Dance Downtown

• A Brief History of Up and Down Choreography by Brenda Way

  Art-making inherently poses questions and proposes fresh ways of seeing. A Brief History of Up and Down joyfully shares reflections on the evolution of beauty that has taken place in dance over the 55 year lifespan of the ODC/Dance Company. From simple movement to extraordinary virtuosity- “Real people really Dancing!”

  
  Founder, Artistic Director

  Brenda Way received her early training at the School of American Ballet and Ballet Arts in New York City. She is the founder and artistic director of ODC/Dance and creator of the ODC Theater and ODC Dance Commons, community performance and training venues in San Francisco’s Mission District. She launched ODC and helped create an inter-arts department at Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music in the late 1960's before relocating to the Bay Area in 1976.

  Brenda has choreographed more than 85 pieces over the last 45 years. Her commissions include Unintended Consequences: A Meditation (2008) Equal Justice Society; Life is a House (2008) San Francisco Girls Chorus; On a Train Heading South (2005) CSU Monterey Bay; Remnants of Song (2002) Stanford Lively Arts; Scissors Paper Stone (1994) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Western Women (1993) Cal Performances, Rutgers University and Jacob's Pillow; Ghosts of an Old Ceremony (1991) Walker Art Center and The Minnesota Orchestra; Krazy Kat (1990) San Francisco Ballet; This Point in Time (1987) Oakland Ballet; Tamina (1986) San Francisco Performances; and Invisible Cities (1985) Stanford Lively Arts and the Robotics Research Laboratory. Her work Investigating Grace was named an NEA American Masterpiece in 2011.

• Inkwell Choreography by Kimi Okada

  Inspired by the cartoons of Max Fleischer from the 1920’s and 1930’s, Inkwell draws from a black and white universe of oddballs, misfits, and maniacs. With a movement vocabulary rooted in physical comedy, vaudeville forms, and early cinema, the piece explores the power of demagogues over unwitting humans and the path from seduction to indoctrination. Music by Raymond Scott, Django Reinhardt, and other early jazz musicians.

  

  Kimi Okada (Associate Choreographer, Director of ODC School)is a founding member of ODC. Her work includes more than 26 choreographed works for ODC/Dance, as well as commissions and collaborations with Geoff Hoyle, Bill Irwin, Julie Taymor, and Robin Williams. She has choreographed productions for the American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco, Yale Repertory Theater, the New Victory Theater in New York, the Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis, Theatre for a New Audience in New York, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the American Music Theater Festival, the Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Music Center Opera, Los Angeles Theatre Center, the Pickle Family Circus, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

  She was nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway production of Largely New York, which she co-choreographed with Bill Irwin. She received a 2014 Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Choreography for ODC’s Two If by Sea.

  Since 1996, Kimi has served as director of the ODC School, which she has brought to the forefront of international and national dance education for youth and adults. She has been honored with a California State Legislature Assembly Resolution for choreographi

• goutte par goutte Choreography by Sonya Delwaide

  goutte par goutte traces the human journey of becoming who we are through the storms of our lived experiences. Loosely inspired by ancient Greek philosophies and set to a contemporary score by Jarby McCoy and Grammy Award-winning artist Caroline Shaw, goutte par goutte invites us to question our resilience and resistance, what we keep and what we let wash away.

  

  Sonya Delwaide, a native from Quebec, is a choreographer, teacher and performer whose reputation has flourished within the United States and Canada for more than three decades. She has created more than 80 pieces on companies such as Ballet Austin, Diablo Ballet, Oakland Ballet, Ottawa Ballet, L’Ecole Supérieure des Grands Ballets Canadiens, Hubbard Street 2, AXIS Dance Company, Berkeley Ballet Theater and Compagnie de Danse L’Astragale, for whom she was the artistic director from 1992 to 1999. Ms. Delwaide graduated with Honors in Dance from York University (Toronto) and has received multiple awards from the Canada Council, the Quebec and Ontario Arts’ Councils, the Zellerbach Family Fund, the Gerbode Foundation and the Irvine Foundation. She has been profiled in San Francisco Magazine, received two Isadora Duncan Awards and a Bay Area Goldie Award. She was named in the 2001 Top 10 list of best performances from the San Francisco Chronicle and was in the Dance Magazine’s Top 25 people to watch in 2002. Ms. Delwaide was given a Sarlo Award for Excellence in Teaching from Mills College, where she taught from 2003 to 2019. She was a winner in the 2006 New American Choreographic Talent organized by Ballet Austin and the 2000 winner of Hubbard Street 2 National Choreographic Competition. Her work expands from television and film to various theater companies throughout Canada and the US.

• Dead Reckoning Choreography by KT Nelson

  Dead Reckoning originally premiered in 2015 reflecting on the incremental and exponential transformation of our climate by our daily human activity and our inability to notice. Set to a commissioned score by composer and cellist Joan Jeanrenaud.

  “ a company classic”
  – SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

  

  KT Nelson joined ODC/Dance in 1976 and until 2019 partnered with Brenda Way in directing the ODC/Dance Company. KT choreographed and directed the Company’s first full-length family ballet in 1986, The Velveteen Rabbit. The production has become a holiday tradition in the Bay Area engaging generations of dance goers, young and less so. 

  KT has been awarded the Isadora Duncan Dance Award four times: in 1987 for Outstanding Performance, in 1996 and 2012 for Outstanding Choreography, and in 2001 for Sustained Achievement. Her collaborators have included Bobby McFerrin, Geoff Hoyle, Amy Siewert, Na Hoon Park, Brenda Way, Kate Weare, Zap Mama, and Joan Jeanrenaud. In 2008, her work RingRounRozi, in collaboration with French-Canadian composer Linda Bouchard, was selected to be performed at the Tanzmesse International Dance Festival.

  Photo by Eszther David

• Collision, Collapse and a Coda Choreography by Brenda Way

  This not-to-be-missed “minor masterpiece” from last season delivers a rousing response to the daily barrage of news, disasters, and disruptive events, and the solace we find in the care and affection of sustaining relationships. Set to a roiling score ranging from David Lang to Frederick Chopin.

Dinner, drinks, dancing, and one fabulous party!

Learn More