FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: John Hill
510.435.7128
ODC THEATER PRESENTS ITS TENTH ANNUAL
SUMMER DANCE FESTIVAL
STATE OF PLAY
BIANCA CABRERA / BLIND TIGER SOCIETY | DANCE MONKS | DETOUR | ERIN YEN / DRAGONS DANCE | JAMES GRAHAM DANCE THEATRE | KENDRA KIMBROUGH DANCE ENSEMBLE | KIM IP / KRIMM’S DANCE PARTY | LITTLE HOUSE DANCE | LIV SCHAFFER & THE DANCE GENERATORS | MEGAN LOWE DANCES | MKARTS | NICOLE PEISL | NINA HAFT & COMPANY | OYSTERKNIFE | ROSANNA TAVAREZ / LA DANSA DANSA | SAMMAY
June 2 – 11, 2022
odc.dance/stateofplay
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, April 14, 2022 – ODC Theater is delighted to announce the complete program for its tenth annual summer dance festival, June 2 - 11. State of Play features two weeks of activities across ODC’s two-building campus, including nine world or regional premieres, seven works-in-progress by performing artists from across the country plus an array of free activities. Single event tickets, starting at $15, and Festival Bundles, starting at $32, are now on sale at odc.dance/stateofplay.
As part of an ongoing series of events in honor of its 50+ anniversary, ODC this year inaugurates a new format for its signature summer festival with programming from guest curators amara tabor-smith and Charles Slender-White. Formerly known as the Walking Distance Dance Festival, which featured evening-length double bills, this year’s festival highlights the interplay of works by artists at different stages of their careers. Audiences will have the opportunity to witness performances from fully staged evening-length events to early works-in-progress.
“State of Play marks a significant shift towards curation as collaboration,” said tabor-smith and Slender White in a joint statement. “Together we talked about racism and privilege in the field of dance, and about wanting to raise the visibility of powerful queer and BIPOC artists who we felt were making incredibly important art. If there is a unifying theme in our curation, it is that these artists are creating work that we feel will provide much needed breath, hope and inspiration to move through this moment in time that we all find ourselves in.”
Companies presenting evening-length premieres include little house dance from Portland, Maine, MKArts from Virginia, and SAMMAY, currently based in Los Angeles. Companies and individual artists premiering works of shorter length are, in all but one case, based in the Bay Area: Blind Tiger Society under the direction of Bianca Cabrera; Dragons Dance under the direction of Erin Yen; KRIMM’S DANCE PARTY under the direction of Kim Ip; Megan Lowe Dances; Nicole Peisl. Rosanna Tavarez / LA DANSA DANSA is visiting from Los Angeles.
Finally, the companies presenting works-in-progress include DANCE MONKS / Mirah Kellc Esteva & Rodrigo Esteva; Detour with lead artist Kat Cole; James Graham Dance Theatre; Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble; Liv Schaffer & the Dance Generators; Nina Haft & Company; and OYSTERKNIFE, the artistic partnership of Gabriele Christian and Chibueze Crouch.
“Whether for established dance fans or newcomers to the genre, we have categorized activities into three groups,” said ODC Theater Creative Director Chloë L. Zimberg. “For those primarily interested in realized, fully produced works, check out our list of premieres. For those interested in the creative process, there is a series of works-in-progress that will invite audiences more intimately into performance development. And for audiences who want to dive deeper into the ideas and discussions in the dance field today, join us at one of our free community activities.”
“We are also thrilled to offer digital broadcasts of the premieres for those who cannot join in-person. The density of offerings in this year’s festival is an exciting step as we grow and build a festival that stands alongside the Bay Area's beloved full-day fringe theater, film and music festivals.”
Among the free activities scheduled throughout the festival is a panel discussion on June 2 titled “Ephemerality and Permanence: Legacy, Lineage and Letting Go;” a picnic lunch with games for the whole family on June 5; a long table discussion titled “Envisioning the Future of Dance” on June 6; a live debate on how best to allocate limited resources among arts professionals on June 8; and on June 11, “Re-imagining Araw ng Kalayaan,” a conversation around the struggle for independence in the Philippine diaspora.
