ODC Theater 2022 Fall Season

ODC Theater Fall 2022 Season
October 28-November 13, 2022

ODC Theater, in collaboration with guest curators Charles Slender-White and amara tabor-smith, present three distinctive programs that bring a stellar lineup of touring artists to the Bay Area, including works by experimental performance artist Ni’Ja Whitson of The NWA Project;  Brooklyn-based choreographer and performer Marjani Forté-Saunders of 7NMS; and a double bill of Rosanna Tavarez of LA DANSA DANSA from southern California and the Bay Area’s Bianca Cabrera of Blind Tiger Society. These not-to-be-missed repertory works, performed over three consecutive weekends, draw on African Diasporic art, ritual, and spirituality, as well as wild and mythic fantasy to deconstruct notions of love, warriorship, and fear. “We are so thrilled about the artists this fall, and honored to be bringing their phenomenal and necessary art to Bay Area audiences,” said Charles Slender-White and amara tabor-smith, ODC Theater’s Guest Curators.

Ways to Participate

  • Season Passes

    Season passes are available with a 25% early bird discount if purchased through August 31, 2022.

    Season passes include one ticket to each program (you choose the date), plus an invitation to join the ODC Theater pre-show reception on the opening night of each program. 

    Season passes ticket prices range from $100 and $250 (supporter level).

    Buy Season Pass

     

  • Individual Tickets

    Single tickets are available with a 25% early bird discount if purchased through August 31, 2022

    Individual ticket prices range from $20 - $100 (supporter level). To purchase tickets to an indiviual show, click the "Buy Tickets" link in the event description.

Schedule

  • Ni’Ja Whitson | The NWA Project: A Meditation on Tongues

    Ni’Ja Whitson | The NWA Project: A Meditation on Tongues
    Friday-Saturday, October 28-29 at 7:30pm
    Sunday, October 30 at 5:00pm
    ASL Interpretation and additional wheelchair seating on Saturday, October 29

    A Meditation on Tongues is a live interdisciplinary adaptation of Marlon T. Riggs’ iconic Tongues Untied (1989).  Part abstract, part performance ritual, part live and historical document, this rigorously layered interdisciplinary project (re)images Black and Queer masculinities. It struts. It snaps. It frames new questions about loss at the height of the AIDS pandemic, while challenging constructions of Black love of/as revolution.  A bold deconstruction of Riggs’ collectivist aesthetics and a raw invocation that shape shifts gender, sexuality, and the body, A Meditation on Tongues, remixes historic and embodied invisibilities, spilling between the spaces of mourning and celebration.

    Buy Tickets

  • Marjani Forté-Saunders | 7NMS: Memoirs of a... Unicorn

    Marjani Forté-Saunders | 7NMS: Memoirs of a... Unicorn
    Friday-Saturday, November 4-5 at 7:30pm
    Sunday, November 6 at 5:00pm
    ASL Interpretation and additional wheelchair seating on Saturday, November 5

    Memoirs of a...Unicorn weaves performance, sound, and media to ritualistically remember, interrogate, and relish in the "Unicorns" of the artist's life. Occupying roles like Father, Husband, Brother, Son, Uncle, Cousin, Homie, Pahtna, and Fam, these powerful figures merge with images of the magical creature that is full of mercurial passion, timelessness, and fortitude. Unicorn was spurred by stories from Marjani Forté-Saunders’ father’s life and came from an urgent need to thicken the common and seemingly inhumane narratives of Black People. These narratives were intersectional for the artist as the mother of a son, so Memoirs of a… Unicorn unveils the celestial ecliptic journeys of folks identifying with—and building legacies within—the spectrums of blackness, maleness, and womb-ness. It is a two-time NY Dance & Performance/Bessie Award winning project and recently had its international debut in Brussels, Belgium (Bersschouwberg, 2019). 

    This collaboration between ODC Theater and Marjani Forté-Saunders was made possible in part by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals ArtsForward program, generously supported by The Mellon Foundation, to aid the presenting and touring field’s safe, vibrant, and equitable reopening and recovery.

    Buy Tickets

  • Rosanna Tavarez / LA DANSA DANSA: Piece X Piece & Bianca Cabrera/Blind Tiger Society: Fever Dreams

    Rosanna Tavarez / LA DANSA DANSA: Piece X Piece & Bianca Cabrera/Blind Tiger Society: Fever Dreams
    Friday-Saturday, November 11-12 at 7:30pm
    Sunday, November 13 at 5:00pm
    ASL Interpretation and additional wheelchair seating on Saturday, November 12

    Piece x Piece presents Tavarez’s mother’s immigration story to explore the challenges of transitioning from one territory to a drastically new one. It toggles between the escapist, rags-to-riches fantasy narratives of telenovelas and the heartbreaking reality of the immigrant experience, utilizing sewing as a metaphor for the deconstruction of “The American Dream”.

    Fever Dreams is a dizzying dance spectacle based on Mexican folk Artist Pedro Linares’ Cartoneria known as Alebrije. Ornate and vibrantly colored costumes decorate dancers as they transform into Linares’ mythical creatures who are as loud and unapologetic as the heat hallucinations that sired them. Wild imagery and sensuous yet eerie movements are the backbone of these birds of paradise and they haunt the space with stories of longing, lust and looming fears.

