ODC finally gets to celebrate 50th birthday
Energetic new works celebrate delayed milestone
Going strictly by the calendar, ODC Dance marked its 50th anniversary last year, which meant that the company couldn't celebrate its extraordinary longevity with the community that has sustained it through the decades.
Emerging after two years of pandemic isolation, the Bay Area mainstay is making up for lost time with a series of performances exploring new territory, stylistically and geographically. In other words, San Francisco's signature modern dance company and its namesake Mission District dance center are jumping into the next half-century with the same adventurous spirit that has long defined them.
The party commences today with “Dance Downtown” at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, when ODC Dance opens a home season with world premieres by guest choreographers Dexandro Montalvo and Amy Seiwert alongside seminal works by Brenda Way, ODC's founder and co-artistic director. In many ways, Way used the pandemic-induced downtime to reflect on what she and her team accomplished via ceaseless hustle and creative ferment.
“You never have time to reflect when you're running a nonprofit, and that two years in hibernation gave me a lot of time to think about what it meant to get the company going and what is it we want to keep doing,” she said. “What are the basic values that we want to fight for? We're coming back
with a lot of thought and a lot of energy and excitement about our mission. That's what we're celebrating.”
Taking place over two weekends, ODC's home season includes Program A (today through Sunday), featuring the premiere of Montalvo's “Vámonos” and Way's “Speaking Volumes,” from 2005, and Program B (April 7-10), which pairs the premiere of Seiwert's “No Alibi” with Way's “Investigating Grace,” from 1999. While modern ballet is part of ODC's DNA — Way studied with George Balanchine after all — Montalvo's and Seiwert's idiosyncratic approaches to modern ballet present the ODC dancers with divergent challenges.
“I was thinking, who would I like to expand the
language?” Way said. “You want to keep changing and growing. Amy is more embedded in modern ballet but she's very experimental. Dexandro is an interesting direction to include as he's doing ballet with hip-hop inflection. `Vámonos' is a very interesting expansion, very energetic and contemporary.”
ODC's celebration centers on the April 1 50+ Anniversary Gala, which accompanies Program A and also features a performance by ODC's teen company, Dance Jam. The event's proceeds help fund ODC various creative initiatives and the dancers' newly expanded, yearlong contract.
Before the pandemic, dancers often picked up other work during downtime.
The new contract means dancers can count on regular compensation and benefits “in a predictable way,” Way said. “We realized that whatever happens with the pandemic in the future the only way to move forward was committed to full time. If we close down again, how are they're going to pay the rent? If we want to keep these dancers, they needed to survive here.”
ODC isn't just concerned about the survival of the dancers. The company has been looking out for audiences too, creating online programs promoting health and fitness. The pandemic turbocharged the company's entire online presence with ODC Connect, a digital platform with an expansive library including feature
dance films, archival works, dance-making documentaries, and dance and fitness classes for all ages and abilities.
“We jumped into the possibilities that isolation offered,” Way said. “The biggest difficulty was we couldn't be in the studio making work together, so we were shifting about how we can interact with the world. Now you can play to people in France or South Africa and the price to participate is much lower. It's not live performance, and I'm devoted to live performance, but we got a lot done.”
The company commitment to taking dance to the people continues May 21-22 with a site-specific collaboration with Rhythmix Cultural Works at Alameda
Point, “Island City Waterways: Uprooted.” Conceived and directed by Janet Koike, Rhythmix founder and artistic director, the free multimedia piece explores the history of what used to be the Alameda Naval Air Station.
Touching on pioneering aviators and a succession of wars, “Uprooted” also hinges on the base's history as a collection point for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. That experience is brought to life via letters written by the parents of choreographer and ODC School director Kimi Okada while they were in held in Tule Lake in the eastern Sierra.
“Brenda knew Kimi's mom very well, so this is really personal,” said Koike, who has created a series of works based on the history of Alameda's historic Japantown. “Collaboration is important to them, and this is a very cool site-specific project that they've come to with all their ideas.”
While keeping one eye focused on its magnificent legacy, ODC Dance is striding into the future asking the most important question. “After 50 years, what's possible now?” Way said. “And where would we like to go in the next 50 years? OK, maybe four.”