"I can't remember the last time I felt such appreciation for a
show that made me squirm with hard-to-identify discomfort. It was hair-raising, dark, melodic, and beautiful.”
Kevin Specter, patron
SAXYN Dance Works
SAXYN Dance Works is an inquiry-driven artistic practice led by Creative Director Thryn Saxon. Rooted in contemporary movement, SDW is an artistic home and curated ecosystem where each project discovers its own form, scale, and constellation of collaborators. While dance remains its primary language, the work may additionally unfold through theater, music, film, or other interdisciplinary forms.
Ultimately grounded in Thryn Saxon’s clear and decisive artistic vision, SDW’s creative process uses improvisation as both a central method of inquiry and a performance tool, cultivating authenticity and presence within the work and among its collaborators. Each work is devised from the inside out. Characters, movement, music, and narrative emerge through experimentation rather than predetermined outcomes, allowing the work to reveal itself over time. Creation becomes an act of listening, of entering into relationship with the work as much as shaping it.
Rather than being defined by a singular aesthetic, SAXYN Dance Works is unified by a way of paying attention to the world, one that values curiosity over certainty, exchange over extraction, and collaboration over control. Drawing from folklore, lived experience, ancient and contemporary rituals, and the complexities of belonging, each project unfolds through improvisational research, rigorous physical exploration, and dramaturgical mapping. Thryn’s work blends cinematic physical landscapes with a heightened sensitivity to rhythm, timing, and suspension, creating worlds where movement, emotion, and narrative unfold with both precision and unpredictability.
At the center of every SDW project is the conviction that meaning is something to be discovered in relationship to the creative environment, rather than imposed upon it. Guided by Thryn's artistic vision, collaborators are invited to offer their instincts, expertise, and perspectives, allowing each project to become richer through genuine exchange.
Whether creating an intimate solo, an evening-length performance, a film, or a multidisciplinary gathering, SAXYN Dance Works creates experiences that invite wonder, deepen connection, and embrace the messy, contradictory, and beautiful complexity of what it means to be human.
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The company has been supported by The O’Donnell Green Foundation for Music and Dance, Baryshnikov Arts,The Moss Center in Miami, FL The Croft in Horton Bay, MI, The Dragon’s Egg in Mystic, CT, Windhover Performing Arts Center in Rockport, MA, Peaceable Barn in Reading, CT, and Homeport Art House in South Thomaston, ME. Thryn’s work has been performed at venues such as The Moss Center, 92Y, Arts on Site, The Gelsey Kirkland Theater, RADFest, The Perez Art Museum, Windhover Performing Art Center, Kingsland Wild Flowers.
Thryn Saxon
Thryn Saxon is a choreographer, movement director, performer, and dance educator based in Connecticut and New York City. She received her BFA in Dance from Florida State University in 2014 and is the Creative Director of SAXYN Dance Works, which she founded in 2021.
Raised in Miami, where she graduated from New World School of the Arts high school, Thryn developed a deep love of place and an awareness of the ways landscapes, communities, and cultural traditions shape our identities. Growing up amidst the rhythms, rituals, and everyday traditions of a richly layered city fostered a lifelong curiosity about how connection is carried through movement, music, storytelling, and celebration. This early immersion continues to inform her creative practice, inspiring an approach rooted in intuitive listening, exchange over extraction, and a deep reverence for rhythm, music, and the places that shape us.
Over the past decade, Thryn has created and performed work throughout the Northeast, Michigan, and Florida. Her performance credits include Punchdrunk's Sleep No More, Doug Varone and Dancers, Helene Simoneau Danse, and Kate Weare Company. She also works collaboratively with long-time dance partner Brad Beakes. Their work together has been supported by The Atlantic Center for the Arts, Arts on Site, Windhover Performing Arts Center, and won the Korea Dance Festival Award at The Dumbo Dance Festival in 2019.
In addition to her choreographic practice, Thryn has a rich and fortified teaching practice in contemporary dance, partnering, and shuffle—an Australian born social dance form influenced by Lindy Hop, house, and hip hop. Over the years Thryn has had the privilege of teaching at institutions such as NYU, SUNY Purchase, George Mason, Connecticut College, Peridance Capezio Center, BRICKHOUSE NYC, and holds a weekly class at Gibney Dance Center. Commissions of her work include Towson State University, Marymount Manhattan, Miami Arts Charter, senior solos for The Ailey Program and Skidmore, as well as a forthcoming commission at Florida State College in Jacksonville. Additionally, Thryn co-directs Homeport Art House, a rural dance residency in mid-coast Maine, with her mother, celebrated choreographer and director of National Water Dance, Dale Andree.
Thryn frequently collaborates with Pittsburgh-based composer Bre Short, whose long-standing artistic partnership continues to shape the evolving world of SAXYN Dance Works.
