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Desperate for FABULOUS
April 15, 2026
By Alejandro Rodriguez
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“It started when I was a 9 or 10.” Adele Myers would sneak out of her childhood bedroom and crawl out onto the rooftop to look up at the stars. “I wasn’t supposed to, but I did.” Back then, if you had asked her what the future looked like, she would have pointed at those stars. “They seemed magical to me then.”
Adele went off to college at Sarah Lawrence. She became a professional dancer in New York, a notoriously competitive landscape, blazing across some of the most prestigious stages in the city. In 2010, she launched Adele Myers and Dancers, a company of artists that would tour her original work across the US, from Miami to Seattle, supported by institutions like the New England Foundation, National Dance Project and National Performance Network. She got her master’s degree in dance, and later her Ph.D. in performance studies. In short, she had earned her place in the dance firmament.
Then the pandemic arrived. Established choreographers like Adele saw their entire industry decimated. Tour dates vanished. Venues shuttered. She remembers bobbing in the ocean off the coast of Massachusetts, realizing the gig she was on would be her last for some while. “I could feel the impending doom all around us. I thought, how will we move through this time together?” It occurred to Adele that perhaps imagining a world beyond the present moment would be helpful, if only to remind herself that this was not forever. At that very instant, she remembered a curious matchbook she once found in a hotel lobby in Manhattan. No address, no phone number, just the phrase: A World Gone Fabulous. Little did she know, but her yearning for a brighter future and that curious slogan were already coalescing in her head. The seeds of her next big project had been planted.
As she began exploring, Adele found her ability to imagine a fabulous future sadly limited. It was too often circumscribed by her personal doubts, her genuine fears and an encroaching cynicism. “I would feel my guard rails go up. I kept getting in my own way.” Though she had never been a particularly tech-obsessed artist, she wondered if technology could help her extend the borders of what seemed possible. “I was interested in, could we use technology to help us mine our own imaginations?” Fortunately for her, one of her closest collaborators, Tara Burns, had for years been forging a career at the intersection of dance and technology, using dancers, screens, VR headsets and virtual objects to foreground new ways of sensing and moving. Before becoming an Assistant Professor at James Madison University in those subjects, Tara toured for 11 years as a dancer for Adele Myers and Dancers. More importantly, Tara and Adele share a conviction about the primacy of the human body in space, and a curiosity about the ways technology might enhance the creative process. “VR can help us engage in our bodies in ways we might not every day,” Tara writes. “The physics can be different; the perspective can be different.”
Adele and Tara were joined in the creative process by sound designer, Aeon de la Cruz, costume designer, Pangea Kali Virga, lighting designer, Kathy Couch, and dancers, Maria Burt, Clinton Harris, Cecilia Benitez and Ivonne Batanero. Kayla Castellon was an early contributor as well. Together, they realized that wondering aloud together – whether through the use of old technologies, like Tarot cards, or new ones, like Tara’s Meta Quest VR headsets – was as important and powerful as trying to predict what the future held. “We found it was the questions themselves that ignited something in us,” Adele shared. Tara added: “With dance we do not have to define, we have to feel. If we listen to what our bodies are saying, we will know how to move through the next moment, hour, or life.” In the end, it was the process of future making that Adele and her collaborators became most interested in, not any one specific vision. It was the act of asking, the risk of wanting, and the bravery of sharing that made all the difference.
For audiences lucky enough to grab a seat to see the world premiere of “a world gone FABULOUS” on April 24th and 25th at Miami Theater Center, it may feel like they’re joining Adele on her roof all those years ago, embracing the power of collective dreaming (only with much cooler lighting and permission from their parents). And just like those stars above her childhood home: “It’s going to touch you,” Adele says. After a slight pause, she adds: “Might even pinch you a little bit.”
Author
Alejandro Rodriguez
Alejandro is a Cuban-American theater artist from the planet of Miami. His first evening-length work, Sorry, enjoyed two sold-out runs at LPAC in NYC. His next project, In My Body, a collaboration with the Canadian street dance company, Bboyizm, is currently on a world tour and was the recipient of four Dora Awards in 2022. His most recent play, Alba, was a 2024 Finalist for the O’Neill’s National Playwrights Conference and is set to premiere at Palm Beach Dramaworks in Fall 2026. He is a three-time recipient of the MIA Individual Artist Stipend, a former Artist in Residence in the Florida Everglades, and a current Core Writing Fellow at the Playwrights Center. Formerly, he served as the Associate Artistic Director for PlayMakers, and as Deputy Executive Director for Arts Ignite (formerly ASTEP.) A graduate of Juilliard where he was awarded the Michel St. Denis Prize for outstanding achievement.
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