Published by Dancers' Group, In Dance is discourse and dialogue to unify, strengthen, and amplify.
OCT 2018
Ensambles Ballet Folklórico de San Francisco, Oct 6-7 Photo by Marcie González
The happiness of others is my happiness. Over the span of 36 years working with artists I’ve partic- ipated in conversations that have allowed me to encourage, cheerlead, empathize, and often just quietly listen. Essentially the major bonus of my job is that I get to discuss what the artist I’m with wants. In that moment supporting their cre- ative desires and worries—what a gift, what happiness. Yes, even talking about worries with an artist makes me happy because it’s a way to release the concerns that inevita- bly come up when navigating dance-making, dance-dream- ing—it’s the opportunity to share the worry that each of us thinks about. Recalling the range of artists I’ve had the privilege to talk with astounds. How did a kid from Bakersfield, California with no formal arts training until college, meet and work with so many dance geniuses? It wasn’t luck, it was desire. An early aspiration emerged to support artists; coupled with a belief that the moving body, colliding with theatrical ideas, creates transformation. I value each time I get to talk about an upcoming project. This often includes responding to questions about strate- gies to seek more money. And when an artist wants to dive deeper into their process—the work, the audience, connect- ing to communities and touring—I nerd out. This trust-filled conversation provides bliss. Highlighting a variety of voices and activities that pro- mote dance continues to permeate my life and this publica- tion. I’m not unique in sharing resources and making sure that artists have someone who will listen to and support their artistic desires. Longtime colleague, and friend, Jess Curtis, the artistic director of Gravity, has launched a new Welcome by WAYNE HAZZARD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
“A Life of Movement,” part of SF Dance Film Festival, Oct 14 Film still courtesy of Melanie D’Andrea l
Artist Services initiative that will help a select group of art- ists that are aligned aesthetically and politically to Gravity’s mission. This program is providing production, administra- tive and institutional resources. In this month’s first of two SPEAK columns Jess and the first cohort of artists write about being in relationship to a company that is supporting them to create and question. Kim Epifano is the second artist featured under the SPEAK banner. Kim writes of her ongoing interest in being part of cultural exchanges that allow her to experiment with practices and presentational methods that activate and involve the communities she creates within. This year marks the 15th year of one of Kim’s signature projects, San Fran- cisco Trolley Dances. Being in service with one’s community is age-old. This month Sima Belmar writes about Patrick Makuakane’s navigation of placing his art and life’s work in a variety of settings, including a recent full-company trip to Burning Man. Patrick states about the Burning Man experience: “I can’t tell you how blown away I was by the inventiveness, the subversiveness, the acceptance, the radical expression of self, and the loving embracing community—it reminded me of our community, very welcoming.” Revealed in an article by Gabrielle Uballez, a first time In Dance writer, is Rulan Tangen’s new work, GROUND- WORKS , that explores the question, whose ground are we on? An excerpt of this piece can be experienced at the Rotunda Dance Series on October 5 at SF City Hall. Enjoy creating conversations and moments that motivate and inspire—and especially ones that make you happy.
Cherie Hill IrieDance, Oct 12-14 JH Photography
ON TRADITIONAL OHLONE LAND: Dancing Earth at Alcatraz
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by GABRIELLE UBALLEZ
These performances demonstrate Dancing Earth’s understanding of metaphor, indigenous strength and beauty, and a deep understanding of the body, gravity, and contemporary ensemble dance practice. Although I have not had the opportunity to preview GROUNDWORKS , I imagine that it employs some of the same “performance ritual” visual elements, and co-mingling of global indigenous forms as past Dancing Earth productions, with specific attention to site. Both Tangen and Parker identified Alcatraz as a place for the activation of reclaiming Indigenous Land and a profoundly symbolic location for Native people in the Bay Area. Tangen described the performance as “an offering to the community in a way that is location-based...an offering to the land and intertribal community platform.” The site also liberates Dancing Earth from the Western stage. GROUNDWORKS will be performed among the thousands of individuals visiting the island and throughout multiple sites on the island. Tangen and Parker stressed that GROUNDWORKS is an effort to connect people to activism through art, bring
“AS CONTEMPORARY PEOPLE we’re taking the responsibil- ity to create the songs and dances that speak to our time now...and creating intertribal and global indigenous rela- tionships, and creating new languages of collaboration... sharing what is appropriate to share in order to learn from each other.” (Rulan Tangen. Personal interview. 21 August 2018.) This year, like many years before, in the twilight before dawn, boats will run from one piece of traditional Ohlone land, San Francisco, to another, Alcatraz Island, for the Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Gathering. This is a day of solidarity by, for, and with Indigenous people. And this year is special. On October 8, 2018, for the first time, the City of San Francisco will officially cel- ebrate Indigenous People’s Day instead of Columbus Day. It also marks 49 years since the “Indians of All Tribes” occupied Alcatraz in protest of the discrimination, land rights restrictions, and living conditions of all Amer- icans native to Turtle Island, or the United States. This year, visitors to the island will experience GROUNDWORKS , a mul- tidisciplinary and mobile performance art installation
Rulan Tangen / photo by Paulo Taveres
