“Mirlitons” Pairs Dance and Beatboxing at PS21 on Halloween Weekend

Saturday, October 31, 7:30pm, and Sunday, November 1, 3pm | Chatham, NY | $12.50–$110

PS21 presents “Mirlitons,” a duet for two French artists, choreographer and dancer François Chaignaud and beatboxer Aymeric Hainaux, in the Black Box Theater on October 31 and November 1. PS21 describes the piece as “something between a dance, a concert, a battle, a ritual, a union,” a “total saturation of frequencies and swirling muscles” in which dance and music meet in a mischievous space for listening, challenging, and connecting.

The two premiered the piece in October 2023 at the Festival d’Automne à Paris, and it has since toured Europe and the U.S.

The title has several meanings in French: a child’s flute, a bit of doggerel, a Louis d’or coin, a military headdress, and a cream-roll pastry. It all plays.

Chaignaud trained at the Paris conservatory and danced for choreographers including Boris Charmatz and Gilles Jobin before making his own work, which combines song and dance with history.

He founded the company Mandorle productions in 2021, had a portrait series devoted to him at the 2025 Festival d’Automne, and in 2026 was named director of the Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen en Normandie.

Hainaux started in cartoons and painting before turning to beatboxing, building precise machine sounds with no loop pedal, only a microphone, bells, a harmonica, and sometimes a cassette player, all in real time. In 2005 he began a solo tour by hitchhiking, which lasted eight years and about 700 performances on three continents. He plays in the duo Cantenac Dagar, runs the label Isola Records, and contributed to the soundtrack for Clément Cogitore’s film Goutte d’Or.

PS21 sells tickets at four levels. General admission is $30, including fees. A “no questions asked” ticket is $12.50 with no eligibility requirements. A pay-it-forward ticket is $50 and offsets the $12.50 seats. A “true cost” ticket is $110 and reflects the actual per-seat cost of the performance, including artist fees, production, travel, and operations.

PS21, 2980 Route 66, Chatham, NY. Tickets at ps21chatham.org.