KEEPING THE PEACE BETWEEN THE TRADITIONAL AND THE MODERN: Speaking with Hula Master Patrick Makuakane

CHOREOGRAPHER, DANCER AND KUMU HULA (master teacher) Patrick Makuakane is a dynamo of thoughtful energy and good-natured cheer. Speaking with him in a coffee shop near his home in Potrero Hill, I was […]

WOMXN SPEAK: WORD!

Photo by Robbie Sweeny WORD. In the vernacular, you say “Word,” to express agreement, validating you’re listening to what someone is saying. You might also hear it when something said […]

The Consummate Conversationalist: An Interview with Monique Jenkinson

Conversation comes easy to Monique Jenkinson. We sat down together for dinner at her home in the Mission–to talk about her work–and nearly four laughter-filled hours later I found myself […]

Expect the Unexpected: Subverting the Ballet Paradigm with Amy Seiwert and SKETCH 3

“When I started making work, no one was paying any attention whatsoever,” Amy Seiwert recalls. After nineteen years spent dancing for Sacramento Ballet and Smuin Ballet, she launched her choreographic […]

Cherie Hill: A Day in the Life

Photo by Robbie Sweeney and the Tenderloin National Forest As a black-dance scholar and dancer, I recently became curious about the methods and stamina—or shall I say “hustle”—that is required […]

tool logic aesthetic

The idea for this triumvirate first started to percolate in my brain several years ago during an improvisation workshop. A discussion arose from a disagreement about determining if a score […]

John Jasperse in the Bay Area: Gaps, Misuse, and the Possibility of Thick Description

John Jasperse is a choreographer known as: Cool. Brainy. Provocative. Naked. Virtuosic. Transgressive. Austere. Opaque. Difficult. Formal. Experimental. Critical. Ironic. Oblique. Pensive. Part of the witty, cerebral downtown New York […]

SPEAK: future friend/ships

Jassem Hindi “Irony is about the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary and true. Irony is about humor and serious play. It is also […]

What do you Think About Dance Criticism? A Community Responds

We recently sent out a call out to nearly 30 Bay Area dance artists representing a broad cross-section of the community asking them to contribute perspectives on dance criticism. Twelve […]

SPACES FOR DANCE: A Range of Responses To A Timeless Challenge

WHEN WORDS LIKE “radical,” “unprecedented” and “cornerstone” are brought into a conversation about new spaces for dance, it points to both how dire and how timeless the questions about buildings and artists may […]