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awareness to social and environmental justice in a digestible and beautiful way, to inspire each other, and to inspire artists and activists to keep moving forward. For Tangen, this work is about collabo- ration and resilience. In a time where pro- test is the predominant mode of combating colonialism let us not forget the power of art, culture and beauty and the necessity for healing in imagining and creating the world in which we want to live. Dancing Earth is a living, collaborative manifestation of this vital process. 1. August 23rd interview at the Kennedy Center with Denise Saunders Jones of the International Associa- tion of Blacks in Dance 2. Blade of Grass GABRIELLE UBALLEZ is a cultural organizer, educa- tor, and art omnivore. She currently serves as the Minister of Collaboration and Activation for the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, where it is part of her job to amplify and support work around the USDAC’s Honor Native Land Guide. Her passion for equitable arts access is rooted in 20-years of experience, at every level, in community-based arts and platforms that support artists of color. She most recently served as the executive director of Working Classroom, a grassroots arts organization of which she is an alumnus. Uballez received her B.A. in Art and Art History from Pomona College and a certifi- cate from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business Executive Program for Non-Profit Leaders. She is a proud Latina, wife, and mother of a Chinese- Chicanx child, currently living in her hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dancing Earth presents GROUND- WORKS : Preview: Oct 5, City Hall Rotunda, SF, dancersgroup.org/rotun- da; Performance: Oct 8, Alcatraz, SF, dancingearth.org
grounded in contemporary dance and tradi- tional ceremony, curated by Dancing Earth Indigenous Contemporary Dance Creations. Dancing Earth, founded in 2004, “pro- motes biocultural diversity through Indige- nous dance and related arts for the education and wellness of all people.” Founding Artistic Director and Choreographer Rulan Tangen, a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist and Blade of Grass Fellow among many other accolades, shared that the processes and productions initiated by Dancing Earth are community led and community oriented. Tangen’s pro- cess is to “transform by opening hearts,” and her work engages issues from environmental stewardship to the preservation and sharing of indigenous culture. Tangen identifies as “Kampampangan/ Norwegian with ceremonial hunka (adopted) Kulwicasa Oyate Lakota tiyo- spahe.” Through GROUNDWORKS , Tangen explores the question: Whose ground are we on? 1 According to Tangen, “decolonization not only happens through our intent but through our process.” 2 Therefore, Danc- ing Earth’s process of collaboration begins with the understanding that they are visitors in someone’s home. When Dancing Earth arrives in a community, it is by invitation. Upon arrival, they listen first. Critically, they “come with something to give rather than extract.” Dancing Earth ensemble members share their skills as arts facilitators and con- temporary dancers. They engage with elders and community members in conversations, visioning sessions and movement work- shops to explore indigenous knowledge. Dancing Earth also welcomes collaborat- ing community members to be a part of the dance production and choreography pro- cess itself. Tangen recognizes that everyone enters where they are most comfortable, that,
“sometimes they want to witness and guide, sometimes they want to experience.” Tangen described GROUNDWORKS as the product of years of nurturing cultural relationships with California First Nations friends, rela- tives and collaborators. Dancing Earth is the product of a web of global indigenous kin- ship and exchange. Tisina Parker (California Miwuk, Paiute, Pomo), dancer and project coordinator for GROUNDWORKS , emphasized that Danc- ing Earth is mindful to respect the autonomy of the cultures with whom they collaborate. Their pieces “carefully include what [local collaborators] want to share without appro- priating it.” They contain elements of the ceremony without revealing the sacred, and "share [only] what is appropriate for public sharing.” Parker described the effect of the process on her: “[it] strengthens connections to my Indigenous identity and allows me to carry traditions forward in a contemporary way, express my heritage outside of the box … [and] … experience creative growth.” Dancing Earth manifests the cultural heri- tage and prevailing existence of Indigeneity. Central to their work is the truth that Native peoples are living, contemporary people, who practice traditional and ceremonial cultures while innovating and creating new forms. Tangen’s audiences have experienced the traditional Western theater presentation of dancers on a proscenium stage, but that stage is overlaid with projections of red des- ert landscapes of infinite blue skies and rich red sand, and dancers clad in contemporary yet traditional garb undulate, the wind blow- ing in their hair. Dancing Earth incorporated elements of aerial dance, contemporary and traditional indigenous song, spoken word poetry, and reinterpreted traditional dance into these productions.
CONTENTS
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ON THIS PAGE / Dancing Earth at Alcatraz by Gabrielle Uballez 3 / In Practice: Patrick Makuakāne’s Hula in Unusual Places by Sima Belmar 4 / Speak: Beyond Gravity by Jess Curtis with jose e abad, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Gabriel Christian, Abby Crain, and Rachael Dichter 6 / October Performance Calendar
10 / Community News 12 / Speak: Kim Epifano edited by Zackary Forcum
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IN PRACTICE: Patrick Makuakāne’s Hula in Unusual Places by SIMA BELMAR
Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu / photo by Ron Worobec
turn around and say, I’m really sorry, thank you, we’ll be on our way. But my piece is finished already!” Makuakane calls his style of hula, hula mua , which he defines as “the kind of hula that moves forward.” The upcoming perfor- mance is titled I Mua , a common term in Hawai’i that means “move ahead,” among several related meanings like “straight ahead” and “let’s do it!” Makuakane says he titled the show “in a very Hawaiian way. That is, you never really refer to something directly but obliquely. Especially in mele or Hawaiian music, or poetry, the mele that accompanies the dance often speaks in meta- phors and hidden messages. The power of deduction is what’s interesting.” I wondered aloud whether modernist dance forms have suffered from the autonomizing gesture that dislocated movement from other forms of expression, severing the ties to verbal speech in ways that prevents audiences from using that power of deduction to make sense of and thereby more deeply enjoy the work. “I definitely engage in that conundrum myself,” Makuakane said, “because hula is a dance form that we dance to Hawaiian language and 99.99% of my audience doesn’t know
