Performance: Noli Timere – Mac Carter, Princeton

Noli Timere Performance at McCarter Theater, Princeton | Feb 7-8, 2025

Sigrid Adriaenssens, Rebecca Lazier and Janet Echelman did some of their first work with nets and dancers while co-teaching architectural design studios—initially at the University of Washington in 2019 and the next year at Princeton. During those sessions, they encountered an intriguing softening and rigidifying phenomenon in nets. What began as an observation in the classroom evolved into a deeper investigation. They expanded their collaboration into a Princeton University-funded research initiative, adding structural engineers and a mathematician to their research group so they could further explore this complex net behavior. Through a weeklong workshop at the Lewis Center for the Arts, they were able to test full-scale net prototypes in an environment designed for tensile loads, with railings, ceiling mounts, and wall supports. The dancers, moving dynamically across the nets, became both sensors and active inputs—intuiting structural behaviors through movement while also providing invaluable real-world data to refine our mathematical and machine-learning models. This sort of physical large-scale testing-opportunity is rarely afforded in structural engineering research.
Investigating this reciprocal exchange between human loads (the dancers) and structural response has led to new insights into how nets accommodate and channel dynamic loads, an area that had been relatively unexplored. Their research has deepened the understanding of how forces propagate through net structures. This work has already resulted in a research grant, a journal publication, and a chapter in Janet’s upcoming book, Radical Softness and a performance Noli Timere at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, NJ>