This story platform is a forum for ODC’s stories, made possible by you — our most loyal, ardent supporters, champions and ambassadors from all around the country and all walks of life. You contribute countless hours of your time, sought-after expertise, much-needed funds in tough times and a sounding board to our fearless leaders, our renowned faculty, talented students and hard-working staff. As often in our lives, we don’t really know the wonderful, perhaps even life-changing, effect our actions have on other people. Until their stories get told...
So here’s to you — the ones who move mountains for us and with tireless dedication and joy, help us keep the momentum to always be moving.
In this Issue
When Dance Starts to Mean Something
Dance with Pride
Some Assembly Required
ODC in the News
Words directly from you - Why I care?
Next Up at ODC
Back in Town
Sarah Kearney and Louise Wurzelbacher are home for the summer – and for these two college Juniors, “home” is ODC.
Walking into the ODC Theater studio feels like walking into a bee hive on this sunny Saturday. “In this class, we like to play a round of copycat,” says Sarah, as she goes around the circle of bouncy barefooted preschoolers to ask them what their favorite foods are (ice cream is the consensus). Assisting Sarah for this morning's creative movement class is Louise, who helps lead with a calm voice exuding quiet confidence. And these women are no strangers to each other — they were fellow Dance Jammers for two years before taking off for college.
Sarah first landed at ODC as a Junior in high school, after having made her rounds through many of the city’s ballet schools. Thinking back to her Dance Jam days, she recalls that for the first time in her young life, movement sparked joy rather than elicit pain: “dance started to mean something to me,” she says. Now on the faculty for ODC’s kid's program, Kearny’s proud to say that thanks to this position, her college education at San Francisco State University is covered. As she says: “ I have no student debt — ODC pays for my education.” Louise is now at Oberlin College Dance, the birthplace of ODC. Here, she studies art history and thinks back fondly at her time dancing through high school at ODC, making appearances in The Velveteen Rabbit alongside her two siblings.
“This place brings back so many happy memories. —Louise Wurzelbacher
What happy memories do you have connected to moving at ODC? Care to share? Drop us a line at wiebke@odcdance.org or post a photo capturing your memory on Instagram tagging @odcsf using the hashtag #movingmoments. We’ll share some of your contributions in our next edition of ODC — Always Moving.
Dance with Pride
In honor of San Francisco's annual Pride parade on June 25, 2017, 210 dancers and volunteers including participants of the Rhythm & Motion Dance Program, ODC, Dancers' Group, Latin Dance Grooves, San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, and Alonzo King LINES Ballet Dance Center took the streets of San Francisco to celebrate, diversity, equality, self-expression, hope and love for the 50th Anniversary of the iconic Summer of Love.
Some Assembly Required - ODC’s Story Architect on Remounting Format II
“This is what happens when you have an archivist on staff, ” joked Brenda Way during a recent Facebook Live event about remounting her seminal work, a series of six Formats from the 1970s. “ Part of the decision to bring back Format II was responding to the community - a yearning to connect past and presence,” says Ariel Luckey, ODC’s Archivist and Story Architect and keeper of historical artifacts documenting nearly 50 years of ODC. Reconstructing the piece meant putting forth the same framework, concept, and tasks for the company’s 2017 dancers to solve, who then ultimately made the piece their own.
To help the process, Way asked Luckey to provide archival video material. “We have about 1500 individual video artifacts in our collection, including a tremendous number of VHS videos and all kinds of other late 20th century recording formats.” Format II was performed in repertory at different times over the course of ODC’s history, so there are multiple versions of each of those performances, performed by different dancers, in different venues, at different moments in time. “Brenda wanted to see good quality versions, some particular dancers…”
These videos then serve as a choreographer’s tool to reconnect with the material. “I actually was able to find lecture demonstrations, similar in style to what we now know as ODC Unplugged, which happens twice a year. ODC has been doing that forever!” Typically, these events have the choreographer talking about the work with local community members in informal spaces, showing excerpts, answering the burning questions, digging deep into their artistic inspiration, methodology, and philosophy behind the work. “Brenda could hear herself talk about what she was thinking at the time. “Those are ways the archival process can directly feed into today’s artistic process.”
Learn more about a day rehearsing Format II in Fjord Review's piece “The Way Forward”
ODC in the News
“An oasis in the parched summer dance scene…”
-Allan Ulrich’s review in SF Gate of ODC’s 2017 Summer Sampler.
The New England Foundation’s National Dance Project has awarded $1,795,000 in support for the creation of new dance works that will tour the United States in the year ahead. ODC is one of only 20 grant recipients.
"Rhythmic drum beats, energetic bodies and a ready-to-dance community are just some of the things you will find when visiting the Mission District’s ODC dance studio."
-ODC Feature in El Tecolote by Jazmine Sanchez
Why I Care
“I have to commend you on your youth program. Last year was really fantastic for Olivia (...) her Velveteen Rabbit audition (even if it didn't yield casting in the show) was really a positive experience. I was so impressed that Kimi gave actual notes in her personal email.” — ODC school parent
Photos: Dudley Flores, Amy Thompson