“I am full of anticipation for State of Play,” said former ODC Theater Resident Artist Monique Jenkinson aka Fauxnique. “From training here as a young dancer to premiering and re-staging work as a mature artist, for decades I have watched ODC grow and deepen its commitment to dance artists. I am thrilled with this next phase of ODC’s growth, especially its embrace of the concept of play as a driving theme. Though we dance artists take our work more seriously than most people realize, ultimately it is a sense of play – onstage, in the studio, in conversation -- that liberates us to move the culture forward.”
The following is a detailed schedule of events listed in chronological order. For more information about these and other events taking place during the festival visit
odc.dance/stateofplay.
* * *
ROSANNA TAVAREZ / LA DANSA DANSA | Piece x Piece (Bay Area premiere)
June 2
Thursday, 3:30 p.m.
ODC Theater
(Digital screening on Saturday, June 18, 3:00 p.m.)
In Piece x Piece, Rosanna Tavarez explores her mother’s immigration story with its challenges of transitioning from one territory to a drastically new one. The 30-minute work, created for two performers, toggles between the escapist, rags-to-riches fantasy narratives of telenovelas and the heartbreaking reality of the immigrant experience, using sewing as a metaphor for deconstructing the so-called American Dream.
Tavarez lives in southern California and her works have been presented by The Broad Museum, REDCAT, American Dance Festival, Dance Camera West, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, The Odyssey, Breaking Ground Dance Festival and Sarasota Contemporary Dance. She creates work that is emotionally and psychologically demanding, with movement that ranges from the feral, ferocious and vulnerable to the humorous and joyful.
KENDRA KIMBROUGH DANCE ENSEMBLE | The Golden Thread (work-in-progress) June 2
Thursday, 6:30 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Fisher Studio
In this multimedia dance production, Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble leads the audience on an imaginary journey through several distinct worlds, each with its own unique tempo essential to the livelihood of its people. Each world reveals a distinct key that unlocks the barrier to “momentum,” a vehicle on which ease and magical alignment take place.
Kendra Barnes founded Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble in 1996. Based in Oakland, the company bridges diverse cultures and communities through thought-provoking performances that address the common human experiences of its audience. As a dancer and choreographer, Barnes draws on many styles including contemporary & African Diasporic. Her work as co-choreographer of Cal Shakes' Black Odyssey was a finalist for Theatre Bay Area’s (TBA) Best Choreography Award. As choreographer for the African-American Shakespeare Company, she was a TBA finalist for Outstanding Ensemble of a Play (For Colored Girls…).
MEGAN LOWE DANCES | Piece of Peace (world premiere)
June 3
Friday, 3:30 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Studio B
(Digital screening on Saturday, June 18, 3:45 p.m.)
In Piece of Peace, Director Megan Lowe leads a group of artists who explore their experiences as mixed race Asian American and Pacific Islanders. Through thoughtful text, soulful song, and dynamic dancing, Megan Lowe Dances invites its collaborators to share stories of fractured selves and a longing to belong, in the process creating a supportive environment for connection.
A self-described “fierce dancer, choreographer, performer, singer-songwriter, filmmaker and teacher of Chinese and Irish descent,” Lowe’s dances tackle unusual physical situations and invent compelling solutions, opening up the imagination to what is possible. She has performed with Flyaway Productions, Scott Wells & Dancers, Lenora Lee Dance, as well as Lizz Roman & Dancers.
DETOUR | QUAKE (work-in-progress)
June 3
Friday, 6:30 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Argyle Studio
QUAKE is a work-in-progress that aims to destigmatize the topic of mental health and promote community resilience within the Asian American community. The multidisciplinary project fuses new media, experimental performance and alternative healing practices.
Detour is a San Francisco-based performance company that centers the prismatic experiences of queers and people of color. Led by Co-Artistic Directors Kat Gorospe Cole and Eric Garcia, Detour’s work is rooted in contemporary dance, devised theater and drag. QUAKE is a collaboration between lead artist Cole and new media artist Jeffrey Yip.
LITTLE HOUSE DANCE | Hour Wolf in the Cavern (world premiere)
June 3 - 4
Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.
ODC Theater, B’Way Theater
(Digital screening on Saturday, June 18, 4:30 p.m.)