of San Francisco, they played one of our signature pieces, I Left My Heart in San Francisco . One by one the women got up to dance in the aisles from first class all the way down to the back. I remember look- ing back and seeing this one gentleman very annoyed because he was trying to open the overhead bin to get his bag and there was this hula dancer in front of him. He was waiting for her to go back so he could jump One of Makuakāne’s most cherished sites for teaching hula is San Quentin. up and remove his bag. For me that just made it. That was perfect. Not everyone was like, Oh, wasn’t that pretty. This guy was like, You’re in my way, I need to get my bag. Life is happening as it moves.” Makuakane never gets permits to perform Hit & Run Hula and he has learned how long it takes on average for law enforcement to show up: “These pieces are a minute to a minute and a half long. Several times we’ve just finished a piece and some security per- son will come up and say, Hey, you can’t do that here although it’s really nice. And I just
and lush green. But the burners embraced the hula dancers: “I can’t tell you how blown away I was by the inventiveness, the subversiveness, the acceptance, the radical expression of self, and the loving embrac- ing community—it reminded me of our community, very welcoming.” The ubiquity of electronic music at Burning Man also inspired Makuakane: “I’ve been fusing elec- tronic music with my dance for a while now. I put everything I had in my arsenal—elec- tronic music, traditional chants—and people loved it.”When we spoke this past August, Makuakane was about to bring his whole company to Burning Man, an unusual place turned desert home for hula. I Mua: Hula in Unusual Places is a pro- scenium performance that draws its spirit from Makuakane’s Hit & Run Hula , a series of hula flash mobs that have taken place all over San Francisco, in New York City (Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge), and, one time, on a Hawaiian Airlines flight from San Francisco to Hawai’i. Makuakane loves the way these performances work the element of surprise in two directions—audiences don’t see it coming and the dancers don’t know how they’re going to be received: “When Hawaiian Air hired twenty of us to dance on the plane to inaugurate a new flight out
THE LAST TIME I interviewed Patrick Makuakane, Artistic Director of Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wakiu, his company had just received a Special Award from the Izzies Committee for The World According to Hula . When he introduced the company, the emcee made a cringe-worthy Hollywood hula gesture, you know the one—Lucille Ball does it in Dance Girl, Dance (1940), Deb- bie Reynolds does it in Singin’ in the Rain (1952), the Minions do it in Despicable Me 3 (2017). Makuakane graciously accepted the award and gracefully admonished the emcee for promoting the very stereotypes he has long sought to dispel. This was in 1999. Today, Makuakane is happy to report that hula is living its hashtag moment, at least in the Bay Area; folks have awakened to the cultural realities of hula as an art form, cultural practice, and way of life. This month, Makuakane and com- pany present I Mua: Hula in Unusual Places at the Palace of Fine Arts. Right away the subtitle got me thinking about what consti- tutes an unusual place for hula, and the only thing that came to mind was “not Hawai’i.” I assumed that the moment hula hits the main- land it becomes unusual. Makuakane explains that San Francisco both is and isn’t an unusual place for hula. Hawaiian music and dance were featured at the Panama Pacific International Exposi- tion at the 1915 World’s Fair at the Palace of Fine Arts, where the company has its home season, and Hawai’i Pavilion headliner Lena Machado and her group were voted audi- ence favorites at the 1939 and 1940 World’s Fairs on Treasure Island: “So there has been a longstanding appreciation for Hawaiian music and a relationship between California and Hawai’i, in part because of the proxim- ity. Hawaiians move here more readily than anywhere else, making it easier for us to do our cultural work here.” Still, Makuakane concedes, “considering its traditional ori- gins, this is a strange place to be doing hula. I guess because I’ve been doing it for thirty- something years over here it doesn’t feel strange anymore.” What did feel strange was when Makuakane brought 10 members of his company to Burning Man for the first time three years ago. Indeed, images of the com- pany dancing in a haze of gray playa dust contrasts sharply with visions of blue waves
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in dance OCT 2018
by JESS CURTIS with JOSE E ABAD, ZULFIKAR ALI BHUTTO, GABRIEL CHRISTIAN, ABBY CRAIN, and RACHAEL DICHTER Beyond Gravity
speak
economic landscape that independent artists face in San Francisco. In October, Beyond Gravity will premiere as an evening of three intersectional body- based performance works by some of the art- ists involved in Gravity’s Artist Services Pro- gram: jose e abad, Zul kar Ali Bhutto and Gabriel Christian; Abby Crain; and Rachael Dichter presenting her collaboration with Mira Kautto from Finland. I’m really excited by the work each of these artists make—Experimental, Queer, Political work asking important questions about what it is to be a body in this world. I also find it a bit inaccurate to describe them as ‘emerging.’ Each of them are mature art- ists with important voices that have been making work for years. When the editors of In Dance invited me to write about Beyond Gravity and Gravity’s Artist Services pro- gram, I thought what would make the most sense would be to invite them each to write about what they are working on for Beyond Gravity . I’m super excited to read about what they are each making and how they are thinking about it. I hope you will be too!! Rachael Dichter : From the room beside me Mira (Kautto) and I met at a dance festival in Vienna in the summer of 2015. She gave a talk on failure and we were both interested in knowing each other more after seeing each other’s work. We’ve had two residencies in Turku, Finland over the past two sum- mers and what we’ll be showing in Beyond Gravity is what we’ve found together during those meetings. Living and working primarily in San Francisco where the funding structure for contemporary performance is so extremely limited, being able to bring Mira from Hel- sinki to San Francisco is a rare, very sweet and much appreciated opportunity. The San Francisco dance scene is often quite isolated from Europe and conversations happening elsewhere, and I’m really excited that Grav- ity is offering the support to bring someone with a different perspective and aesthetic. Mira and I approach work and ways into making very differently, and most of our pro- cess has simply been about exploring those differences. I tend to approach making from ideas, or an emotional landscape that I’m interested