Read the related story— Welcome to Campfire Interview — 8 years or One Year, Depending on How You Count It
Where can dance and movement take us that words can’t?
If you too flashed a look at the grief-stricken expression on Tony Bordonaro’s face at the conclusion of Welcome to Campfire’s Chalk Outline Portal, you too might be chewing on that question. He wasn’t looking out at us, something we could feel both he and his dance partner Ingrid Kapteyn were doing even when they were blindfolded.
Bordonaro and Kapteyn’s dancer bodies had on their party face, at first. In short order we seem to be at an interplanetary fashion walk, a gameboy championship moving the dancers like robots, mixed with let’s do the Macarena comraderie. Joyful and upbeat— it is an invite into their world.
Bordonaro and Kapteyn are first in white jump suits, that soon get whipped off to reveal them in a fashion that you might call crime scene burlesque. Bordonaro jokes a challenge question- does he or Ingrid look better in the costume? Well maybe, but what’s with the crime scene caution tape decorating your bustiers?? we think.
Welcome to Campfire Creates a Poetic Affect Rich Dreamscape, not a Narrative
There is a song in the background at times, and other new music waxing and waning into our attention. A live videographer projects the dancers’ movements, and often just their faces, onto the surrounding screens in real time— also waxing and waning into our attention.
Meanwhile Kapteyn and Bordanero’s closeness is very much on display— with much of their dance seeming to be a showcase of the well-traveled terrain that each knows on how to scale and balance their partner’s body. while moving through space.
They scream—
I was the lobster!…
How can you have been in two places at once?…
We hear Frank Sinatra crooning and then a cowboy song which triggers Bordonaro into a horse’s canter.
The scene of one dancer’s body being lifeless and posed as if shot and bleeding on the ground, while the other traces their outline seems to be more than a movement refrain. It’s the work’s title, after all.
WELCOME TO CAMPFIRE’S First Autobiographical Work
In this writer’s view, knowing how it was the recent passing of his father (and the earlier passing of his partner Ingrid Kapteyn’s father years ago) —that is the subject of their first autobiographical dance construct doesn’t just ask the question——Where can dance and movement take us that words can’t? It also seems to answer — use words to get your distance; use your body to dive deeper.
Cast:
Tony Bordonaro - Performer, Ingrid Kapteyn - Performer.
Creative List:
Tony Bordonaro - Choreographer/Director, Ingrid Kapteyn - Choreographer/Director, Roberto Araujo - Film Producer/Video Producer/Photojournalist, Marc Cardarelli - Sound Design, Lia Menaker - Sound Design, shiku thuo - Production Stage Manager.
WHEN:
May 14-23, 2026
WHERE:
Theaterlab
357 W 36th St.
New York, NY 10018
TICKETS:
For more information and tickets visit the Welcome to Campfire website.
All the images are by Nir Arieli.
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About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
