space, Los Angeles

Photo: Jared Dryer

Office Weird
 

No Private Life, 2018

PAM Residencies, Los Angeles

In collaboration with Laurel Atwell, Curation: Tim Reid

Video: Justin Streichman

 
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Delicate MachinesCentral Park Gallery, Los Angeles 2018.Photo: Jared Dryer. In collaboration with Laurel Atwell.Review of Delicate Machines by Unpublished

Delicate Machines, 2018

Central Park Gallery, Los Angeles 2018.

Phootos and curation: Jared Dryer. In collaboration with Laurel Atwell.

Review of Delicate Machines by Unpublished

 
 
 

Gravel Motor, 2017

Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church

Performers: Kaie Dean and Ayano Elson

Photo 1,3: Ryutaro Mishima

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Work-In-Progress for

Gravel Motor

Rehearsal for Gravel motor

 

Memory Score, 2014

Alaina Stamatis + Elizabeth Abu-Allayah

Roulette Intermedium

Photo: Soonja Choi

 

Bells, 2010

AUNTS on a Boat

Sound: Benny Boeldt

Perfromers: Mariko Kurihara, Nana Tsatsuda, Kristina Donello and Caitlyn Kronk.

Video: Jim Byrne