in exploring, whereas Mira’s pro- cess has much more to do with music and physical improvisation. It’s been really inter- esting to explore each other’s approaches and really exchange ways of working. It feels like a rare gift to get to work with someone who I respect whose process and ways of working question my assumptions around what’s interesting and what the interesting questions are to ask. We’re working with the idea of a peep show. Experimenting with creating a more intimate, private space for ourselves on the proscenium by creating a “box” (out of cur- tains that flow and rustle slightly with move- ment) that stop a few feet short of the floor to reveal feet, and have sets of eye holes spaced at intervals so that a number of peo- ple can simultaneously approach the box and look in. Inside we engage - dance/perform intimately with each other in the small space, interested in how larger dance movement is compressed and intensified in this smaller container, and how the moments of closeness and quiet intimacy are pressurized. The audi- ence will be invited to sit on all sides of the square where they can hear our breath as we move, see our feet, and when they desire they can approach and engage with us through the eye holes. The holes will be positioned such that when you look in you are look- ing directly across at another set of eyes on
FOUNDED IN 000 by Jess Curtis, ‘Jess Curtis/ Gravity Inc.’ has primarily functioned as the vehicle for the production and administra- tion of Curtis’s work. In the last several years and in the context of the rapidly changing cultural landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area, Curtis and Gravity Program Director, Alley Wilde, have begun to formulate ways to make Gravity’s production, administra- tive and institutional resources available to a wider number of emerging artists. Jess Curtis: My artistic practice has always been very collaborative and involved in community. From my early days with Con- traband through the seven years of my co- directing 848 Community Space my relation- ships to many different communities have informed and fed my work. At a certain point I got a little burnt out on the service side of things though and started creating more infrastructure around producing my own work and focusing more on that, which has served me very well. I founded Jess Cur- tis/Gravity Inc. as a 501c3 non-profit corpo- ration and with various collaborators and administrators we’ve done a pretty fine job of creating an extensive body of work. In recent years I began missing a larger element of community interaction and ser- vice in my work. It occurred to me that we might be able to re-organize Gravity in ways that allowed it to support the work of other artists, and allowed them to not have to spend a bunch of time to re-invent another non-profit wheel to make their own work. While several Bay Area organizations
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto / photo by KaliMa Amilak
more of a community resource. We began offering Fiscal Sponsorship, curating a Pop- up Performance Project, Mentoring around production, fundraising and administration, Co-producing important international art- ists that we think Bay Area Artists need to see, advising Bay Area artists about getting their work seen abroad, and recently we began piloting our Access Services Program to help artists and venues make their work accessible to diverse audiences. We think this as an important kind of New Model that responds to the increasingly difficult
provide related services, we thought Grav- ity might offer a more comprehensive array of services—and more personal attention— to a smaller cohort of artists we feel directly related to both aesthetically and politically. Gravity’s new Artist Services Program is the result of that effort, and Beyond Grav- ity will be the first full evening mainstage artistic product of those programs. With the support of the Kenneth Rainin Founda- tion’s Impact program and SF Arts Commis- sion’s Cultural Equity Program, Alley Wilde and I began to re-tool Gravity to serve as
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uprising eventually made its way to the center of the plu- tocratic, apathetic empire – the United States – spread- ing first like wildfire from the thousands of redlined neighborhoods of black Americans. Having success- fully dismantled Western imperialism, ecoterrorism, colonial-settler projects and white supremacy, new lead- ers emerge in this blighted terrain. Faluda Islam (Zulfikar),
Community Space and a studio that never locked its back door and the strong belief and practice that community makes us stron- ger and better and more vulnerable and true. I am thinking lately about dancing and money. To be honest, this is something I am always thinking about. Dancing as a femi- nized form that thus doesn’t yield much profit. Dancing as a body based practice. Dancing as witchcraft. Dancing as an inef- fable and adjacent practice to living. Danc- ing as a form that speaks to things that we just can’t fucking speak to in any other way. Dancing that has both ruined and saved my life. I have no savings to speak of, no retire- ment, no job security, but I have logged hun- dreds of hours of ecstasy and delirium and I have learned to make myself invisible, to be part of the wind and to set myself on fire. In small town Texas, the dance halls and the gun clubs are in the same building. These are often the buildings that are rented for family reunions, weddings, and the like. I have been thinking about these buildings a lot: shared spaces in the midst of brutally hot and shadeless pastures with a few scruffy cattle on them so the owner gets the live- stock tax break; land with more gnarly and spiky mesquite trees than anything else; land with grass that is full of spikes and fire ants and rattlesnakes and scorpions. It is in fact a pretty brutal landscape, so the guns thing makes sense to me. But why dance? Why a dance hall? How is it that these people who teach their men not to move there faces and teach their women to say yes ma’am and yes sir never go to church without mascara on, are the same people who build huge beauti- ful monuments to movement with soaring ceilings and beautiful floors in the middle of the countryside? The cynical part of me sees this as a part of the capitalist machinery of fostering coupling, and childbearing as a means towards the creation of capital in the form of a workforce, but part of me wants to
