“TRY” is an experimental improvised dance that aims to subvert traditional notions of race and masculinity. In a first for the organization, Circo Zero will commission a lead artist other than its founder, Keith Hennessy. Award-winning choreographer and teacher Ishmael Houston-Jones will create a new work of improvisational dance theater in collaboration with a group…
“Ghostly Labor” illuminates a history of abuse, activism, and perseverance by Chicana and Native women working in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Building on Brava Theater’s successful 2019 presentation of “Pachuquísmo,” a dance-theater production about Mexican-American women during the Zoot Suit Riots, Vanessa Sanchez and Brava come together to develop and present her new work, “Ghostly Labor.”…
“The People’s Building” investigates movement and visual storytelling in relation to the history, architecture, and metaphors inherent in San Francisco City Hall. Dancers’ Group is commissioning celebrated choreographer and long-time San Francisco community leader Joanna Haigood to create a new work set in various locations throughout San Francisco’s Beaux Arts City Hall building. Haigood is…
An evening-length dance-theater piece, “Wicked Bodies (Sonoma),” wonders why some knowledge is celebrated, some criminalized, and some erased altogether. Long-time arts leader and choreographer Liz Lerman, known for her intensive collaborations with experts and communities in developing multi-disciplinary works, will bring her latest project to Sonoma State University’s Green Music Center. As she has done…
In “Global Moves,” artists from China, India, Israel, and the United States explore the current waves of isolation and xenophobia in their countries and around the world, using cultural texts as prompts to make a work of hope and unity. The Margaret Jenkins Dance Company is commissioning its founder, Margaret Jenkins, to lead a new…
“IKKAI means once: a transplanted pilgrimage” is an installation dance project incorporating modern dance, Bon Odori, storytelling, and taiko to guide audiences through the impact and legacy of Japanese-American incarceration during World War II. The San Jose Chapter of the nation’s oldest Japanese American civil rights organization is commissioning dancer and choreographer Yayoi Kambara to…
“This too shall pass” is part of a ritual dance theater project addressing the well-being, displacement, and sex-trafficking of black women and girls in Oakland. EastSide Arts Alliance is commissioning Bay Area native Amara Tabor-Smith, along with her longtime collaborator Ellen Sebastian Chang, to create “This too shall pass,” the last “episode” of “House/ Full…
“Nursing These Wounds” investigates the impact of colonization on Pilipinx health and caregiving through the lens of Pilipinx nurses’ history. The Filipino-American Development Foundation is partnering with Kularts and Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center to commission a new large-scale, immersive dance performance by award-winning choreographer and Kularts Executive and Artistic Director Alleluia Panis. “Nursing These…
“A Deepest Blue” uses a founding myth common to Cambodia and Japan to contemplate humanity’s relationship with and responsibility to our threatened oceans and the natural world. The Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants and ARTogether, two Bay Area nonprofits with a shared commitment to healing the traumas of communities displaced by war and conflict,…
“MĀHŪ” is a work of multi-media hula dance theater that aims to reclaim and celebrate the traditional place of honor, respect, and influence given to māhū (transgender) people in ancient Hawaiian society. Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu is commissioning its founder and director, Kumu Hula (hula master) Patrick Makuakāne to create a new work…