Over the Bridge Arts Announces World Premiere Featured in AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project

Over the Bridge Arts will leave its footprint in the Dallas Arts District for the first time when it premieres NEXT…but first, coffee as an invited performing arts group in the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project.

NEXT…but first, coffee combines dialogue, live music, contemporary dance, tango, film and performance art to deliver a fast-paced collaborative dance theatre performance with six Dallas actors and dancers. Performances will run June 11-13, 2026, at Nancy B. Hamon Hall in the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House. Tickets are available at attpac.org.

“It’s been six years since the pandemic forced us to push a reset button. Yet the traumatic cultural convulsions of the pandemic remain just below the surface. This work takes a close look at our collective human nature and how we deal with constant change,” said Lori Sundeen Soderbergh, director of the work and Executive/Artistic Director of Over the Bridge Arts. “There’s plenty of humor in these performances, along with acknowledgement of great losses.”

Collaborators for NEXT… include dancer/choreographers Willow DuBose, Jennifer Mabus, Jaiquan Laurencin and Lori Sundeen Soderbergh; and actors Abel Flores, Jr. and Sorany Gutierrez. The original sound and music score is composed and performed by Armando Monsivais, and lighting design is by Christopher Ham.

Artists continued to produce creative work during the pandemic, often turning to new ways of sharing it online. Three examples of this creativity are included in NEXT…, including two short environmental films created by Soderbergh and one contemporary dance solo created by Mabus, who says

“this project is very important because it portrays an event that changed how we make art, how we move through the world, and our relationships.”

Soderbergh noted that participation in the Elevator Project is an outstanding opportunity to bring Over the Bridge Arts performances to a broader audience as it approaches its tenth anniversary. Founded in Oak Cliff in 2017, the nonprofit supports new works and local performing artists, with a focus on representation and acceptance. In nine years, Over the Bridge Arts has produced 25 programs with 150 local performers at nine different Dallas venues, emphasizing the new, original and multi-genre programming reflected in the group’s Elevator Project performances. For more information, visit overthebridgearts.org and follow @overthebridgeartsdtx.