Press Release

6 Degrees/Choreographer Toni Leago Valle, Composer George Heathco, and Singer-Composer 

Misha Penton premiere Testimony at the Midtown Arts Theatre Center Houston (MATCH)

September 25-28, 2025

Houston, TX – 6 Degrees/Choreographer Toni Leago Valle, Composer George Heathco, and Singer-Composer Misha Penton premiere Testimony at the Midtown Arts Theatre Center Houston (MATCH) on September 25-28, 2025.  Testimony is an artistic response to the protests and vandalism surrounding the sculpture “Witness” by Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander. Testimony is an aerial/contemporay dance performance and art installation featuring an innovative music score. The work celebrates the intention behind Shahzia Sikander’s sculpture “Witness”- to honor the strength and resilience of women in a patriarchal society and affirm the importance of feminism and bodily autonomy.

The Heart - Freedom of Artistic Expression

Anti-abortion groups protested the “Witness” sculpture, calling it demonic and pro-choice—a

controversy that made headlines and culminated in the work’s vandalism during Hurricane Beryl.

These events sparked urgent conversations around free speech and artistic expression, especially in today’s fraught political climate.

Choreographer Toni Leago Valle, known for creating politically engaged dance works, recognizes that public discourse often fails to reflect the nuance of these issues. Many women do not feel safe voicing support for bodily autonomy in such a polarized environment. Testimony directly counters the narrative of the anti-abortion protests, offering an alternative perspective: that “Witness” is a celebration of feminism, of the right to take up space, and of Sikander’s freedom to speak as both an artist and a woman.

Meet the Collaborators 

Testimony is a multidisciplinary collaboration between Artistic Director of 6 Degrees/Choreographer Toni Leago Valle, Composer George Heathco, and Singer-Composer Misha Penton, with steel sculptures by visual artist Shelby Craze. Each collaborator brings their own unique voice, resulting is a layered environment that represents multidimensional perspectives on art and freedom of expression.

Choreography - Toni Leago Valle and 6 Degrees Company (bio)

The choreography magnifies both the theme of the sculpture (bodily autonomy and unearthed roots), and the structure of the sculpture (braids, roots, a woman not bound by earth). Testimony is infused with Valle’s unique movement style and aerial choreography co-created by 6 Degrees company members Aria Allbritton, Emily Aven, Shelby Craze, Tempest McLendon, Carlos Perez, Mia Pham, and Michelle Reyes. Penton also contributes her own authentic movement style.

“I was drawn to the floating sculpture the moment of I saw it,” comments Valle, “Aerial dance is uniquely suited for it. I envisioned dancers suspended above the earth, exploring physical interpretations of the sculpture’s design – twisting, winding, braiding, and weaving.” The choreography mirrors the elements of creation: earth, fire, water, and air. Rooted into the ground, the dancers are symbolic of the sculpture’s roots. The performers take to the air: a low trapeze trio revolves circular and braided paths much like the sculpture's braids. This gives way to a soloist winding and curving in blue fabric, reminiscent of water and the sculpture’s mosaics. Dancers move weighted on the floor - steel come to life. There is a quiet moment of feminine strength on an aerial hoop, to signify the sculpture’s hoop skirt, followed by a woman in a harness unleashed into the air, an homage to breaking through the glass ceiling, much as Sikander’s sculpture breaks through her skirt to command the sky. 

“The central theme is free will and the forces that work against it,” remarks Valle, “I started with an interpretation of Genesis through a feminist perspective; of God breathing air into clay and then providing the forbidden fruit.  Eve exhibits her courage and intellect by the act of choosing the fruit. God rewards Eve with the ability to create, to provide breath, to birth humankind. The choice of childbirth cannot be decided by others, as it is women’s birthright through their anatomy." Valle pays homage to Sikander’s determination to not be silenced after a vandal beheaded the sculpture at the peak of Hurricane Beryl.  Sikander requested for the beheaded sculpture to be shown as is, “The act of violence is part of the history of the work and a testament to its power.” (Quote from Sikander, Leah Dolan, CNN, Fri July 12, 2024).