Hour Wolf in the Cavern is a collaboration between Riley Watts and Heather Stewart, multidisciplinary dance artists based in Portland, Maine. Described as an “iterative performance on states of mourning through the physical mind and the cyclical nature of madness,” Hour Wolf arranges the elements of performance – dance score, objects, spatial and sound design – “in such a way that they are available for extraction and recontextualization for each future location of performance.” Hour Wolf in the Cavern is part of a larger project titled Hour Wolf.
Formed in 2020, little house dance is a multidisciplinary dance company. The company’s collaborative work is rooted in contemporary performance installations and a desire to cultivate the dance community of Maine.
OYSTERKNIFE | m | ou | f (work-in-progress)
June 4
Saturday, 6:30 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Argyle Studio
With its name drawn from a famous Zora Neale Hurston essay, Oysterknife was born out of the longtime friendship between Oakland-based Gabriele Christian (they/them) and Chibueze Crouch (she/they). For State of Play they will perform an excerpt from their triptych which premiered at Surge, UC Santa Cruz's
Afrofuturism Festival. In their artist statement they write: “m | ou | f aims to reclaim Black iconicity from the maw of celebrity culture. Having explored the legacies of violence and faith for blaQ communities in our prior projects, mouth full of sea and mouth//full, our latest collaboration is a meditation on visibility, opacity, sexuality and the desire of & for queer(ed) Black stars. Using drag, ritual masquerade, original music and choreography, we investigate the voices that made us question ourselves in the most delicious and fruitful of ways.”
LIV SCHAFFER & THE DANCE GENERATORS | Big Red House of Rest (work-in-progress) June 5
Sunday, 2 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Skirball Studio
Big Red House of Rest reimagines paradigms of the nuclear family, enlivening pathways of communication between generations. Devised in collaboration with eight performers, Big Red examines ingredients of vitality and rot present in our current systems of succession, illuminating what we must ultimately lay to rest. Dance Generators is the University of San Francisco’s intergenerational dance company. Directed by Liv Schaffer and composed of dancers ranging in age from 17 to 89, the company uses collaborative dance-making as a vehicle for social change, shifting perspective on aging.
NINA HAFT & COMPANY | The Spaces Between (work-in-progress)
June 5
Sunday, 3 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Argyle Studio
How do we take measure of the distances between us? The Spaces Between explores choice, mutuality, touch and pack behavior in animals, including humans. Under the direction of Nina Haft, this Bay Area based contemporary dance ensemble explores the nature of space and place. Haft’s work has been presented in Boston; Los Angeles; New York; Portland, OR; San Diego; Novosibirsk, Russia; Amman, Jordan; as well as Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Ramallah in Israel’s West Bank. Her work has been presented in theaters as well as dockyards, synagogues, bars, parking lots, nature reserves and cemeteries.
ERIN YEN / DRAGONS DANCE | Paper Trails (world premiere)
June 6
Monday, 3:30 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Studio B
(Digital screening on Thursday, June 16, 6 p.m.)
Paper Trails is a dynamic exploration of the unique communication pathways adopted by immigrants on Angel Island in the early 20th century. This new dance work features a range of movement drawn from imagination and personal stories, as well as inspiration from Director Erin Yen’s mixed-race lineage. Artists Lucia Flexer-Marshall, Abigail Hinson and Sawako Ogo, together with Yen, share the stage exploring how communities may be built through fragmented interactions.
Founded in 2020, Dragons Dance draws from Erin Yen’s extensive contemporary dance training and unique use of Laban Analysis in choreography. Dragons Dance has performed as a resident artist at venues throughout the Bay Area, shares work online via dance film and provides opportunities for artists to collaborate and create community.
DANCE MONKS | Fire in the Mountain (work-in-progress)
June 6
Monday, 6:30 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Fisher Studio
Fire in the Mountain is a work-in-progress dedicated to Eric Koziol, a beloved San Francisco-based filmmaker who passed away last year. Working with DANCE MONKS Directors Rodrigo Esteva and Mirah Kellc Moriarty for one year, Koziol explored the intimacy of performing with the camera as if it were another dancer. In this experimental sharing, the mythic characters of the film come to life in a live performance ritual that moves through the thresholds of the seen and unseen.
