Creating a cosmos: Hatchery Dance Company to transform Northampton’s Workroom Theater into a galaxy

The Workroom Theater at 33 Hawley in Northampton is typically a vast space of gray walls and wooden floors. Earlier this month, however, a group of teenagers transformed it into a galaxy using nothing but their bodies.

The School for Contemporary Dance & Thought’s Hatchery Dance Company — featuring dancers ages 12 to 18 — will present “Asteroid B-612: A Love Story” at the venue on Friday, June 12 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, June 13 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The Saturday matinee will also feature the “Hatchlings,” a group of the company’s youngest dancers.

The premise of the show, inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic book “The Little Prince,” is that the performers visit 17 planets, and each planet is a different song. Most of the choreography was created by students in the program, with additional choreography created by guest artists Sakina Ibrahim, Gabriella Carmichael and Erik Elizondo.

The “planets” include pieces set to “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé, “Only Ever” by Lucy Park, “Gemini” by Haley Heynderickx, “Drop” by Connor Price and Zensery and “Capacity” by Big Thief.

Beyond the choreography, the production integrates video elements, spoken word and live music from the teenage musicians of the Hatchery Pit Band. According to the organizers, the show transcends traditional performance, offering an intimate look at how today’s youth navigate love, isolation, imagination and human connection within an ever-expanding universe.

Following last year’s production inspired by “Alice in Wonderland,” artistic director Jen Polins chose to base this year’s show on another literary classic. She noted that modern dance and experimental art can often feel abstract or confusing to audiences. By anchoring the choreography to a familiar story, Polins explained, “We can give people orientation and anchor points.”

Jamie Lester, 18, the group’s oldest member, came to Hatchery from a background in ballet, which he disliked because it was competitive and overly structured in a way that took away some of the fun.

“As a very, very young kid, you think of dance as this expression and this freedom and this playfulness, and then you have adults stuffing you into a room and being like, ‘Stop doing it like that. Do it like this,’ and I hated that,” he said. “So finding Hatchery many, many years later was really wonderful, because [you feel] so much playfulness and so much freedom to move one’s body and not feel … bombarded with, ‘Do it this very specific way, and if you don’t, you’re in trouble’ or ‘you’re bad’ or ‘you’re wrong.’”

Serena Gross, 17, similarly found the program to be deeply supportive. When they joined Hatchery, they knew the company included two professional ballerinas. Gross recalled asking a friend in the program if dancing in front of such technically perfect peers was terrifying.

“She was like, ‘No, they’re my friends,’” Gross said. “I didn’t believe her [at first], and then we got there, and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is 100% just how it works here.’”

Gross, who choreographed for the show, found a connection to the production’s theme as an incoming high school senior.

“I have this whole creative part of my brain that feels inherently childlike,” they said. “But I’m dealing with people being like, ‘What are you going to do [after graduation]? What’s your job going to be? What are you going to major in?’ … I’m very much in that phase of learning to balance that wonder and that curiosity, but also be an adult.”

For Gross, the show’s timing was perfect. “This came at a very appropriate time for me, because that’s a lot of what ‘The Little Prince’ is about,” they noted. “In the end, I don’t really want to balance it. I want to keep all that childlike wonder and joy.”

That same idea, they said, is also their hope for what audiences take away from the show.

“Ideal scenario: I want an 80-year-old grandpa to come up to me and be like, ‘I want to dance the way you’ve danced up there,’ and I’ll be like, ‘Yeah, do it!’ … I want people to walk out and be itching to make something,” Gross said. “That’s the goal.”

Tickets to “Asteroid B-612: A Love Story” are available on a sliding scale from $15 to $35 via Zeffy. For more information about the School for Contemporary Dance & Thought, visit scdtnoho.com. The company will also be holding auditions for performers ages 12 to 18 on Sunday, June 14, from noon to 1 p.m. inside the Workroom Theater.