Secondary Dominance

Danced at The DOT
Filmed at The DOT
and now…
Screening at The DOT

[Unique to its presentation at HERE’s Dorothy B. Williams Theatre (The DOT), Secondary Dominance is screened amidst site-specific undercurrents].

A high-voltage ride through trauma and transformation, Secondary Dominance is an autofictional dance- and music-centric feature film.

Based on an early childhood incident, Secondary Dominance—blending music, dance, psychology, myth, and neuroscience—kaleidoscopically explores trauma through the dual prisms of art and science.

The music varies in genre and style—from Balkan folk to chamber to industrial, punk, and Renaissance; the imagery moving from languid to exacting; and the emotional breath wide-spanning from grief and disorientation, to ridiculous silliness, to rage, to liberation…

Co-written and co-directed by the composer, singer, and visual artist Sarah Small and the actor, director, and neuroscience researcher, Wade McCollum, the narrative itself blends the creators’ real-time, non-fictional personas with their autofictional representations. 

In Secondary Dominance, a neuroscientist (played by McCollum) invites Sarah (played by Small) to speak at an academic conference on PTSD, trauma, and the brain. He’s interested in learning about how she’s used her artistic process therapeutically as a catalyst for navigating an incident of early-age trauma. During her presentation, triggers surface and ignite a phantasmagorical journey into her psychological landscape.

Our invitation to you is to step into Secondary Dominance’s neural expedition of memory, in hopes that—through adventurous storytelling—we can jointly use this piece a conduit for conversation around trauma, time, and transformation, and our capacity as humans to hold this complexity.

Screenings followed by an open forum, Q+A with the filmmakers, and refreshments.

A dancer may send you off with a gift…