Dance companies move fall season online.
Bay Area companies take fall performances online.
It will come as no surprise that the fall dance season has been preempted and that the pandemic has shuttered virtually every theater and venue in the region, a disaster that threatens the existence of dance companies large and small.
The cancellation of more than a dozen 2020 “Nutcracker” productions alone is a devastating financial blow that’s already led to stringent ballet company belt tightening.
One of the first high-profile casualties of the COVID-19-induced cutbacks was Amy Seiwert, whose 2018 appointment as Sacramento Ballet’s artistic director marked a major ballet breakthrough in Bay Area and beyond. Only the seventh woman to lead a professional American ballet company, she quickly established herself in the capital with her own version of “The Nutcracker” (a ballet precious few women choreographers have tackled in the past).
While still smarting from her sudden pandemic-triggered unemployment, she’s rebounding by pouring her energy into her own Bay Area-based project, Amy Seiwert’s Imagery.
“I’m doing OK,” she said in a recent phone conversation from her home in Sacramento. “A month ago I was less OK. It’s just a hard time. We’re recalibrating. I’m old enough to have gotten my heart broken in life before and it turned out OK. I’m grateful that I’ve got creative homes to go back to.”
Imagery has long exerted an outsized influence on the local dance scene, forging connections and showcasing rising dancers and choreographers via Sketch, an annual shoestring production that provides artists with a safe space for experimentation. Seiwert’s newfound availability comes just in time to celebrate Sketch’s milestone 10th anniversary, and in a graceful pirouette she transformed the event into a socially distanced fourpart cinematic celebration, “Sketch Films: Red Thread.”
She’s commissioned three Sketch alumni to collaborate with filmmakers, creating new works set to original scores by Kishi Bashi and Emily Hope Price. Seiwert’s contribution kicks off the series Sept. 15, followed by a work by Ben Needham-Wood, who like Seiwert earned early renown with Smuin Ballet and has participated in every Sketch season since its 2011 launch (last year he became the project’s first artistic fellow).
She’s also reached beyond the Bay Area, commissioning New York City’s Jennifer Archibald and Chicago-based Stephanie Martinez, who are both recipients of Joffrey Ballet “Winning Works: Choreographers of Color” commissions. And
Martinez’s intricate “Bliss” made its California premiere as part of the Joffrey’s March program at Zellerbach Hall, the last Cal Performances dance presentation before the March 19 shelter in place order.
Following rigorous social distance protocols, each choreographer is creating a piece reflecting on the current health, economic, and injustice issues. For her film, Seiwert is collaborating with Peninsula filmmakers Kristine Samuelson and John Haptas, whose 2019 short documentary “Life Overtakes Me,” was nominated for an 2020 Academy Award.
The goal is to premiere her film on Sept. 15 and release a new film each month through December.
“But this whole experience is a litmus test for how comfortable we are with uncertainty,” Seiwert said. “Things can go wrong. Someone on your team gets exposed to COVID and you have to change your plans.”
Seiwert isn’t the only Bay Area dance institution turning to film in a time of social distancing. Epiphany Dance Theater recently announced that the 17th annual San Francisco Trolley Dances is moving from the street to the screen.
All of the participating artists and companies originally announced, including Arenas Dance Co., Fog Beast, Post:Ballet, TrashKan Marchink Band, and Zaccho Dance Theatre, will be filmed at sites around the Dogpatch and Bayview Hunters Point districts. The pieces premiere at 11 a.m. on Oct. 17-18, with each virtual performance running approximately 75 minutes (with such additional features as 360-degree video, historical background and behind-the-scenes footage of the dance location). Go to epiphanydance.org for more information.
Not surprisingly, San Francisco Ballet was one of the first companies to offer a new creation in response to the pandemic with a film that speaks to an obsessive longing for the past that hits all too close to home.
On Aug. 15, the company premiered “Dance of Dreams,” a love letter to San Francisco set to Bernard Herrmann’s gorgeous, haunted theme “Scène D’Amour” from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1958 Bay Area thriller “Vertigo.” Directed by Benjamin Millepied and shot in iconic locations such as the Palace of Fine Arts and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the six-minute film features San Francisco Ballet dancers performing choreography by Justin Peck, Dwight Rhoden, Janie Taylor and Christopher Wheeldon.
Creating new works designed to be viewed safely at home is one way that dance companies can continue to connect with audiences. ODC/Dance is throwing a party, or more precisely, inviting supporters of the Bay Area’s flagship modern dance company to throw themselves a shindig.
Billed as an evening in, “Drinks & a Dance: Walk Back the Cat” is an immersive virtual event on Sept. 10 that kicks off with a cocktail class from San Francisco’s 1930sstyle lounge Stookey’s Club Moderne.
With a classic cocktail in hand guests can enjoy a lively conversation with choreographer Brenda Way, ODC/Dance’s founding artistic director, and composer Paul Dresher. The party culminates with a livestream viewing of ODC performing Way’s “Walk Back the Cat.”
Tickets for the cocktail class and conversation are $35 per household (byob), with a $10 suggested donation for performance only. Register at odc.dance/cat.