the other side, and in this way it becomes a very intimate and active experience for the audience as they decide how they wish to participate with the performance, and also become part of the performance and vis- ible in this mobilization. Where you choose to direct your gaze also becomes part of the performance. We’re also interested in what the audience experiences when they are seated. What the mysterious, imaginal space is that is created through seeing the curtains sway as we dance near, hearing our breath or our voices, seeing our feet as they move and stand still, or catching occasional glimpses of our bodies as they momentarily appear if we sit or move close to the ground. We’re curi- ous about what can and can’t be transmitted through this intermittent and only occasional access, and what this does and doesn’t pro- duce in the bodies of the audience. We want to use the idea of peep show to experiment with ways of investigating the lines between public and private, and the possibility of being alone onstage together with each mem- ber of the audience simultaneously. jose e abad, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Gabriel Christian: Alif 1 is for Annals As artists across phenotypically brown dia- sporas, we three must allow ourselves the breadth of narrative usually denied us in front of audiences used to witnessing only a myopic entanglement of bodies and stories. Working in San Francisco has been instruc- tive to us about the kingpin of survival methodologies for (brown) artists: trans- disciplinarity. Gabriel, Zulfi, and jose each metastasized through the arts until, by fate, we collided. Since then, we have collaborated in every permutation of a duet, but never as a triad. We have varying relations to Grav- ity, either having been commissioned, fiscally sponsored, or brought in as a collaborator. Our work/world initiates in the aftermath of our envisioned global queer revolution of apocalyptic proportions. Flaring up in the Middle East and the African continent, this
a bearded Muslim drag queen guerrilla warrior
was one of those martyred, killed by American-backed rebels and, miraculously, resurrected using Wifi technol-
Rachael Dichter / photo by Elena Zhukova
in which Black radicalism reigned in black leather and the Islamic bloc of nations held less of a religious identity and more a leftist and anti-imperialist one. Many blamed the death of these movements on the neo-liber- alism or neo-conservatism of the 1980s (and are they really that different?), but could a simpler reason have been heterosexual hubris? It seems fitting to me that at this point in time, Gravity asked us to show things in this group show. Gravity is one of the organiza- tions in the Bay Area that continues to give me a tiny spark of a hope that perhaps live art-making can provide some sort of actual IRL sustainability. Gravity is one of the orga- nizations who continues to believe in eccen- tric, illegible and sometimes unmarketable art-making as important to support. Gravity believes that we have the right to make a liv- ing from our work and Gravity works hard to move us towards finding that in each of our practices. Gravity is an organization that has not forgotten its roots in the days of 848 Abby Crain: Lindenau (Ri e Club)—party for the other siblings
ogy. Her resurrection confuses the borders of time, asks us to suspend our expired mythos for her arrival. Her survival is contingent on Black Bussy (Gabriel), a night/mare born at the ruins of the Stud Bar in San Francisco, and jose, a necro- mancer and re/cycler, as no future can ever truly be a simple, solitary project. What does the world post-radical-liber- atory-revolution look like when its play- ers are queer as fuck, high femme, high glamour and more extra than terrestrial? Do we make the same mistakes with each other or do we correct the pains inflicted on us by those who came before: straight white men with a narrow sense of fashion, politics, desire, time and space? This dystopia emerges from the Quran and the Day of Judgement, symbolism associated with the Arabic letter Alif, sto- rytelling traditions in South Asia and the Middle East, Afrofuturism and memories. Most importantly, however, these past- futures are a distorted way of returning us to our predecessors, those wound up in the movement of the 1950s, -60s and -70s,
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THERE’S MORE SPACE THAN YOU THINK BOOK IT. CREATE.
FIND IT.
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calendar OCT 2018 VISIT THE ONLINE COMMUNITY CALENDAR, to find additional events and to submit a performance. dancersgroup.org
Alonzo King LINES Ballet YBCA Theater, SF LINES Ballet’s 35th Anniversary Season: a world premiere collaboration with Kronos Quartet to a revival of the 2005 Baroque clas- sic, Handel . Fri-Sat, Oct 5-6, 7:30pm; Sun, Oct 7, 2pm; Thu-Sat, Oct 11-13, 7:30pm; Sat- Sun, Oct 13-14, 2pm, $25-100. linesballet.org
SF Dance Film Festival Various Locations, SF Presenting over 100 dance films from
around the Bay and the world, featuring ex- perimental shorts, live performance capture, dance documentaries, screendance films, live performances, and more. Thu, Oct 4- Sun, Oct 14, see website for detail. sfdancefilmfest.org
Hope Mohr Dance ODC Theater, SF
extreme lyric I is inspired by and features Anne Carson's translations of Sappho’s invention of the lyric “I”. A conversation between con- temporary gender identities and an ancient approach to ecstasy. Thu-Sat, Oct 4-6, 7 & 9pm, $20-50. hopemohr.org
“Bhairava" featuring Shantala Shivalingappa, part of the SF Dance Film Festival, Oct 5-14 / photo by Kes Tagney
Ensambles Ballet Folklórico de San Francisco Fort Mason Center, SF Celebrating its 25th anniversary with XICHULENSE YO SOY . The dances and music honor indigenous people of the Sierra Moun- tains, the Xichulense of Guanajuato, Mexico. Experimental folkloric music ensemble Vinic- Kay (La Gente y El Canto) performs live music for the show. Sat, Oct 6, 2 & 8pm; Sun, Oct 7, 2pm, $25-35. ensambles-sf.com
Lenora Lee Dance YMCA Chinatown Branch, SF
11th Anniversary Season and World Premiere of Beneath The Surface , LLD’s first underwa- ter, multimedia experience that serves as a meditation on forgiveness, reconciliation, and redemption, speaking to the power of indi- viduals to transcend. Sat, Oct 6 & 13, 8:30pm; Sun, Oct 7 & 14, 6:30 & 8:30pm, $30-60. lenoraleedance.com
FACT/SF CounterPulse, SF
Limited to audiences of 40 individuals each evening, death is part intimate celebration, part conjuring and part collective mourn- ing for performers and audiences alike. This premiere marks FACT/SF's 10th anniversary. Thu-Sat, Oct 4-6 & Oct 11-13, 8pm, $15-35. counterpulse.org
Lenora Lee Dance, Oct 6-14 / Photo courtesy of artist
for change dance collective Dance Mission Theater, SF World premiere of an evening-length dance theatre work inspired by stories of survival, resilience, and compassionate power found in a rural village in Nicaragua called Villa Cata- lina. Collaborators include Teatro Catalina's Osmar Narvaez and Andres Martinez, and composer Nicolas Lell Benavides. Fri-Sat, Oct 5-6, 8pm; Sun, Oct 7, 5pm, $20-25. forchangedance.org
