Festival 2025 is here—meet all of the artists taking over our three performance spaces this summer.

Prehistoric Body Theater

At Outdoor Henry J. Leir Stage: Jun 25 - Jun 26

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About

Prehistoric Body Theater

This event took place June 25 – 26 at 5:30pm | Henry J. Leir Stage
U.S. Debut | U.S. Premiere

In a special kick-off to Festival 2025, Prehistoric Body Theater—an experimental dance theater collective from Indonesia—channeled dinosaurs as they explored themes of mass extinction, climate crisis, and evolutionary ancestry through movement. The group created “deep-time animal dance” by fusing paleontology with traditional dance and experimental Javanese percussion. Prehistoric made its U.S. debut in association with New York’s Asia Society with Ghosts of Hell Creek: Stone Garuda, a mesmerizing work that eulogized the raptors who perished in the Chicxulub asteroid impact 66 million years ago, while celebrating the survival of our earliest primate ancestors in a world born anew.

Praised as “an innovative form of global public outreach for paleontology” (Oxford University Press), Prehistoric Body Theater collaborates with Indigenous Indonesian performing artists as well as international scientists—uniting art, science, and a deep commitment to nature conservation.

Prehistoric Body Theater; photo courtesy of company

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