“The music of THE WOODS is as smart as it is sexy, and the athletic choreography and vision to create an immersive experience for the audience will make this a must-see event,” said Ian Belknap, Artistic Director of New York Stage and Film.
THE WOODS is an immersive concert experience created by San Fermin, led by composer Ellis Ludwig-Leone, and adventurous production company BalletCollective, led by choreographer/director Troy Schumacher, New York City Ballet. Schumacher and Ludwig-Leone also collaborated closely with Emmy Award-winning set and production designer Jason Ardizzone-West throughout the creative development of THE WOODS.
“When the opportunity to create THE WOODS sprouted, I knew that the support offered by New York Stage and Film to create, develop, and workshop the show prior to its world premiere would prove invaluable,” said Troy Schumacher, Co-Founder of BalletCollective.
Ludwig-Leone and Schumacher have been creative partners since 2013’s “truly singular” (New York Times) ballet The Impulse Wants Company, and have since created eight pieces together, culminating in 2023’s The Night Falls, an “ingenious” (The New Yorker) work of musical theater that merged the worlds of opera and dance.
The music of San Fermin, lauded for its “knack for simultaneously expressing beauty and crisis,” (The New Yorker), lends itself to this expansive setting and theatrical treatment. What is the role of storytelling—and songwriting—in a constantly shifting, often terrifying reality? THE WOODS celebrates the alchemical power of music and dance to transform fear and loss into life-affirming and communal experiences: in a world that is always in motion, we must resolve to love.
Listen to “The Woods” by San Fermin on Spotify or Apple Music.
Initial casting includes Lead Vocalists: Allen Tate (San Fermin), Claire Wellin (San Fermin), Mckenzie Cahill; Featured Performers: Annalise Gehling, Sophie Rose Shapiro, Thomas Hogan, Mizuho Kappa, Leslie Andrea Williams; San Fermin band: Ellis Ludwig-Leone (Bandleader), Griffin Brown (Drums), Tyler McDiarmid (Guitar), Stephen Chen (Saxophone); Additional Musicians: Andy Clausen (Trombone), Addison Maye-Saxon (Trombone), Lauren Cauley (Violin); Ensemble Dancers: Arcadian Broad, Justin Daniels, Shizu Higa, Salma Kiuhan, Devin Loh, Solange Rodrigues, Noah Wang, Annika Wong.
TROY SCHUMACHER (Co-Creator, Director & Choreographer) is an American choreographer, dancer, and director living in New York, NY. His athletic aesthetic draws upon the artists he collaborates with to produce fresh, unexpected results. He is a soloist dancer with New York City Ballet and the founder and Artistic Director of BalletCollective. He has been dubbed a “visionary artist” by T Magazine and is “one of his generation’s most acclaimed choreographers” (PBS). His work has been featured on The New York Times’ Annual “Best Of” list and on the “Highbrow/Brilliant” quadrant of New York Magazine’s Approval Matrix multiple times.
Schumacher’s work has been presented by New York City Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, Performa, Danspace Project, Guggenheim Works & Process, Guggenheim Bilbao, Peak Performances, the Joyce Theater, the Savannah Music Festival, and NYU Skirball Center, among others. He has collaborated with many internationally famous artists including Jeff Koons, Karen Russell, Zaria Forman, Thom Browne, Ken Liu, Ellis Ludwig-Leone, Maddie Ziegler, and David Salle. Schumacher has choreographed numerous art, fashion and commercial shoots, including works for Google, Sony PlayStation, Capezio, HP, Aritzia, CR Fashion Book, Tom Ford, and The New York Times.
His work has been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, the New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Dance Magazine, Pointe Magazine, Cosmopolitan, T Magazine, and CR Fashion Book, among others. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Schumacher created, directed, and produced the first live world premiere ballets in the US: the one act Natural History and the full-length, immersive Nutcracker at Wethersfield, which is the subject of an upcoming feature documentary.
ELLIS LUDWIG-LEONE (Co-Creator, Composer & Bandleader) writes music distinguished by its narrative sweep and attention to subtle shifts in emotional valence. Lauded by The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino for his “knack for simultaneously expressing beauty and crisis,” Ludwig-Leone writes works that combine lush, naturalistic textures with moments of thorny complexity to walk the line between wonder and dread. Since coming to international attention as the songwriter behind the celebrated indie band San Fermin—with whom he has released five records, three EPs, and two live albums while touring extensively—Ludwig-Leone has enjoyed a musical double life as a composer of works for the concert hall and stage.