LEVYsalon LEVYstudio, SF
Rotunda Dance Series: Dancing Earth City Hall Rotunda, SF
Presenting the work of 12 Bay Area artists, each group performs 5 minutes of their work-in- progress at the culminating showcases. Sat, Oct 6, 8:30pm; Sun, Oct 7, 3pm, $15-20. levydance.org
Presenting GROUNDWORKS , exploring sustain- ability in our environment through the eyes contemporary indigenous people of the Bay
Area. Fri, Oct 5, 12pm, FREE . dancersgroup.org/rotunda
Dance Theatre of San Francisco Z Space, SF
Sara Shelton Mann, Oct 11-13 / Photo by Robbie Sweeny
Season 6| Fall Program will feature a world premiere by Sandrine Cassini (Paris Opera Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet) and the re-staging of From: Now On by Robert Dekkers (Post: Ballet) and the reprisal of Cooties by Ben Needham-Wood (Smuin Contemporary Ballet). Fri-Sat, Oct 5-6, 8pm; Sun, Oct 7, 7:30pm, $20-30. dancetheatresf.org RAW presents eMotion Arts Dance Co. SAFEhouse Arts, SF Presenting works that reflect on society's cur- rent social issues utilizing Ballet's aesthetic. Sponsored by RAW (resident artist workshop), a residency program of SAFEhouse for the Per- forming Arts. Sat-Sun, Oct 6-7, 7pm, $15-20. safehousearts.org
Sara Shelton Mann ODC Theater, SF
ECHO/Riding the Rapids features live music composed and performed by Pamela Z on- stage with performers Anya Cloud and Jesse Zaritt, joined by Abby Crain and Jesse Hewit. Join them for a dynamic evening of energetic, visual, and sonic transmissions. Thu-Sat, Oct 11-13, 8pm, $30. sarasheltonmann.org Fauxnique and Marc Kate Joe Goode Annex, SF Speaking to the feminine in everyone, Girl asks: "Who is the girl in you?, What could you tell her?" The work draws on the "final girl" heroine in horror, and her will to survive amidst misogyny, rage, violence, and redemp- tion. Thu-Sat, Oct 11-13 & 18-20, $20-35. joegoode.org
Hālau Makana Polynesian Cultural Arts, part of SF Trolley Dances, Oct 20-21 / Photo by Andy Mogg
Dancing Earth, Oct 5 / Photo courtesy of artist
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Zaccho Dance Theatre Bayview Opera House, SF
Site-specific performances that on the aspi- rations of Bayview Hunters Point residents. Choreography and Direction by Joanna Hai- good in collaboration with Video Artist Mary Ellen Strom, Composer Walter Kitundu, Media Arts Company BAYCAT, Scenic Designer Wayne Campbell, Lighting Designer Jack Car- penter. Thu-Sun, Oct 11-21, 8pm, FREE . zaccho.org
Night Trolley Salesforce Park, SF
Epiphany Dance Theater presents a new site- specific dance event taking place in Sales- force Park, atop the new Salesforce Transit Center. Fri, Oct 12, 6 & 7:30pm. FREE . epiphanydance.org RAW presents Caroline Liviakis / Rohith Sankarraman / Ishika Seth SAFEhouse Arts, SF Rohith Sankarraman presents Adieu: The sto- ry of a Rohingya refugee as portrayed through the elements of nature. The Caroline Liviakis Dance Company presents The Potential , and new work by Ishika Seth. Sponsored by RAW (resident artist workshop), a residency pro- gram of SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts. Fri-Sat, Oct 12-13, 8pm, $15-20. safehousearts.org In its 9th year of collaboration with Barbara Day Turner and the San José Chamber Or- chestra, the program will feature Corvidae by Limón Dance Company Artistic Director Colin Connor and Flying Colors by Fred Mathews. Also including premieres by company chore- ographers Maria Basile and Gabriel Mata as well as excerpts from José Limón's Mazurkas . Fri-Sat, Oct 12-13, 8pm, $25-100. sjdanceco.org sjDANCEco California Theatre, San Jose Cherie Hill IrieDance The Milk Bar, Richmond Détente uses dance, video, and story, to allow the performers to experiment with the “the act or process of displacing”, and what it means to be removed “from the usual or proper place; specifically: to expel or force to flee from home." Fri-Sat, Oct 12-13, 8pm; Sun, Oct 14, 3pm, $10-25. iriedance.com Dance Up Close/East Bay Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, Berkeley Movement for Sound is an evening of works performed to the music of modern dance composer Michael Wall. Featuring SADC- commissioned pieces by Utah-based choreographer Molly Heller, Tanya Chianese and Dazaun Soleyn alongside repertory by Simpson/Stulberg Collaborations and Dana Lawton Dances. Sat, Oct 13, 6 & 8pm, $20. shawl-anderson.org
Dance Up Close/East Bay, Oct 13 / Photo by Duhaime Movement Project
Sasha Waltz and Guests Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley Körper explores the visceral tangle of human- ity from the perspectives of history, science, and architecture. The dancers morph & con- verge, meld & squirm, join & are torn apart, creating an emotional landscape. Please note: this work includes nudity. Sat, Oct 20, 8pm; Sun, Oct 21, 3pm, $30-78, prices subject to change. calperformances.org RAW presents Reyes Dance SAFEhouse Arts, SF Medium Rare tells the story of an individual finding a balance between ‘keeping’ and ‘leav- ing’ traditional values even if it means moving forward without loved ones. Sponsored by RAW (resident artist workshop), a residency program of SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts. Sat, Oct 20, 9pm; Sun, Oct 21, 8pm, $15-20. safehousearts.org
FACT/SF, Oct 4-13 / Photo by Gema Galina
RAW presents Michael D. Lee SAFEhouse Arts, SF
PERSpectives Dance Company Dance Mission Theater, SF
The Secret Lives of Women chronicles the lives of five affluent women in mid-century New York, showing that what is on the surface is not always congruent with what happens behind closed doors. Sat, Oct 13, 8pm; Sun, Oct 14, 6pm, $25-35. perspectivesdanceco.com Funsch Dance Experience ODC Theater, SF Wrecking , featuring new work by Deborah Karp Dance Projects, wrecked by Aura Fisch- beck, Brian Thorstenson, and Abby Crain. Su- san Rethorst’s Wrecking allows other directors to re-imagine choreography as if it was their own. The entire process is open to witness, and viewers are free to come and go through- out the evening. Fri, Oct 19, 5pm, suggested donation $5-10. odc.dance/wreckfunsch
Red Sculptures at Midnight works with the idea of the images we put on ourselves. With Music Collaborator: Hallie Smith. Sponsored by RAW (resident artist workshop), a residen- cy program of SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts. Fri-Sat, Oct 19-20, 8pm, $15-20. safehousearts.org Cid Pearlman Performance Motion Pacific, Santa Cruz Celebrating Pearlman’slong standing collabo- ration with renowned San Francisco-based cellist and composer, Joan Jeanrenaud, in an evening of three works: Strange Toys , small variations and Your Body is Not a Shark. Fri- Sun, Oct 19-21, 8pm, $15-25. cidpearlman.org Liss Fain Dance Z Space, SF Based on letters choreographer Liss Fain received decades ago, A Recomposition asks: What are the anchor points in our past that define us? Fri-Sat, Oct 19-20, 8pm; Sun, Oct 21, 2pm, $25-35. lissfaindance.org