For Valle, Testimony is an opportunity to engage in a discussion of how violence and intimidation are traditional tools used to silence people. “We are seeing violence every day in the news, and yet, people refuse to be silenced. This one incident of violence on a work of art is indicative of our current world.  Sikander is all of us – we will not lay down quietly and go away.”

Music - George Heathco (bio)

The music approaches different perspectives of the life of Sikander’s sculpture, almost as a before and after, where the barbarous act of vandalism serves as a fulcrum. 

For the opener, Sikander's allusion to Havah led Heathco to follow an ancient- and mostly fictional- feminine figure on her hero’s journey of reconciliation in becoming the ultimate bringer of life. The music explores the symbolism found in the artwork from the perspective of an ancient and biblical weight that has been carried throughout time. While evoking the elemental framework of the choreography, each movement features a musical gesture whose development underscores a new scene in the story of Eve, imagined as if from distinct sources, times and spaces: a bombastic ritual to an ancient goddess; an ode to growth and the spreading of life; a cold look back on a biblical sentencing; a tumultuous climb with a burning message on the lips of a witness destined to be delivered to the world.

The second section approaches the sculpture from the present reality, exploring the emotional immediacy- the shock, horror, pain, frustration, and anger- that result from actions meant to silence, dismiss, distort, and destroy one’s being, but also the persistence and determination to fight back. Musical analogues toss, turn, twist, and at times serve as obstacles to be overcome. 

The development and evolution of the human voice runs across the entire work as a throughline to highlight the many ways voice has been used as a tool for agency.  

Music and Voice – Misha Penton (bio)

 “When I encountered Sikander’s sculpture, ‘Witness,’ I heard her voice and felt her as an ancestral portal—a kind of futuristic altar and a call to remember,” Penton remarks, continuing, “As a vocalist-composer, I (re)imagine the work as a liberated female body, silenced for too long, and carrying a voice that rises through centuries of oppression.

“My voice in Testimony is an invocation—a sonorous embodiment of Eve remade as the bearer of choice, creation, and cosmic agency. Rooted in solo voice work, my composition evolved through a live exchange of sound and movement with dancer Shelby Craze. Our process began as improvisation and through rehearsal, coalesced into a shared sonic-kinetic world: voice and movement shaped in real time. Some of my vocal phrases arise from ancient breath: glossolalia, chant, and cry, while others emerge as melody, whispers, gasps, and wails. In this dynamic vocal realm, Sikander’s inspiring work comes alive to testify, endure, and ascend.

In singing my own music as well as Heathco’s, both recorded and live, I straddle the worlds of an interpretive and generative artist—becoming a metaphor for women’s containment and liberation.”

Sculpture/Visual Art – Shelby Craze (bio)

Craze takes visual cues from Sikander’s sculpture, drawing primarily from the spiraling roots of the arms and legs as well as the braided ram’s horns. These elements appear to defy gravity, and Craze’s sculptural installation incorporates this in several ways. Spiraling steel structures coated in metallic copper seem to grow from the earth beneath them as though the roots of an unseen tree are breaking through the ground.

6 Degrees/Toni Leago Valle, George Heathco, and Misha Penton premiere Testimony on Thursday - Saturday, September 25-27, 2025 at 7:30 PM and Sunday, September 28, 2025, at 5:00 PM, at Midtown Arts and Theater Center, 3400 Main Street, Houston TX 77002. Tickets are $35 General Admission / $20 Student/Senior, with a Pay What You Can option on Friday’s performance only. To purchase tickets, visit https://matchouston.org/events/2025/testimony#event-instances

For information, visit www.6degreesdance.org.\

Testimony is funded in part by Dance Source Houston’s Groundwork Grant Program, 
the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance, an Innovation Grant awarded by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, and is supported though the University of Houston School of Theatre & Dance.