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Susie McHugh + Dancers creates emotionally charged dance theater that explores the complicated, nuanced, and often misunderstood sides of mental health and psychology. The company brings together movement, theater, and personal testimony to create immersive worlds inspired by music, film and lived experience. The work can move between the strange, the funny, the unsettling, and the deeply human, often finding beauty in places that aren’t traditionally considered beautiful.

 

The company has a particular interest in darker themes and aesthetics, while still leaving room for playfulness and humor. Its movement language is rooted in ballet and modern-jazz, with an emphasis on precision and expressive physicality. Playing with gesture is an important part of the creative process, allowing the dancers to explore how the body can communicate themes that are difficult to put into words.

 

Much of the company’s work is shaped by Susie McHugh’s lived experience with mental illness, as well as her work supporting others on the NAMI NYC Helpline. These experiences have fueled an ongoing curiosity for psychology and the ways people think, behave, connect, and move through the world. Rather than focusing only on mental illness, the work looks at the broader and sometimes unexpected ways our inner lives shape how we experience being human.

 

At the center of Susie McHugh + Dancers is a belief in honesty, empathy, and connection. The work invites audiences to reflect on parts of themselves that are depicted in the work, and to leave with more room for empathy for themselves and for each other, while feeling a less alone in what they carry.