Alonzo King LINES Ballet, Oct 5-14 / Photo by Jamie Lyons
Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu Palace of Fine Arts, SF Far removed from its ancestral home, can hula survive in unlikely places? I MUA - Hula in Unusual Places is a reminder of how tradition and innovation can coexist in surprising and meaningful ways. Sat, Oct 20 & 27, 8pm; Sun, Oct 21 & 28, 3pm, $35-45. naleihulu.org
SF Trolley Dances Various locations, SF
Jess Curtis/Gravity CounterPulse, SF
Performances along the N-Judah Muni line. With Aisan Hoss and Dancers, Halau Makana Polynesian Cultural Arts, ODC/Dance, Robert Moses’ Kin, San Diego Dance Theater and STEAMROLLER Dance Co., and Epiphany Dance Theater. Sat-Sun, Oct 20-21, 11, 11:45, 12:30, 1:15, 2, 2:45pm, FREE with Muni fare. epiphanydance.org
Intersectional performances by: a collaboration between jose e. abad, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Gabriel Christian, Rachael Dichter and Mira Kautto, and Abby Crain. Pre-Show Haptic Access Tour and Live Audio Description: Fri, Oct 26; ASL Interpretation by Churyl Zeviar: Sat, Oct 27. Thu-Sat Oct 25-27, 8pm, $15-30. jesscurtisgravity.org
Sarah Bush Dance Project, Oct 26-28 / Photo by Amal Bisharat
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Inclined Dance Project Little Boxes Theater, SF A New York City based contemporary dance company founded in 2009 by Kristen Klein.Reflecting on past moments, pieces, travels, and people with their newest work Memoir , Inclined Dance Project draws mate- rial from their cumulative repertoire and explores how the past defines the present and predicts the future. Memoir mixes dance, theater, and multimedia. Fri, Oct 26, 8pm, $15-20. inclineddanceproject.com
Diana Lara and Joy Cosculluela NOH Space, San Francisco
Sarah Bush Dance Project Taube Atrium Theater at the SF War Memorial Opera House, SF Spirit and Bones is an evening-length produc- tion highlighting female resilience in times of darkness, featuring an intergenerational cast of dancers ranging in age from 23 to over 70, including Joanna Haigood, Elvia Marta, Priscilla Regalado, Joan Lazarus, Sue Li Jue and oth- ers. Live original music performed by Skip the Needle. Fri-Sat, Oct 26-27, 8pm; Sun, Oct 28, 7pm, $35-50. sarahbushdance.org Animate Dance Festival Alameda Point, Alameda Animate invites people of all ages and backgrounds to discover the wealth of dance artistry on offer in the Bay Area, at the former Naval base in Alameda. Performances by little seismic dance company, Lizz Roman and Dancers, Phenomenal Anomalies, Megan Lowe with Shira Yaziv, Chelsea Boyd Brown and Molly Rose-Williams, Str8jacket, Aviva Rose Williams, Salsamania, Sproul Stompers, Maze Daiko, Batalá San Francisco, and Bay Area Youth Groups. Sat, Oct 27, 11am, FREE . animatedancefestival.com
Being Good is Overrated , a piece about find- ing strategies to peel the layers of guilt, and shame from the cultures in which we grew up. Directed by Diana Lara, performance by Joy Cosculluela and Diana Lara. The Space Between: Espacio de Transicion / Sa Tunga Sang Lugar / Ano basho to kono basho no aida , with the Wayfinding Performance Group. Fri-Sat, Oct 26-27, 8pm, $20. facebook.com
Inclined Dance Project, Oct 26 / Photo by Louise Palmberg
RAW presents Talli Jackson and Cherie Hill IrieDance SAFEhouse Arts, SF Cherie Hill premieres She-verse a physical meditation on dance, time, the body, feminin- ity, and oneness with the natural and meta- physical world. Also presenting a new work by Talli Jackson. Sponsored by RAW (resident artist workshop), a residency program of SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts. Sat-Sun, Oct 27-28, 8pm, $15-20. safehousearts.org
for change dance collective, Oct 5-7 / Photo by Douglas Calalo Berry
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Europe. He holds an MFA in Choreography and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of California at Davis. jesscurtisgravity.org JOSE E ABAD is a queer social practice perfor- mance artist exploring queer futurity through an intersectional lens. abad is a collaborator in two queer performance collectives, Yum Yum Club and Lxs Des, and has performed solo and collaborative works nationally and internationally with artists including Joanna Haigood, Keith Hennessy, Scott Wells, Anne Bluethenthal & Dancers, NAKA Dance Theatre, Seth Eisen, Ivo Dimchev, Brontez Purnell Dance Company, and detour dance. ZULFIKAR ALI BHUTTO //FALUDA ISLAM\\ is an artist, performer, zombie drag queen and curator of mixed Pakistani, Lebanese and Iranian descent. Bhutto was curatorial resident at SOMArts Cultural Center where he co-curated, The Third Muslim: Queer and Trans Muslim Narratives of Resistance and Resilience and is a fall artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts. GABRIEL CHRISTIAN is a multidisciplinary blaq artist. After receiving a BA in Theatre Studies from Yale University in 2013, they shifted coasts and work from their native New York to the Bay Area. His oeuvre has pivoted from stage performance to reifying queer desire, genderfluidity (or "juicyness"), and black resilience through a broader spectrum of movement arts. They have mounted commissioned work at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, Counterpulse, SO- MArts, Mason Chapel for San Francisco International Arts Festival 2017, and Red Poppy Art House for FRESH Festival 2018. ABBY CRAIN is a San Francisco Bay Area based artist who makes dances and other structures for performance. She also works as a teacher and performer. Her solo and collaborative work has been presented in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Liverpool, Chicago, Cork, Berlin, Portland and Los Angeles at a range of venues including Counter- pulse Theater (SF), Headlands Center for the Arts, Berkeley Art Museum, Movement Research, and Show Box LA. Her work has been nominated for a Bay Area Izzie four times. RACHAEL DICHTER is a San Francisco based dancer, performer, choreographer and curator. Having studied dance and art history at Mills College and was a 2015 Danceweb Scholar, and 2017 Artist in Residence at Caldera and a recipient of the Robert Rauschenberg Residency. Her work has shown locally and in Berlin, St Erme France, Portland, Seattle and she had been lucky to collaborate with a number of fierce and talented folks and for four years she co-curated the San Francisco based live arts festival THIS IS WHAT I WANT.
