San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Troupes from Bay Area, Florida, Taiwan offer aerial, experimental, classical shows
This fall’s performance calendar demonstrates anew why the Bay Area attracts dance artists from across the country to its diverse environment.
As live performances return, the scene is again exploding with new work, from world premieres at Smuin Contemporary Ballet to experimental solos by self-described “drag queen, producer and barfly” Silk Worm at CounterPulse. The sheer range and abundance makes it difficult to compile a short list of intriguing and can’t-miss shows, but here’s a pro tip: Keep your eyes open for more bold offerings from Dance Mission Theater, ODC Theater and other local presenters. It’s definitely a season for discovery.
Dance theater innovator Joe Goode has become a pillar of the San Francisco experimental dance community over the course of his more than four-decade-long career, with his Mission District performance venue the Joe Goode Annex the hub of creativity. There, Goode’s biannual Gush Festival returns, offering a collaborative premiere between Goode and younger choreographers Gabriele Christian and Molly Katzman called “I Understand: Queer exchange across generations.”
Filling out the festival are Oaklandbased choreographer Brontë Velez’s “Spin,” an aerial meditation on contemporary Black experience, and a visit from Mexico City dance makers Gizeh Muñiz Vengel and Ernesto Peart Falcón, who bring “Islas breves,” a duet exploring colonization and ancestry.
Gush Festival:
7:30 p.m. Sept. 15-17. Joe Goode Performance Group. VIP night 7:30 p.m. Sept. 18. $15-$60. Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama St., S.F. www.joegoode.org/event/ gush-2022
Flyaway Productions:
Jo Kreiter makes site-specific aerial works that send dancers rappelling off the sides of buildings and teetering from the edges of roofs. For the final installment of her Decarceration Trilogy, investigating mass imprisonment, “Apparatus of Repair” will consider the possibilities of restorative justice in a spectacle of five dancers performing on the exterior of the UC Hastings College of the Law.
The dance is slated to be performed near Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York the following month.
Axis Dance:
Former Axis Dance member Nadia Adame has returned to helm the company, a leader in the dance world combining performers with and without disabilities. Her work “Breathe Again” is slated to premiere alongside “Tread,” by Ben Levine, who was born with Erb’s palsy and who used his time in the company’s Choreo-Lab program to experiment with wheeled children’s toys in what he calls “abstract exploration of momentum, friction and gravity.”
The program also includes a sensuous new dance theater work by Spanish choreographer Asun Noales.
8 p.m. Sept. 16; 8 p.m. Sept. 17, with ASL interpretation; 1 p.m. Sept. 18, Touch Access Tour; and 2 p.m. Sept. 18, with audio description. $25-$55. ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., S.F. www.axisdance.org
Smuin Contemporary Ballet:
Artistic Director Celia Fushille continues to stretch the company’s repertoire in inspired ways by commissioning rising Cuban choreographer Osnel Delgado to make a new ballet drawing on modern dance and Afro-Cuban styles. Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s dramatic “Requiem for a Rose,” set to Schubert, makes a return, and the program closes with Rex Wheeler’s lively “Take Five,” set to the
landmark jazz album by Dave Brubeck.
7:30 p.m. Sept. 16, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sept. 17, 2 p.m. Sept. 18. Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View; 7:30 p.m. Sept. 23 and 30, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sept. 24 and Oct. 1, 2 p.m. Sept. 25, Oct. 1-2. 2 at the Cowell Theater, 2 Marina Blvd., S.F.; 7:30 p.m. Oct. 7 and 2 p.m. Oct. 8. Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. $25-$99. www.smuinballet.org
Miami City Ballet:
For 10 years now, Miami City Ballet has been under the directorship of former New York City Ballet star Lourdes Lopez, who has taken the company, some East Coast observers say, to even greater heights. Returning to Cal Performances for the first time since Lopez’s appointment, this troupe known for bold dancing is slated to bring George Balanchine’s ever-dazzling “Jewels,” a fantasia in three moods: the romantic “Emeralds,” set to Fauré; the jazzy “Rubies,” to Stravinsky; and the imperial “Diamonds,” to Tchaikovsky.
Li Chiao-Ping Dance:
Before founding the nationally lauded Wisconsin-based Li Chiao-Ping Dance, Chiao-Ping grew up in San Francisco, studying dance at Lowell High School. She comes home this time with “Here Lies the Truth,” a visceral, theatrically bold exploration of race, identity, positionality and access.
Featuring 11 dancers from Madison, Chicago, the Bay Area, Atlanta and
Seattle, “Here Lies the Truth” incorporates live music, projected documentary footage of the 2020 social justice protests, and visual art contributions from Ping’s spouse and colleague at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, artist Douglas Rosenberg.
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan:
This company renowned for virtuosic movement combining the influences of martial arts, modern dance and qi gong brings Artistic Director Cheng Tsun-lung’s “13 Tongues,” a dreamscape of childhood memories, first to Stanford Live and then to Cal Performances.
With a soundtrack ranging from electronica to 20th century concert music to Taiwanese folk songs, it’s an overwhelming ensemble spectacle and a journey through intense emotions reflecting the street life of Taipei.
7:30 p.m. Oct. 6. $15-$68. Stanford University Memorial Auditorium, 551 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford. https://live.stanford.edu; 8 p.m. Oct. 29-30. $25-$92. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley. 510-642-9988. https://calperformances.org
Garrett + Moulton Productions:
You can’t find lovelier, more expressive dancers than those who work with choreographer Janice Garrett and the company she shares with her creative partner, Charles Moulton.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Garrett + Moulton Productions, the