Cancelled: 2020 Walking Distance Dance Festival

Program 1: ODC Theater Presents NAKA Dance Theater, Catherine Galasso, Special appearance by ODC/Dance Company
June 4 - 5, 8:00 PM

NAKA Dance Theater: And the Twins Return
And the Twins Return is a meditation on bewitchment and calamity, deception and possession, inspired by images from Northern Japan and Southern Mexico. When a fox attaches itself to you, it dunks you into a dream world, controls your thoughts, alters your behavior. The fox is a fickle trickster who brings fortune one day and misfortune the next. We attempt to go backwards in time to find something intact, something old, but there are few clues, so we turn to the unconscious, giving space for flow. Strip away, and listen to hear what our decolonized selves might sound like.

Catharine Galasso & Dave Cerf: Alone Together
Created specifically for ODC’s B.Way Theater with an all Bay Area cast, Alone Together flips the orientation of the proscenium, placing the audience on the stage and the performers in the seats. Other-worldly dreamscapes give way to volcanic dance numbers, ranging from the audacious to the familiar, combining Galasso’s signature cinematic approach with a riveting score by composer Dave Cerf.

Program 2: ODC Theater Presents Geoff & Dan Hoyle, Margaret Jenkins & Rinde Eckert
June 6-7, 8:00 PM

Geoff & Dan Hoyle: Dads

In 1977, Geoff Hoyle became a Dad. In 2015, his son Dan became a Dad. Sometime in between then, they performed together for a bit, but it’s been ten years since that happened. And this is the first time they will be performing together as official, card-carrying Dads. They don’t know what to expect, but chances are there will be songs, skits, musings, maybe a character or two, and a laugh or three. It will be all completely new. But will feel like they vaguely know what they are doing. Sort of like being a Dad.

Margaret Jenkins & Rinde Eckert: Migratory Passages

From the solitary birds to the flocking birds, from the baggage of culture to the nature of culture, Margaret Jenkins and Rinde Eckert premiere a new duet thematically related to their previous 3 duets: Shorebirds Atlantic, And So They, and Shadows & Water. As they shed their birdwatching gear they become more birdlike—the weight of a stone monkey countered now by the lightness of the migratory birds rising from the clear lake to disappear in the distance on their way north or south, to one home or another.

Program 3: ODC Theater Presents Robert Moses' Kin & Garrett + Moulton Productions
June 11-12, 8:00 PM

Robert Moses' Kin: The Heart of Darkness

This collection of movement sketches by Robert Moses is drawn from what the choreographer understands to be the penalties leveled when an African American walks away from the fight with dominant culture and has the gaul to find peace in the sound of their own voice and away from the American dream. Musing on the sanctuary of self preservation, the words of August Wilson, Dave Chappelle, Richard Pryor, Malcom X, and the millions of aspiring citizens of Wakanda, these works are punctuated with Moses’s signature physicality and virtuosity.

Garrett + Moulton Productions: Gyre and Gimble

Garrett + Moulton Productions will present Gyre and Gimble—a new dance theater work choreographed by Co-Artistic Directors Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton. A spiraling journey through a vivid landscape of movement, image, and sound, this intimate and emotionally charged piece explores the driving human urge to find shared meaning and connection in an increasingly fragmented world. Garrett + Moulton’s stellar company will transport the audience into an uplifting and tenderly touching realm that celebrates the triumph of the human heart over isolation and despair.