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2026 · Dance – stage work

Bunk Beds

Jessica Swanson and Olivia Sander

A nine-minute duet by Jessica Swanson and Olivia Sander, set to a new score by Ben Juodvalkis built around his own 2021 song 'I Spend Every Night Alone', written for an unrealized Joe Goode Haight-Ashbury project and rediscovered by Jessica in 2025. Called 'Bunk Beds' in production emails, it was presented at Joe Goode Performance Group's GUSH Dance Festival in April 2026.

The full performance at GUSH

Recollections

“This one was so fun. Banging on pots and pans in the kitchen like a bunch of 3-year-olds. I hope the bunk bed twins continue making mischief for years to come.”

Ben
Premiere
2026-04-24
Venue
GUSH Dance Festival 2026, Joe Goode Annex (Joe Goode Performance Group)
Where
San Francisco, CA
Performances
GUSH 2026 ran April 23–26, 2026. 'Jessica & Olivia' (9 min) was scheduled for Friday April 24 (opening the show), Saturday April 25 and Sunday April 26 (3 PM), after intermission on the last two; it was not on the Thursday April 23 program. Tech rehearsal Monday April 20; dress rehearsal April 22.
Credits
Choreography and performance: Jessica Swanson and Olivia Sander. Music: Ben Juodvalkis. Festival: Joe Goode Performance Group (technical director Colin Johnson; producer Damara Vita Ganley).

Photographs

One dancer in an orange wig hangs upside down from an orange rope against a dark wall, her shadow thrown large on the pale wall beside her; the other reclines on the glossy stage floor at right, propped on one arm, her own rope running diagonally up out of frame.

Alyssandra Wu

Two dancers in orange wigs, light-blue tops and black shorts hang sideways from orange ropes in a pool of light on the back wall, one high up and the other just above the floor, the lower one reflected in the glossy stage.

Alyssandra Wu

Two dancers in orange wigs hang tangled together from orange ropes just above the floor, bare legs kicked up in the air and one hand on the stage, throwing a many-legged shadow onto the white wall beside them.

Alyssandra Wu

Ephemera

Black-and-white promotional graphic for GUSH Dance Festival 2026: five vertical portrait panels of dancers in expressive poses - stretching, wrapped in sheer fabric, arching backward, gesturing mid-thought, curled inward - over a dark background with splashing water, with the Joe Goode Performance Group logo and the festival's dates and venue.

Joe Goode Performance Group

Jessica and Olivia in matching bright orange wigs and grey-blue tank tops, posed close to the camera in a white-walled studio with rigging lines and wooden roof trusses overhead; one has her face hidden behind her bangs, the other gives the camera a deadpan look.

Jessica and Olivia in the wigs, at rehearsal.

Two bright orange wigs lying on a scuffed black studio floor on either side of a long orange climbing rope heaped in loose loops.

Jessica's photo of the wigs and rope.

Ben leaning over a laptop, an Akai MIDI keyboard, and a lit-up grid controller, with an iPad running a synth app propped beside him; a woman rests her chin on her hands and smiles at the camera behind him, at a dining table with a mason jar of flowers and a can of sparkling water.

Olivia's photo of me at our second music session.

Jessica and Olivia grinning backstage in matching orange wigs and light-blue shirts with black sleeves, a clothes rack and black drapes behind them.

Olivia's photo from backstage at GUSH.

In Olivia's kitchen, during our first music session

  • My 2021 song that the score grew out of

Jessica's text when she found my old song.

Jessica: Hi Ben! I hope you are well. I stumbled across your song: “I spend every night alone” It’s beautiful! And sad! My favorite. What I have is only 1 min and cuts off, as if there exists more? 1. Is there a longer version I could listen to? 2. Has it already been used for something? Like a show? I’m having choreographic ideas…

Press

“And Jessica and Olivia Sander’s duet “Bunk Beds” featured the two dancers, bedecked in matching wigs and colorful costumes, negotiating space literally and metaphorically as they hung suspended and low to the ground, bodies parallel to the floor with feet on the wall. They turned the world of the dance sidelong, offering fresh perspective for experienced viewers, and the ease of their interplay masked the physical difficulty of what they crafted.”

Elsewhere

Ben Juodvalkis © 2026