After an 11-hour brain surgery, choreographer Heidi Latsky did what she knows best — she made a work about it. Her 2025 documentary Living in the Grey follows five dancers aged 35–60 navigating non-apparent neurological disabilities, weaving intimate interviews with movement footage into a film that poses the same question RPI cognitive scientist Brett Fajen has been chasing in his lab: how does the body adapt when the rules change?
On Thursday, November 12, they meet at EMPAC to work through that question together.
About the Show
INTERFACE: Cognitive Science is the fourth and final event in EMPAC’s fall INTERFACE series, which has run since September pairing artists and researchers across technology, science, and the arts. This installment puts Latsky and Fajen in conversation around perception, bodily action, and what intuitive creative knowledge can tell us about how the brain and body function.
Latsky is one of the more interesting people you could put in this room. A former principal dancer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (1987–1993), she went on to found Heidi Latsky Dance in 2001, building it into New York’s largest physically-integrated dance company. The New York Times described her as “a choreographer and dancer of uncommon intelligence and fluidity.” Her GIMP toured internationally and Dance Magazine called it “a milestone in contemporary dance.” She also holds a BA in Psychology with Honors — which is to say, the cognitive science conversation here is not a stretch for her. She will screen footage from Living in the Grey and discuss her creative process; the documentary grew directly from her own experience of neurological recovery and the community of dancers she found navigating similar challenges. With a world premiere of DAYS OF AWE at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center scheduled for January 2027, Latsky is very much in the middle of an active creative phase.
Fajen directs RPI’s PandA (Perception and Action) Laboratory, where NIH-funded research uses immersive virtual environments and motion capture to study how people navigate complex, dynamic environments. The talk is curated by Tara Aisha Willis and supported by NYS DanceForce.
Venue & Logistics
The event is in Studio 2 at EMPAC (the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center) on the RPI campus in Troy. For this kind of work, there is no better room in the Capital Region: EMPAC was built exactly for intersections like this one. It runs 60 minutes starting at 6 p.m., and wraps up with informal refreshments at Evelyn’s Café.
Tickets
Admission is free — no ticket required. Full event details are available on the EMPAC site. Event details