Mariana Valencia: Jacklean (Jacklean)
Friday, May 1, 2026 at 7:30PM (ASL Interpretation)
Saturday, May 2, 2026 at 7:30PM
Sunday, May 3, 2026 at 5:30PM
60 minutes
Bay Area Premiere
Savor the thrill of the unexpected in Jacklean (Jacklean). Governed by play and collaborative improvisation, New York powerhouse choreographer and dancer Mariana Valencia’s improvised gestures are prompted by transmissions from Jazmin Romero’s vocal and instrumental repertoire of cumbia, punk, jazz, and electronic music. Can an everlasting process frame a final performance
Choreographer and dancer Mariana Valencia’s lyrical, witty, and transgressive performances are created from rigorously ordered sequences in which movement, song, and spoken text are improvised upon in front of audiences. She is invested in the idea that improvisation carries emancipatory potential. Inserting cultural traditions into contemporary dance spaces, her movement lexicon draws on her ethnographic research, modern and postmodern vocabularies, and pedestrian movement. Valencia has received several awards for her choreography, including a 2024 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, a 2023 Creative Capital Award, the 2018 Bessie Award for Outstanding “Breakout” Choreographer, and her work was included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. She has received major commissions from Abrons Arts Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Chocolate Factory Theater, Danspace Project, Performance Space New York, and the Shed. Valencia is based in New York City.
Jazmin Romero is an interdisciplinary artist from Los Angeles, California. Her work explores how memory is embodied through performance, video, sound, and sculpture. Romero’s practice is concerned with how experimentation, improvisation, and collectivity allow for alternative forms of storytelling. She engages with the relationship between musical gesture and physical form to produce scores, assemblages, and compositions. She is also a member of various performance and music production collectives, such as COQUETA.
Collaborators
Stage Manager gg Torres:
gg (they/elle) is a mexican artist born and based in the SF Bay Area, traditional Ohlone Lands. As a lighting designer for theatre and dance, gg enjoys every opportunity to accentuate the poetry of what's being revealed on stage and the breath or musicality of the piece. gg is woven together by the stories of their ancestral relatives, queers that push back, and the lineage of the blues. Over the last decade, gg has designed lights for many artists such as as Rupture, Oysterknife, Maria Silk, Melissa Lewis Wong, Campo Santo, Kularts, Circo Zero, Sara Shelton Mann, Jess Curtis Gravity, KRIMM’S DANCE PARTY, and performance festivals such as Weaving Spirits, ROT (fka FRESH), PUSH Dance Company, Fresh Meat Festival, Impulstanz, American Realness and more. Check out torresggris.com for more info.
Lighting Designer Kathy Kaufmann:
Kathy Kaufmann (lighting designer) is a New York City native, and a two-time Bessie Award recipient. She is resident designer at Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, has taught at Sarah Lawrence College and New York University, and has toured extensively throughout the world. She designs regularly for Dorrance Dance, Joanna Kotze, the Bang Group, Mariana Valencia, Rebecca Stenn, Ephrat Asherie Dance, Vicky Shick, Koma Otake, National Dance Institute, and Music from the Sole.
The artist gratefully acknowledges the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University, Creative Capital and The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Studio Residency at the Museum of Modern Art.
Coffee Hour with Mariana Valencia, Jazmin Romero, & Charlie Slender-White
On Sunday, April 26, 2026, at 11:00AM, join Mariana Valencia, Jazmin Romero, and Charles Slender-White for coffee, pastries, and a discussion on choreography and composition in the ODC Theater Lobby. RSVP
Cumbia Dance Party
B. Way Theater
On Saturday night, keep the party going by joining us for a Cumbia dance party in the theater immediately after Mariana Valencia's show. Our party will include a 30 minute pop-up Cumbia dance lesson and music to dance the night away!