Ludwig-Leone is the recipient of the 2024 Ellis-Beauregard Composer Award, awarded to one composer each year, and is a recipient of residencies from MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. He has been the composer-in-residence for the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, and his concert works have been recorded for Sony Classical, New Amsterdam, and Better Company Records. He has composed for a wide range of ensembles and soloists, including ACME, ADAM Quartet, Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Attacca Quartet, BalletCollective, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, The Crossing, Decoda, Grand Rapids Ballet, Het Gelders Orkest, Indianapolis Symphony, International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, NOW Ensemble, The Knights, New York City Ballet, Orchester im Treppenhaus, Sandbox Percussion, yarn/wire, vocalist Eliza Bagg, harpist Lavinia Meijer, violist Nadia Sirota, pianist Simone Dinnerstein, and more.
The 2023 season saw the premiere of The Night Falls, a dance-opera with music by Ludwig-Leone, a libretto by Ludwig-Leone and Karen Russell (Swamplandia!), and direction and choreography by Troy Schumacher (New York City Ballet), at PEAK Performances at Montclair State University. Praised for Ludwig-Leone’s “ingenious, gorgeous score” (The New Yorker), The Night Falls was named one of The New York Times’ “Best Dance Performances of 2023”. Also premiering in 2023 was False We Hope, a song cycle and string quartet written for Attacca Quartet and vocalist Eliza Bagg, which arrived via Better Company Records. Described as “a thought-provoking journey across a strange and extraordinary soundscape” (OperaWire), False We Hope has had recent performances at Big Ears Festival, Birds of Paradise Festival, Við Djúpið Music Festival, and more. His latest recording, Past Life/Lifeline, an EP featuring new chamber works for Lavinia Meijer, Nadia Sirota, Sandbox Percussion, and Eliza Bagg, arrived via Better Company Records on December 6th, 2024.
Ludwig-Leone works frequently with choreographer Troy Schumacher, and their work has been commissioned and premiered by the New York City Ballet. Ludwig-Leone has composed eight ballets for Schumacher’s dance company BalletCollective, including collaborations with visual artist David Salle, architect James Ramsey, photographer Paul Maffi, scenic designer Jason Ardizzone-West, and poets Carey McHugh and Cynthia Zarin. During the pandemic, Ludwig-Leone worked with playwright Tony Kushner and director Ellie Heyman on The Great Work Begins, a livestream benefit performance of scenes from Angels in America. The hybrid theater/film piece, featuring Glenn Close as Roy Cohn and an original score by Ludwig-Leone, was named by The New York Times as one of the “Best Theater Works of 2020”.
Together with his bandmate Allen Tate, Ludwig-Leone is a founding partner of Better Company Records, a Brooklyn-based label with an eclectic roster and an emphasis on collaboration. Headquartered out of Better Company Studios in Fort Greene, the label has seen over 150 releases from more than 50 artists since it was founded in 2020. Ludwig-Leone has a longstanding relationship with the Við Djúpið Music Festival in Ísafjördur, Iceland, where he runs a weeklong artist residency during the summer solstice, as well as a workshop for aspiring songwriters. Upon graduating from Yale University in 2011, he was a musical assistant to composer Nico Muhly, assisting on scores and recordings. Born in Rhode Island and raised in rural Massachusetts, he lives in Brooklyn.
JASON ARDIZZONE-WEST (Stage Designer & Source Artist) is an EmmyAward-winning stage designer based in New York whose work spans theater, concerts, dance, film, and architecture. From intimate black-box theaters to massive stadium arenas, he creates embracing environments that transform storytelling into shared, deeply human experiences. Originally trained as an architect, Jason brings an innate understanding of space, light, and time to his designs, crafting visual narratives that bridge the physical and emotional landscapes of performance. Most recently, he designed the broadway musical REDWOOD, which Jesse Green of The New York Times described as “among the most beautiful and wondrous theatrical creations I can recall.”
Jason has collaborated with visionary theater-makers such as Tina Landau, Julie Taymor, Richard Nelson, Es Devlin, Pam Mackinnon, Mira Nair, David Leveaux, Sheryl Kaller, Susan Stroman, Awoye Timpo, Kenny Leon, Robert Barry Fleming, and more. His work also extends to global superstars, including Lady Gaga, Lana Del Rey, The Weeknd, Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Idina Menzel, Hikaru Utada, Usher, Phish, Pentatonix, and Florence + The Machine.
His achievements include an Emmy Award for JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR Live (NBC) and multiple nominations for his innovative contributions to theater and live performance. His designs have appeared in renowned institutions such as The Public Theater, The Atlantic Theater Company, American Conservatory Theater, The Apollo, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, The Huntington, and St. Ann’s Warehouse, among many others.
Jason holds a Bachelor Of Architecture from Cornell University’s College Of Architecture, Art & Planning and an MFA in stage & film design from New York University. He is a proud member of USA 829.