Ponderosa: PORCH 3-week immersion

P.O.R.C.H. 2024 is a three-week intensive residential program that spends the first two weeks (Module One: DANCING) getting deep into the body, dancing and training and the third week (Module […]

In Practice: Mix’d Ingrdnts Performing Resistance

Early in the introduction to What a Body Can Do: Technique as Knowledge, Practice as Research, Ben Spatz writes, “Supposedly people join theatre and dance companies to perform in front […]

In Practice: Nina Haft & Company’s Precarious Pod

Photo by Pak Han When I was dancing with Nina Haft in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Jewish themes were prevalent. She made a dance called Minyan that derived […]

In Practice: Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts’ Six Degrees of Freedom

First of all, full disclosure: the Wymore of Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts is kind of my boss—Lisa Wymore, Chair of the Department of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, […]

For You, For All of Us

The recent production of For You at the Marin Headlands was intended to be a break from self-absorbed, opaque art. Conceived by interdisciplinary performance maker Erika Chong Shuch, the April […]

History in the Taping: Confessions of an Accidental Dance Videographer

As I was preparing to write this article about dance documentation, it occurred to me that it has been exactly ten years since Shelley Trott and I started the interviews […]

Change and Exchange: University of San Francisco

Try to pronounce the letters P-A-S-J as a word with one syllable–PASJ–and you speak the lingo of young artists at the University of San Francisco. Rather, the shorthand version for […]

Stealing Stories: Leyya Tawil

You poor little creature…what is yours? Your house…your job…your kitchen chairs and the number plate on the door…ah! But these don’t belong to you. By what right did they come […]

Hip Hop Her Way; An Interview with Sisterz of the Underground’s Sarah Smalls

Sisterz of the Underground (SOTU) is a community, network, and support system created by, and for, females who choose hip-hop as a form of expression. As an open hip-hop collective, […]

It Happens In the Studio: Talking Trends and Technique with Five Artists Who Teach

Over my 20+ years of teaching, I’ve seen different trends and styles come and go. I’ve watched modern dancers go in and out of dedicated periods of ballet training. I’ve seen yoga […]