Live collaborative performance projects integrating
music and movement theater!
MISSION
Sights and Sounds seeks to foster artistic innovation through joyful, generous, and mutually uplifting collaborations between music makers and movement theater makers.
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Rather than dividing these art forms or elevating one above the other, we choose to build projects that celebrate them equally-- during the creative process AND onstage.
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We work to create art so that its physical performances and content are accessible and welcoming to everyone. We work to reach audience members who have been convinced that dance and music performances belong only to the "elite." We work to reveal that since art is the expression of or response to the HUMAN experience, it belongs to all of us.
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Art produced by Sights and Sounds is always born of both passion for the work AND compassion for its audience.
About the Founder and Artistic Director
Danielle Strader is a lifelong interdisciplinary artist with a passion for constructing live performances from holistic and comprehensive visions. A devout dancer from age three-and-a-half (if she's not dancing physically, she's probably dancing mentally at any given moment), Danielle immediately fell in love with and pursued the expressionism, brutal physicality, and tale-spinning of ballet through her training and performances at Foothills Dance Conservatory in Upstate South Carolina. Later, she continued to explore more dance forms, from modern techniques to Fosse jazz to Kathak to flamenco, through her years at Marymount Manhattan College and beyond. Now, she engages in the adventure of curating her own choreographic voice and developing unique movement languages for individual projects.​
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In the fall of 2025, Danielle began pursuing a master's degree through the Shenandoah Conservatory Performing Arts Leadership and Management program, moving one more step toward making a difference in her field.
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Danielle is an eclectically multi-disciplinary artist. Her other pursuits include writing and editing (she minored in Creative Writing during her undergraduate studies), and she is also a relentless needlecrafter (she has a small business selling original crocheted earrings and is always pursuing the next challenging project, which occasionally appears onstage as a costume).
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Since her long-ago days of pre-natal Mozart, Danielle has always adored hearing and making music, be it singing in her local community choir, picking up an instrument, ushering for the New York Philharmonic, improvising movement with a live percussionist, obsessing over an obscure Broadway soundtrack, or designing, arranging, and performing her own score for a performance piece. After working so closely with favorite composers' finished scores (as in her most recent solo project, "With These Hands", for Phys Fest NYC), Danielle is thrilled to finally be working actively with composers on new works through Sights and Sounds.
The Monologue Duets Project
With composer Erik Valdemar Sköld
1 musician + 1 dancer = 1 duet
The Monologue Duets are a series of FILMS and LIVE PERFORMANCES interpreting music performance as a visual, movement art form.
Meet the composer:
Erik Valdemar Sköld
Erik Valdemar Sköld (b. 1991) is a composer of contemporary classical music from Norrköping, Sweden. He studied composition at Malmö Academy of Music 2015-2023. A substantial portion of his works contains a mythological element. His pieces often serve as personal reflections on the pressing issues of our time, primarily the climate crisis. They also deal with more intimate subjects, like anxiety and depression.
Meet Erik's Monologues
Swedish composer Erik Valdemar Sköld (b. 1991) started his 'monologue' series in 2013-14 with a solo piece for clarinet. Afterwards, he set the goal to write a new solo piece for every possible instrument as an exercise in their technique and possibilities. He uses the title 'Monologue' to describe a lone voice contemplating in various ways about everything and nothing. Some of them have a more traditional or neo-classical character, while others mimic the detached patterns of human speech. As of 2025, Sköld has completed more than 20 compositions in this series.
Performing LIVE
January 12th, 2026 at Phys Fest NYC
Duet
No. 2
Violist
Noah Stevens
dancer/choreographer
Alyssia Farias
Noah Stevens is a violist, composer, and conductor based in NYC. Recent highlights include playing alongside members of the New York Philharmonic in a concert with Lang Lang, performing the world premier of Joshua Fadenholz’s record breaking viola sonata, and collaborating with the indie rock band nüvă.
Enthusiastic about multimedia and contemporary performance, Noah has worked with dancer/choreographer Alyssia Farias on past projects with striking results, and cannot wait to present a Monologue alongside her.
@noahstevensetc
Alyssia Farias (she/they) is a freelance performer and collaborator based in New Jersey and New York City. She began her dance training in New England and graduated Summa cum Laude from Montclair State University where she has performed works by Dolly Sfeir, Yusha-Marie Sorzano, André Tyson, Cameron McKinney, and Leslie Kraus. Farias has also trained closely with Doug Varone and Dancers, Takehiro Ueyama, Stephanie Batten Bland, Christian von Howard and Karen Gayle. They have both performed and presented work at Dixon Place, the Montclair Dance Festival, Koresh Artist Showcase, and Modern Moves.
Currently, she performs with Freespace Dance and Opus//The Company. Alyssia enjoys collaborating, choreographing and performing with musicians and recently served as assistant choreographer to Donna Scro Samori in the opera La Calisto.
@alyssia.farias
Duet
No. 4
Clarinetist
marilyn Farias
Marilyn Farias is a clarinetist from rural Wisconsin, growing up surrounded by farms, forests, and beautiful prairie. After completing her Bachelor’s degree in Clarinet Performance and Spanish, she moved to New Jersey to start her Master’s degree in Clarinet Performance at New York Univeristy. Marilyn now is pursuing her Doctorate in Musical Arts at Rutgers Univerity, playing in Collegium Musicum New York and teaching private lessons.
@marilyn_farias
dancer/choreographer
sophia aste
Sophia is a New York-based artist who moved from Salt Lake City to pursue a degree in dance at Marymount Manhattan College. Grown from her love of proscenium performance, Sophia is inspired by how movement exists beyond the stage, particularly in today’s contemporary media landscapes. Her personal movement lexicon is informed by close-listening musicality and lyricism.