Esteva and Moriarty currently divide their time between the Bay Area and Mexico, where they founded the company in 1999 while living in the mountains of Xalapa. They have dedicated their lives to interdisciplinary, experimental work that delves into the intimate and ancient relationship between body and place. Among the companies with which they’ve collaborated are Axis Dance, Pearson Widrig Dance Theater and Apostalia Papadamaki.
NICOLE PEISL | handle (world premiere)
June 8
Wednesday, 3:30 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Studio B
(Digital screening on Thursday, June 16, 6:45 p.m.)
A work made for two dancers, handle looks at the subtle and not so subtle ways of being active, present and involved. A person calling their dog, a tennis player waiting for the serve, a pedestrian adjusting to the flow of people. The focus here is on attention, feeling and skillful bodily movement.
Nicole Peisl, who is currently finishing her PhD in Performance Studies at the University of California, Davis, has had a long career as a performer, creator and teacher. She has extensive training in various somatic practices and was a member of the Ballet Frankfurt and the Forsythe Company in Germany.
JAMES GRAHAM DANCE THEATRE | Social Males (work-in-progress)
June 8
Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Skirball Studio
Social Males looks at the effects of male socialization in our culture. “Generally speaking, not being able to cry, to ask for help, or to be taught how to express emotions has a detrimental effect on all of our lives,” said Director James Graham. “My goal is to recognize and dismantle these patterns as a crucial step in ending patriarchy and war-focused violent culture.”
Graham is a San Francisco-based choreographer, performer and educator. His company has recently been creating “Movement Rituals for Earth, Air, Fire and Water” at local outdoor settings. Graham is studying to become a guide for expanded states of consciousness and views this as an extension of healing through a focus on the body and movement.
MKARTS | Octavia’s Brood: Riding the Ox Home (West Coast premiere)
June 8 - 9
Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m.
ODC Theater, B’Way Theater
(Digital screening on Thursday, June 16, 7:30 p.m.)
Octavia’s Brood: Riding the Ox Home is an immersive, “site-expansive” dance work inspired by the prophetic imagination of science fiction author Octavia Butler and abolitionist Harriet Tubman. The work borrows its title from a collection of short stories for social justice movements, edited by Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown.
Under the direction of MK Abadoo (they/she), MKArts devises intergenerational dance performance rituals that are place-honoring and accountable to community partners. Their work sits at the intersection of dance theater and anti-racist cultural organizing, combining funk/family kitchen dances, classical American modern and postmodern dance vocabularies, neo-traditional Ghanaian movement, and a community-centered creative practice.
KIM IP / KRIMM's DANCE PARTY | you don't deserve us (world premiere)
June 9
Thursday, 3:30 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Studio B
(Digital screening on Friday, June 17, 6 p.m.)
You don't deserve us is a dance piece about desire, visibility and age, and how age representation changes when visibility is the goal. Drawing inspiration from collected interviews from queer and non queer elders, Keanu Brady and Kim Ip will present a dance work that delves into desirability, sexiness and lust. Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Ip is a queer femme Asian choreographer and movement artist now living the the Bay Area.
BIANCA CABRERA / BLIND TIGER SOCIETY | Fever Dreams (world premiere)
June 10
Friday, 6 p.m.
ODC Dance Commons, Studio B
(Digital screening on Friday, June 17, 6:45 p.m.)
Fever Dreams is a dizzying dance spectacle based on Mexican folk artist Pedro Linares’ papier-mâché works 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 hallucinatory heat 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.
Blind Tiger Society Founder and Director Bianca Cabrera is an Oakland-based performer and educator. In addition to directing her own company, she currently performs with Flyaway Productions and Bandaloop. She is also on faculty at Contra Costa School for the Performing Arts. Her two-decade performance career includes work with KT Niehoff, Lou Henry Hoover, Kim Epifano, LevyDance, The Fossettes and Sonya Smith.
SAMMAY | ritual for thrivation no. 2 (world premiere)
June 10 - 11
Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.
ODC Theater, B’Way Theater
(Digital screening on Friday, June 17, 7:30 p.m.)
SAMMAY Peñaflor Dizon (she/they) is a Los Angeles-based, Filipinx American choreographer, interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer of Bikol, Kapampangan and Ilokano descent. Through ritual performance, they explore the diasporic body as a site of memory, resistance and reclamation for collective healing and liberation. In a world in which we have forgotten our inherent responsibility to the earth and to each other, ritual for thrivation no. 2 posits ancestral reverence, intergenerational healing and urban-indigenous futurism as urgent and fundamental resources to alleviate our current climate crisis.