    Buy Tickets

Artist Biographies

  • Ni’Ja Whitson

    Ni’Ja Whitson
    Creative Capital and Bessie Award-winner, gender nonconforming/astral transmogrifier, interdisciplinary artist and writer, Ni’Ja Whitson, has been referred to as “majestic” and “magnetic” by The New York Times and is recognized by Brooklyn Magazine as a culture influencer.  Ni’Ja is a 2018 MAP Fund recipient, featured choreographer of the 2018 CCA Biennial, and 2018-2020 UBW Choreographic Center Fellow. Other recent awards include a US Artists Fellowship nominee, Shortlist for the Tarpaulin Book Award (The Unarrival Experiments), Camargo/Jerome Foundation Fellowship, Dance in Process (DiP) Residency, Hedgebrook Fellowship, LMCC Process Space Residency, Bogliasco Fellowship, Brooklyn Arts Exchange Artist Residency, among dozens of other residencies and awards across disciplines.

     

  • Marjani Forté-Saunders | 7NMS (seven names)

    Marjani Forté-Saunders | 7NMS (seven names)
    Marjani Forté-Saunders is a mother, choreographer, performer, and organizer. She is a 2021 Dance Magazine Harkness Awardee, a 2020 recipient of the Foundation of Contemporary Arts Grants for Artists Award. Her work as an artist and organizer is informed by years in anti-racist training with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond and as a lead facilitator with UBW’s Builders Organizers and Leaders through Dance. Anchored in a steady collaboration with partner and composer Everett Asis Saunders, the duo has emerged as 7NMS (seven names), currently developing their latest work, PROPHET. They are also founding directors of ART & POWER (2018), a platform and conduit dedicated to Black Radical Experimentalists, driven by purpose and innovation. 

  • Rosanna Tavarez/LA DANSA DANSA

    Rosanna Tavarez/LA DANSA DANSA
    Rosanna Tavarez (Artistic Director) has a diverse background as a performer/entertainer and has worked with Marina Ambramovic, Ryan Heffington, Travis Payne, Tony Michaels and Rosanna Gamson/Worldwide. She also toured nationally as one-fifth of the girl group Eden’s Crush and covered the Emmys, Grammys and Oscars in addition to hosting her own shows, as a television personality for FOX, E!, TVGuide Network, and Telemundo/NBC. Her dance works have been presented by The Broad Museum, REDCAT, American Dance Festival, Dance on Camera West, LA Department of Cultural Affair’s LA Dance Platform, The Odyssey, Highways Performance Space, Breaking Ground Dance Festival and Sarasota Contemporary Dance. Her work has also received support from Cal State LA’s Research, Scholarship and Creativity Awards,  ARC grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, UCLA Hothouse Residency and Show Box LA.

  • Bianca Cabrera/Blind Tiger Society

    Bianca Cabrera/Blind Tiger Society
    Bianca Cabrera is an Oakland based director, performer and educator. Cabrera directs Blind Tiger Society, is currently connected to Flyaway Productions, Bandaloop and is on faculty at Contra Costa School for the Performing Arts. Her two decade performing career includes work with KT Niehoff, Lou Henry Hoover, Kim Epifano, LevyDance, The Fossettes and Sonya Smith. Blind Tiger Society is discipline and virtuosity running the contemporary dance gamut from graceful to gruesome, from refined to homespun. Unadulterated physical vocabulary creates an atmosphere of adventure and potency. Volleying between silly, serious, satire and sweet, Blind Tiger spins staggering stories of exploits and intrigue.

Accessibility Services
ASL will be provided for Saturday shows of the 2022 Fall Season. Additional Wheelchair seating will be available for Sunday shows of the 2022 Fall Season. Captioning will be provided for Digital Encores. Please see individual performance pages for details and dates. Please contact the ODC Box Office with accessibility requests or questions boxoffice@odc.dance.
 
Ramaytush Ohlone Land Tax Fund Donations
ODC is on the ancestral lands of the Ramaytush People in Yelamu. We pay respects to elders past and present, who are still here and part of our community. We recognize that regenerative land management is not new, but is a continuation of practices from Native cultures and from our own ancestors. It is our responsibility to steward the land with care, as our elders did before us. ODC is donating $.50 for each in-person ticket (seat) sold to all performances in the Theater in 2022. ODC will donate these funds to the Association of Raymaytush Ohlone land tax fund. We encourage you to consider paying land tax donations, and to learn about the land where you reside by visiting native-land.ca.
 
Arts Access Ticketing
ODC is offering a limited number of lower-cost Art Access tickets to every ODC presented performance and a limited number of free tickets held at the door for walk up attendance. These additionally subsidized tickets, available on a first come, first serve basis, are reserved for those for whom price is a barrier.
 
We know living in the Bay Area is expensive. We also highly value the art onstage and are invested in supporting the artists that create it. Ticket prices only cover a small fraction of the resources invested in the performance and we strive to make them as accessible as possible. Continued financial support through ticket purchases and charitable donations from people like you make Art Access tickets possible. 
 
Reopening Guidelines / FAQ
Proof of full vaccination is required for all in-person activities. Learn more at odc.dance/reopening. Please refer to our Performance and Event FAQ for any general questions. 

With any additional questions, do not hesitate to contact the ODC Box Office at boxoffice@odc.dance. 

All ticket sales are final.