Dancing Now and Zen: Virginia Matthews Performs ‘50 Years’ in the Moment

Virginia “Ginny” Matthews practices what she preaches. She’s ordained in a Rinzai Zen Buddhist lineage as well as immersed in the dance community as a performer, choreographer, and teacher. The […]

My Love Affair with Carnaval

FACETED SEQUINS glimmering in the light, beads feverishly shaking, infectious mechanical rhythms keeping time, deep pounding heart beats, glistening bronzed skin. Thousands of synchronized arms and legs moving in unison. Dizzying […]

First Things First

Northwest Arkansas and Benton County roller derby leaguers at the Meet the Momentary festival in Bentonville, Arkansas Photo by Erika Chong Shuch First things first: how are you? Amid the […]

Duniya Dance and Drum Company: Fourth Annual African Arts Festival

Duniya Dance and Drum Company presents the Fourth Annual African Arts Festival, a free, family-friendly celebration of live music and dance performed by nine Bay Area ensembles representing different regions […]

Carolena Nericcio Fuses Forms to Inspire New Generations of Belly Dancers

The sun never sets on American Tribal Style Belly Dance®. From Sydney to Stockholm, and Tel-Aviv to Taipei, one can find an American Tribal Style® (ATS®) class in more than […]

A Labyrinth of Cultural Histories: Exploring the Legacies of the 2015 Panama–Pacific International Exposition

2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the Panama- Pacific International Exposition (PPIE), which was held in San Francisco on 625 acres of landfill that would later become the Marina District. […]

New Visions in Korean Dance: Kyoungil Ong and Hearan Chung create community and dances that inspire

Two major choreographic forces in the Bay Area’s Korean dance community offer their work to honor the 30th Anniversary of San Francisco’s Ethnic Dance Festival this month. Weekend One presents […]

Critical Pedagogy: The Art & Power of the Question

When asked their goals for students, teachers often respond, “I want them to be critical thinkers.” What exactly does this mean? Do our classroom and studio practices support the development […]

The Problem of “Culturally Specific” Dance: The Search for a Critical Multiculturalism in Dance, Apr 2009

One of the blessings of Bay Area living is our access to a rich variety of dance—a choreological panopoly often summarized, for the sake of convenience, as “modern, ballet, and […]

The Artist’s Search for Support (Bay Area Existential Crisis Edition)

What does an artist have to do to survive here in the San Francisco Bay Area, circa 2017? As the world keeps on changing and Bay Area cost-of-living inflates out […]