* * *
ABOUT ODC THEATER
ODC Theater participates in the creation of new works through commissioning, presenting, mentorship and space access; it develops informed, engaged and committed audiences; and it advocates for the performing arts as an essential component to the region’s economic and cultural development. The Theater is the site of over 120 performances a year involving nearly 1,000 local, regional, national and international artists.
Since 1976, ODC Theater has been the mobilizing force behind countless San Francisco artists and the foothold for national and international touring artists seeking debut in the Bay Area. The Theater, founded by Brenda Way and currently under the creative direction of Chloë L. Zimberg, has earned its place as a cultural incubator by dedicating itself to creative change-makers, those leaders who give the Bay Area its unmistakable definition and flare. Nationally known artists Spaulding Gray, Diamanda Galas, Bill T. Jones, Eiko & Koma, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, Karole Armitage, Sarah Michelson, Brian Brooks and John Heginbotham are among those whose first San Francisco appearance occurred at ODC Theater. For more information about ODC Theater and all its programs visit www.odc.dance/theater.
ODC Theater is generously supported by the Phyllis Wattis Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, Andrew Mellon Foundation and our many individual donors.
FACT SHEET
WHAT:
ODC Theater presents its tenth annual summer dance festival, STATE OF PLAY, featuring 16 works by artists from across the Bay Area and around the United States.
Fully-produced Evening-Length Works:
I. Hour Wolf in the Cavern by little house dance (world premiere)
II. Octavia’s Brood: Riding the Ox Home by MKArts (West Coast premiere)
III. ritual for thrivation no. 2 by SAMMAY (world premiere)
Shorter-length Works:
I. Fever Dreams by Bianca Cabrera / Blind Tiger Society (world premiere)
II. handle by Nicole Peisl (world premiere)
III. Paper Trails by Erin Yen / Dragons Dance (world premiere)
IV. Piece of Peace by Megan Lowe Dances (world premiere)
V. Piece x Piece by Rosanna Tavarez / La Dansa Dansa (Bay Area premiere)
VI. you don't deserve us by Kim Ip / Krimm's Dance Party (world premiere)
Works-in-Progress:
I. Big Red House of Rest by Liv Schaffer & The Dance Generators
II. Fire in the Mountain by Dance Monks
III. m | ou | f by OYSTERKNIFE
IV. QUAKE by Detour
V. Social Males by James Graham Dance Theatre
VI. The Golden Thread by Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble
VII. The Spaces Between by Nina Haft & Company
WHEN:
June 2 - 11, 2022
Thursday, June 2
3:30 p.m. Rosanna Tavarez / La Dansa Dansa
6:30 p.m. Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble
Friday, June 3
3:30 p.m. Megan Lowe Dances
6:30 p.m. Detour
8 p.m. little house dance
Saturday, June 4
9 a.m. little house dance
6:30 p.m. OYSTERKNIFE
Sunday, June 5
2 p.m. Liv Schaffer & The Dance Generators
3 p.m. Nina Haft & Company
Monday, June 6
3:30 p.m. Erin Yen / Dragons Dance
6:30 p.m. DANCE MONKS
Wednesday, June 8
3:30 p.m. Nicole Peisl
6:30 p.m. James Graham
8 p.m. MKArts
Thursday, June 9
3:30 p.m. Kim Ip / Krimm's Dance Party
8 p.m. MKArts
Friday, June 10
6 p.m. Bianca Cabrera / Blind Tiger Society
8 p.m. SAMMAY
Saturday, June 11
9 p.m. SAMMAY
WHERE:
ODC Theater
3153 17th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
ODC Dance Commons
351 Shotwell Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
TICKETS:
Festival Bundles of four or more performances start at $32.
Single Tickets are $15 with a limited number of $7 Arts Access tickets available. For reservations call 415- 863-9834, or online visit odc.dance/stateofplay.
ASL interpretation will be provided at in-person events with performed text. Captioning will be provided for digital streams. For accessibility requests or questions please contact the ODC Box Office at boxoffice@odc.dance.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
odc.dance/stateofplay
For all press inquiries please contact John Hill at johnhillpr@gmail.com.