gizeh muñiz and Ja'Moon Jones
Thursday, April 29, 2027 at 7:30 PM (gizeh muñiz)
Friday, April 30, 2027 at 7:30 PM (Ja'Moon Jones)
Saturday, May 1, 2027 at 7:30 PM (gizeh muñiz)
Sunday, May 2, 2027 at 5:00 PM (Ja'Moon Jones)
A weekend of two solo performances, designed to be seen together for a fuller experience. Get the two-show package and save 20% on tickets. Available for a limited time only.
gizeh muñiz: FISHBLOD
Thursday, April 29 & Saturday, May 1
Run time: 50 minutes
An extended restaging of gizeh muñiz’ low-fly “master class in tension” (San Francisco Chronicle), performed by Samy Nevarez.
This is a fairytale where the unspoken becomes tangible.
You know, when we are with the noise we can reshape reality;
We can open doors to alternative perspectives.
FISHBLOD is a fairytale straining through the dark glittering underworld towards life, like a fish gasping for air, in the air and on the earth. Glorious, and unforgivingly alive, it is a solo that lives in rhythm with breath, reflecting the shadows. What do you want to see? Monsters are exiled uncertainties, generational vessels holding what we fear; we banish them because we refuse to love what we can’t understand: uncontrollable, involuntary beauty. A crack in the cosmos is ripe for transformation, a wild and thirsty garden. This is a fairytale about what emerges when we let go of what we know–when we look pain in the eye with unflinching devotion. Do you remember? Once upon a time, we were monsters, and the land only knew peace.
Ja'Moon Jones: The Ghetto Shaman: That Which Lurks in the Shadows
Friday, April 30 & Sunday, May 2
West Coast Premiere
Run time: 60 minutes
A performance ritual that conjures themes of endurance, power, and transformation. The only way is through.
The Ghetto is a place where people, ideas, and concepts are confined to otherness, erasure, and exclusion. It is not only a physical location but a spiritual terrain—a realm that lives within all of us. It is where dreams, gifts, and the unwanted or unfaced emotions are buried and confined. A shaman is a guide—one who can summon these disparate, fragmented aspects from the shadows and help them return to wholeness. They steward others through difficult encounters with what they may be unwilling—or unready—to face alone.
In The Ghetto Shaman: That Which Lurks in the Shadows, the shaman becomes a medium for the unfaced and fragmented parts of our collective psyche. These aspects emerge not only through the dancing body of the medium, but also the projected landscape that surrounds them. With the integration of projection mapping, this dance theater work transcends movement—it becomes a living visual invocation.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
gizeh muñiz (choreographer) is a movement, teaching, and performing artist, dedicated to the study of being a breathing body. They recreate body stories through touch, relationship, movement and stillness to explore new paradigms of temporality, relationality and intimacy. An improviser and composer devoted to witness beauty and the cultivation of wonder and curiosity. She listens to the dialogue created from, with, and through their body and her movement practice is fluent in floor work, somatic practices and deep listening. Gizeh’s choreographic and teaching work has been shared widely in California, in addition to in Mexico, Latin América and Europe in festivals such as P.O.R.C.H in Germany, Improspeckje in Croatia, Dança á Deriva in Brasil and 4x4 in Tijuana. They have been an artist in residence at Atland Residency, CounterPulse, PUSH, BANDALOOP, and Bridge Live Arts, and was a 2023-25 Radiate fellow of RAWdance. See more at @gizzeh.
Samantha Nevarez (performer) is a performing artist whose presence combines physical power, technical precision, and emotional depth. Her work is distinguished by an intense physicality and an ongoing exploration of contemporary movement. She graduated from the Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey and has collaborated in choreographic processes with internationally recognized creators such as Damien Jalet and Fernando Melo—experiences that have deeply shaped her artistic language and professional rigor. As a choreographer, her works have been presented in Mexico City, Monterrey, Xalapa, and Costa Rica, building a trajectory that bridges creation, performance, and cultural management. She is currently a company member of Vim Vigor, since 2025, directed by Shannon Gillen, in the United States. Her practice is defined by clarity of vision, artistic discipline, and a strong commitment to excellence in performance. See more at @la_s.a.m.y.
Ja’Moon Jones (choreographer) is a conjurer of movement, channeling ancestral memory through ritual, dance theater, and immersive performance. Their work invites audiences into liminal space—where history, fabulation, and the present moment converge. A graduate of The Juilliard School, their practice draws from African diasporic traditions, physical theater, and collective witnessing. They have performed and presented work internationally, including at Institut Français (Dakar, Senegal), Abrons Arts Center (NYC), and Judson Memorial Church (NYC), BAAD! (NYC), Herbst Theatre (San Francisco, CA). Ja’Moon is a 2024–2025 New Dance Alliance: BASC Fellow, and a 2025 Dancing While Black Fellow—platforms supporting Black artists through rest, creation, and cultural reclamation. They are currently CounterPulse Performing Diaspora 2026 Artist-in-Residence. They have performed in Sleep No More NYC by Punchdrunk and danced with A.I.M by Kyle Abraham and currently with ODC Dance Company. The inaugural recipient of the Max Mara Young Visionary Award, Ja’Moon has held residencies with École des Sables (Senegal), Dance Mission Theater (California), and Ellis Beauregard Foundation (Maine). Their choreographic voice continues to evolve through storytelling, embodied memory, and the desire to create brave, transformative spaces for community. See more at @thedancingspirit_.
Curator's Note
"Both works journey into darkness to retrieve what we were taught to cast away. In FISHBLOD, gizeh muñiz offers a solo of tenderness toward our ancestral monsters, while Ja’Moon Jones’s The Ghetto Shaman acts as a conduit for what has been buried and silenced. Both embody the act of magic-making and reclamation in distinct but synergistic ways that are worth experiencing in relation to each other."
– Zaquia Mahler Salinas, ODC Theater Resident Curator
ODC Theater Presents: 2027 Spring Season
April 9 – May 2, 2027
Explore captivating artistry by acclaimed choreographers at ODC Theater’s 2027 Spring Season, featuring local and national experimental dance artists.
The season is curated by Chloë L. Zimberg, Creative Director of ODC Theater, and Zaquia Mahler Salinas, Resident Curator.
The Ghetto Shaman: That Which Lurks in the Shadows is generously supported by the Ellis Beauregard Foundation, CounterPulse Performing Diaspora, Black Choreographer's Festival.