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NMLY.dance

After many years in the studio together Nicole McNeil and Lori Yuill are working collaboratively to meld their creative capacities. NMLY.dance is a convergence of their intersectional interests and individual studio practices. Intentionally they entered this collaborative venture with a desire to deepen their collaborative practice, calling on multiple voices to shape the direction of the creative act. Their goal is to entangle different artistic practices to reveal new ones and rediscover old ones. NMLY.dance projects explore multimedia performance using dance, projections, and sound design always with the goal of melding different perspectives in order to build new worlds for audiences to inhabit with them. Photo Credit: Lynn Lane

Decomposing in tandum
If you need me, call me
everyday more dystopian

Nicole McNeil

(Performer/ Choreographer/ Set and Sound Design) Nicole McNeil received her BFA in Dance and Minor in Interdisciplinary Arts from the University of Houston. While at UH, she was a member of the UH Dance Ensemble for four years and had the opportunity to work with various choreographers like: Teresa Chapman, Karen Stokes, Sophia Torres, Becky Valls, Toni Valle, Jackie Nalett, Laurie Amare, Leslie Scates, Amy Ell, Kelly Knox, jhon r. stronks, and Jennifer Wood. During and after college, she danced for Suchu and continued to work with Houston area companies and choreographers like Lori Yuill, Amy Ell, The Living Room Project, and Pilot Dance Project. In addition to project based work, she has also performed in several festivals across Texas including; American Dance Festival, Big Range Dance Festival, Fringe Festival, Texas Weekend of Contemporary Dance, Barnstorm, Mind The Gap,Texas Dance Improvisation Festival, Queer Fringe Festival, the Mix/Match Festival. Photo Credit: Tati Vice

Lori Yuill

(Performer/ Choreographer and Set Design) Lori Yuill has been engaged in making dances for the past two decades.  Her work includes ongoing research into the in-between spaces: the space between narrative and abstraction, choreography and improvisation, and between performance and rehearsal. Lori is drawn to site specific work because of the opportunity to learn from and about different places like the Flower Garden Banks off the shore of Galveston, or Finca Tres Robles a farm located in Houston's East End where she made “Green Zebras: Moringa Madness''  In addition to making dances for specific spaces, Lori has made several evening length works for the stage including “The Remembering Happens” created during a residency at Rice University. Her choreographic interests in collaboration, research and process infuse her teaching practice as well.  She works with a variety of organizations to bring dance to curious movers and thinkers.  At Houston Met Dance, Lori serves as the Director of Curriculum helping to cultivate a conversation about how dance is shared across age groups and across genres.  Additionally, with Hope Stone she has the great pleasure to guide the residents at Village of River Oaks Memory Care Center through bimonthly dance classes, and through Performing Arts Houston Lori facilitates a creative writing and dance program for middle school students.  She has worked as a facilitator for Artist Inc., a program that helps artists develop their business practices, and for Emc Arts, a program that helps nonprofits develop their adaptive capacities.  Photo Credit: Tati Vice


everyday more dystopian

everyday more dystopian: entropic playground by Creative Incubation Residency Artists, NMLY.dance under the co-artistic direction of Nicole McNeil and Lori Yuill.  

everyday more dystopian: entropic playground, is a feature length multidisciplinary presentation/installation that explores themes of destruction, nature, environmental impact, and human relationships. The work invites the audience to consider “what’s next” as it traverses a dystopian landscape incited by the kinetic energy in loss. The performances  feature projection design by Brian Buck and a collaboratively development set installation initiated by multidisciplinary artist Katelyn Halpern’s 2 part World Building workshops that were offered in early September.

entropic playground is part of Nicole and Lori’s broader project everyday more dystopian, a growing catalog of dances, performances and workshops that aim to spark a renewed interest between humans and the natural world in an effort to inspire a deeper connection to nature, fostering appreciation for its beauty, fragility and the importance of ecological awareness and sustainability. The process for this body of work takes a deep dive into the archive to revive and reprise dances and phrases that were created between 2020 and 2023 with the goal to draw out new stories and meaning. As the work evolves, each presentation is shaped by a botanical sound score and projection design.

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Decomposing in Tandem

Photo Credit: Rachel Redding

"Decomposing in Tandem" is an improvised duet that explores the process of breaking down to be re-birthed. This motif mirrors organic cycles found in nature. This duet has grown out of Nicole and Lori’s broader project "everyday more dystopian", a growing catalog of dances, performances and workshops that aim to spark a renewed interest between humans and the natural world in an effort to inspire a deeper connection to nature, fostering appreciation for its beauty, fragility and the importance of ecological awareness and sustainability. This duet was influenced by a workshop led by Jeanine Durning, Nonstop Movement. After this workshop Nicole and Lori revisited and reimagined solos that they made for "everyday more dystopian: entropic playground". The collision of these two practices led to a new duet which addresses fast fashion, recycling, and what happens when two solo voices embrace collective action.

Decomposing in Tandem was presented in August 2025 as a part of Houston Met Dance’s Adult Showcase. It is currently being maintained and further developed through ongoing weekly rehearsals in preparation for Barnstorm Dance Fest April 2026.

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Photo Credit: Rachel Redding

If you need me, call me

If you need me, call me is a performance that experiments with our natural inclination to attach a sound to movement. NMLY.dance uses improvisational techniques to generate a farcical song and dance. This dance employs humorous tropes such as lip syncing and game show antics to explore social and performative constructs. Imagine the Muppets enter the Judson Church Theater at the birth of Post-Modern Dance and decide to try their hand at a Way Off Broadway Performance Art Vaudevillian Variety Show.


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The Four of Us

The Four of Us is a collaboration between international dancer makers Adam Castañeda (Houston, Texas), Domokos Kovacs (Budapest, Hungary), and Ana Paula Ornelas (Hermosillo, Mexico). The work began in August 2023, when the three dancer/choreographers met at Art Omi in Upstate New York. A year later, they reconnected in Budapest, Hungary to process the previous year of transition, disappointment, and ennui. The result is The Four of Us. Click the button below to learn more.


Through writing, movement, and prop manipulation, Adam, Domokos , and Ana Paula explore what it means to be at a crossroads in community. After experiencing an artistic "high of a lifetime," how does one navigate the inevitable trajectory back to normalcy? Castaneda, Kovacs, and Ornelas create a quiet, yet, robust introspection that sees them confronting the fear and excitement of a blank canvas...anything is possible, even when nothing seems possible. Three friends, each armed with their performance traditions and toolboxes, confront the precipice together, along with a fourth, unnamed figure that seems to drive their focus, desires, and, ultimately, dreams.



Artistic Statement

Why do we hide the effort? In this piece I explore the relationship between physical exertion in the act of performing and the performance itself by fighting my ego’s want to equate mastery and ease. Only by letting go of how we think we should be can we discover what we could be. 

@persimey | @_riddles_three_

Conditioning for Contemporary
Contact Improvisation

Riddles Three in rehearsal and Performance

Photos by Persi Mey and Von Kipper “Legend”