FIND SPACE, CREATE
believe that these buildings somehow express a desire for something that is different. Texas is confusing to me. It is supposed to somehow be my home, but it somehow is not. I have a hard time in a culture that con- siders watermelon a sufficient vegetable for dinner, though I am proud to sign my line in the name of bad ass fun loving tough ladies with whisky in their trunks and cigarettes in their hands. In Lindenau (Rifle Club) party for the other siblings I am taking the Texas dance hall, a structure that figures prominently in my personal family history, as a site where the culturally devalued (dancing) and the cultur- ally overvalued (gun owning) are roommates. I am interested in this. As I am interested in dancing, but have never touched a gun, my interest is from the perspective of what it invites into the dancing. If dancing is wor- shipped in the same shrine as firearms, it must somehow be considered an important, if luna- tic, activity. Thus, my project in this piece is to value my work as a dancer, as if dancing was something as central and revered in Ameri- can culture as gun owning. Part of this is logistical and practical: I aim to keep as much of the money as possible from the fee for the piece as salary for my labor as a maker and performer. Anyone who has logged unpaid, unseen hours of labor as a homemaker or caretaker knows that no mat- ter how much we love something, money imparts value and wields power. It means something. I want to see how it changes the work if I consider my own labor to be important enough to be decently paid. Part of this is craft based: I am working on the dancing. I am training. I am working on the dancing cuz I know those dudes are shin- ing their guns. Part of this is existential: I am practicing believing that what I do is impor- tant, relevant, and essential. I am practic- ing believing that it matters, cuz they believe their stupid guns matter. To do this work, I am calling on freak ancestors and misfits and dancing fools to call me out and move with me. I am a firm opponent of human exceptionalism so some of these are not human. I am calling out the ones who haven’t been invited to the party, to the reunion, the ones who disappeared, the ones who were made invisible through sys- tematic omission and withdrawal of support. This past summer I saw an alligator gar. These are huge, ugly prehistoric fish that
Mira Kautto / photo by Mira Kautto
Sonoma Community Center: This rehearsal space features abundant natural light and is ideal for classes, rehearsals or yoga. Includes access to adjoining waiting area. The floor is fully sprung. Highlighting venues and studio space around the Bay Area
jose e abad / photo by by Deirdre Visser
Sonoma Community Center: 768 sq. ft. $30 per hour 276 E. Napa St, Sonoma
bayareaspaces.org/spaces/8185
Find more spaces for dance at bayareaspaces.org
Abby Crain / photo by Chani Bockwinkel
live in the murky brown waters of the Texas countryside. The one I saw must have been five feet long. They are systematically killed because they eat the sport fish, but these monsters still persist. They are crucial for the balance of the ecosystem in the water, even though no one is taking their picture to put on their wall. The alligator gar is invited to this party. JESS CURTIS is an award-winning choreographer and performer committed to an art-making practice informed by experimentation, innovation, critical discourse and social relevance at the intersections of fine art and popular culture. In 2000, Curtis founded his own trans-continental performance company, Jess Curtis/Gravity, based in Berlin and San Francisco. Curtis is active as a writer, advocate and community organizer in the fields of contem- porary dance and performance, and teaches acces- sible Dance, Contact Improvisation and Interdisci- plinary Performance courses throughout the US and 1. The first letter of the Arabic alphabet consisting of a simple vertical stroke
Photo courtesy Sonoma Community Center
Jess Curtis/Gravity presents Beyond Gravity: Oct 25-27, CounterPulse, SF. jesscurtisgravity.org, counterpulse.org
1 5 T H A N N I V E R S A R Y
PERFORMANCES BY STEAMROLLERDance Company HālauMakana Polynesian Cultural Arts Jean Isaacs’ SanDiego Dance Theater ODC/Dance: Kimi Okada RobertMoses’ Kin
SAT & SUN October 20 - 21, 2018 11am - 2:45pm Tours every 45 min. TOURS START 4 TH & CHANNEL ST. MISSION CREEK PARK epiphanydance.org
AisanHoss andDancers Epiphany Dance Theater FREE! WITH MUNI FARE
PHOTOGRAPHY: Andy Mogg DESIGN: Kevin Clarke BREDA MUNI MODEL: Shirley Sachsen
in dance OCT 2018
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