@sophiaaste
Duet
No. 5
flutist
Haruna fukazawa
dancer/choreographer
Danielle Strader
Haruna Fukazawa is a New York–based flutist, improviser, and composer from Tokyo, Japan. A Muramatsu America Flutes Artist and voting member of the Recording Academy, she is a 2026 GRAMMY® Nominee for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album for SHAYAN by Charu Suri. Haruna blends classical training with joyful improvisation and has performed at top venues worldwide. In 2024, she appeared as a guest soloist with the Tango Orchestra of the National University of the Arts in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She leads the Haruna Fukazawa Quintet, co-leads the chamber jazz trio Jazz Triangle 65-77, and mentors the next generation of jazz flutists through workshops and her work with the NFA Jazz Committee.
@harunaflute
Danielle Strader is an interdisciplinary movement artist based in NYC whose work is guided by curiosity, playfulness, and the voracious pursuit of clarity. After moving to New York from South Carolina and obtaining a BFA in dance performance at Marymount Manhattan College, she began her masters study in Performing Arts Leadership and Management with Shenandoah Conservatory. Danielle is the founder of Sights and Sounds Collaborationworks, through which she explores the intersection of music and movement by uniting composers, musicians, choreographers, and dancers in process and onstage.
@danielles_dans
Duet
No. 7
Cellist
Jillian Emerson
dancer/choreographer
Amelia Burkhardt
Jillian Emerson is a cellist with a multifaceted career spanning orchestral, chamber, and theater music that began when they were nine years old. Although their first instrument is piano, they were drawn to the rich tones of the cello. They have performed with the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, New Haven Composers Spotlight, Ocala Symphony, Saint Petersburg Opera Company, Non-Conformists Orchestra, and most recently the New Haven Symphony as a Harmony Fellow and have been invited to perform at Lincoln Center, the Wadsworth Atheneum, and at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. In addition to their classical work, they are also a member of the band Alexandra Burnet and the Proven Winners and have shared bills with artists such as Kimya Dawson, Ezra Furman, Codefendants, and Daedelus.
@jilly.goat
Amelia is a NYC based Dancer, Choreographer, Performer, & Educator, originally from Los Angeles. She teaches at the famous Steps On Broadway in NYC and has taught at Dance Studios, High Schools, Universities, Intensives, & Conventions all over the country. She has also been a leading Adjudicator for Star Dance Alliance Competitions for the past decade. She has worked with LA and NY Choreographers such as Galen Hooks, Tyce Diorio, NabbyTabs, Karla Puno Garcia, Al Blackstone, Matt Cady, & Lorin Latarro. Some of her favorite credits are: Hello Kitty National Tour, WILD Award for Best Choreography as Associate Choreographer for Kinky Boots, Good Morning America, Legally Blonde, In The Heights, Elf The Musical, Chicago 25th Anniversary, Broadway Bares, Choreographers Carnival, Green Room 42, FOX’s “Mobbed”.
@ameliaburkhardt
Duet
No. 10
Bassoonist
claire de brunner
Claire won a scholarship to study with the principal bassoonist of the NY Philharmonic. Attending the HS of Music and Art, and NC School of the Arts, she studied with Stephen Maxym at MSM and played in orchestras and chamber ensembles before transitioning to jazz.
She was a founding member of 101 Crustaceans as well as Church of Betty, and played at many venues— CBGB, Knitting Factory, Limelight, Pyramid, Danceteria, Palladium, and Dixon Place.
In the ‘90s she studied improvisation with Lee Konitz and later with Connie Crothers. Her many collaborators include luminaries such as Daniel Carter, Matt Lavelle, Nick Lyons, Connie Crothers, Dave Sewelson, Melanie Dyer, Ken Filiano, Judi Silvano, and Andrea Wolper.
Claire has appeared on many CDs, andhas performed at numerous NYC venues, including The Stone, BAMcafe, Roulette, Greenwich House, Barbes, and The National Jazz Museum in Harlem.
While her musical development is varied, it reflects the natural outgrowth of the ongoing pursuit and exploration of her deepest passion.
@freebssn
dancer/choreographer
danielle strader
See above for bio.
Duet
No. 12
Piccoloist
Cindy kaiser
Cindy Kaiser recently graduated with a BM in flute performance/ music education and a BA in psychology from Lawrence University (LU). While at LU, Cindy studied flute with Erin Lesser and piccolo with Suzanne Jordheim. Past achievements include performing Lowell Lieberman’s Concerto for Piccolo and Orchestra with the LU Wind Ensemble (2022) and receiving an honorable mention for best Out of State Piccolo Performance at the 2021 Utah Flute Association Sonata Competition. Cindy worked as a flutist for the College Light Opera Company (2022) and attended various summer music festivals, including the Sewanee Summer Music Festival, Rocky Ridge Music Festival, Atlantic Music Festival, Zodiac Music Festival, and Lawrence Chamber Music Festival. Cindy resides in the New York City area and currently teaches flute at the Horace Mann School.
@cindy_kaiser402
@cindykflutepiccolo
dancer/choreographer
summer hatcher
Summer Hatcher is a New York City-based dance artist. Originally from California, she grew up training and performing with the Lake Tahoe Dance Collective and Oregon Ballet Theatre. She attended Marymount Manhattan College, graduating summa cum laude with a BFA in Dance and a BA in History. She has performed works by Eric Hawkins, Ginger Thatcher, Pedro Ruiz, Debra Lohse, and George Balanchine’s Who Cares? Summer is also a skilled stage manager and arts administrator working as Assistant to the Artistic Director of the Lake Tahoe Dance Collective and most recently served on the Company Management team at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival 2025.
@summer.hatcher
Duet
No. 17
electric guitarist
Shu Odamura
dancer/choreographer
danielle strader