When Physics Gets Physical
There's a moment about twenty minutes into "Awe and Wonder" where a trio of dancers collapses into each other, then springs apart like particles that just realized they're entangled. The audience at Culver City Crossroads went dead silent. Not the polite silence of people watching something they don't get — the held-breath kind, where someone three rows back whispers "whoa" without meaning to.
That's the thing about Donna Sternberg's latest show. It shouldn't work. A full-length contemporary piece about quantum mechanics and evolutionary biology sounds like a college thesis that got out of hand. But Sternberg has been pulling off unlikely ideas for years now, and this one might be her best.
Science Isn't Just a Theme Here
Most dance-and-science collaborations use science as set dressing. Projected molecules. Lab coats. Maybe a voiceover explaining what DNA does while dancers wave their arms around. Sternberg didn't do any of that.
Instead, her choreography embodies how scientific discovery actually feels. There's a section built around natural selection where one dancer repeats a phrase eight times, each iteration slightly different, and only the "surviving" versions get picked up by the group. It's clever without being cute about it. You grasp the concept not because anyone explained it, but because your body understood the pattern before your brain caught up.
The cosmos segment works differently — slower, almost meditative, with the full company moving in orbits that occasionally collide. One dancer broke formation mid-show and did something I can only describe as a controlled fall that lasted about fifteen seconds. The person next to me grabbed my arm. I don't think she realized she did it.
Not Everything Landed
Look, the piece isn't flawless. A transitional section about cellular division ran long, and there were a couple moments where the scientific concept felt forced into the movement rather than grown from it. The program notes leaned a bit hard on the "art and science are really the same thing" messaging — a claim that sounds nice but falls apart under any real scrutiny.
But those are small complaints in a show that gets the big things right. The dancers performed with a specificity I don't often see in conceptual work. Every gesture had a reason. Nothing was decorative.
Why This Show Matters Right Now
We keep hearing that arts funding should justify itself through STEM outcomes, and that science communication needs to be more "accessible." Both camps miss the point. Sternberg's company sidesteps the whole debate by simply making something that's genuinely moving — intellectually and physically. You don't need a physics degree to feel the gravity solo. You don't need a dance background to follow the evolutionary sequences.
Sternberg's been at this for a long time, and "Awe and Wonder" feels like the piece she's been building toward. If you're anywhere near Culver City, go see it. Take someone who thinks contemporary dance isn't for them. They'll change their mind.
