Jackalope Dance is a new dance company created in 2026 to house Nat’s choreography and share a new vision of dance with the world.
After launching with a debut performance at the 45th annual Battery Dance Festival, Jackalope Dance is currently in pre-production for a performance in February 2027. The production will feature three of Nat’s works; ‘Tell me it was beautiful,’ a group work originally commissioned by Mutual Dance Theatre, ‘someone has to leave first,’ a duet created with fellow FoCo Technique instructor Grace Whitworth, and ‘BANSHEE,’ a new work made possible by a Summer Dance Residency at the Harkness Dance Center at 92NY.
Photo by Annie Saeungling | Sonder Visuals
about the name
A jackalope is a mythical animal; a jackrabbit with antlers. It’s not real except in the ways that it is real: in the 20th century, people in the American west created taxidermy hoaxes of jackalopes. As a namesake and mascot, it stands for the audacity, creativity, and initiative to take something out of the realm of fantasy and pull it into reality.
The jackalope is a body in contradiction with itself. One animal whose body contains strength and weakness, humor and gravity, elegance and awkwardness, reality and fantasy. This paradoxical body reflects Nat’s unique and disparate experience in dance; growing up training in ballet, living and working abroad, and working as freelance dancer in New York embodying many choreographers’ visions. The jackalope is both an embodiment of Nat’s past and a guiding vision for their future.
Jackalope Dance’s debut performance in the 45th annual Battery Dance Festival. Performed by Nat Wilson and Grace Whitworth, August 17, 2026.