Zaccho Dance Theatre

Zaccho Dance Theatre, also known as Zaccho SF, is an aerial dance organization that offers performances, dance education, community partnerships, and programs to support artists at all career levels. Zaccho Dance Theatre’s theatrical productions are often site-specific and informed by African American experiences and perspectives. Each year, the organization serves over 300 children in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood with in-school and after-school classes and performance opportunities. The organization provides artists with funding, free studio space, and mentorship through three artist residency programs. This grant to Zaccho Dance Theatre supports the Performing Arts Program’s Communities strategy.

Zaccho Dance Theatre creates and presents work that explores and offers new perspectives on the relationship of dance to place. Reaching almost 12,000 people at primarily free performances, Zaccho specializes in aerial choreography and site specific work of multiple scales, for which it is nationally recognized. Deeply rooted in its community of Bayview Hunters Point, a low-income diverse neighborhood that has been rife with crime, the organization provides a Youth Performing Arts program for the youth of Bayview, offering free or low-cost weekly classes to 100-150 at-risk youth annually, and Zaccho Youth Company, a pre-professional dance company made up of middle and high school students. Supplemental funding will provide additional funds to enhance administrative leadership for the remainder of the general operating grant period.

Zaccho Dance Theatre creates and presents work that explores and offers new perspectives on the relationship of dance to place. Reaching almost 12,000 people at primarily free performances, Zaccho specializes in aerial choreography and site specific work of multiple scales, for which it is nationally recognized. Deeply rooted in its community of Bayview Hunters Point, a low-income diverse neighborhood that has been rife with crime, the organization provides a Youth Performing Arts program for the youth of Bayview, offering free or low-cost weekly classes to 100-150 at-risk youth annually, and Zaccho Youth Company, a pre-professional dance company made up of middle and high school students. Support for a data tool to capture audience information at a series of free performances in September 2012 will enable the organization to develop methods for audience development on an ongoing basis.