Category: Dance in Review

SAMMAY Productions in "the way home is an upwards spiral." Photo by Robbie Sweeny. spiraling at the party with SAMMAY Peñaflor Dizon By Bhumi B Patel It was a beautiful sunny day in San Francisco and the crowd on the Great Lawn of Yerba Buena Gardens was buzzing. Friends connected with friends, YBGF staff handed…

Passion Fruit Dance Company. Photo by Ben McKeown, courtesy of the American Dance Festival. Searching for a Perspective in DIM3NSIONS By Garth Grimball The New York-based Passion Fruit Dance Company performed DIM3NSIONS, a “multimedia journey…exploring perception shifts and critical conversations,” at Meredith College as part of the American Dance Festival on June 14-15. The exploration…

“Set and Reset” (1983). Choreography: Trisha Brown. Performers: Trisha Oesterling, Trisha Brown, and Wil Swanson. Photographer: © Mark Hanauer “Dancing with Bob,” Dancing in Time By Garth Grimball The Trisha Brown Dance Company has accomplished a heroic feat in producing “Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown and Cunningham” with special guest Paul Taylor Dance Company. The…

Clarissa Rivera Dyas and ainlsey e. tharp. Photo by Hillary Goidell.   Barbeque Bacchanal: forever failing and the Perversion of AmericaBy Marlena Gittleman It started with hot dogs, grilled outside the performance venue and served for free. As the audience licked ketchup and mustard off their fingers, Clarissa Rivera Dyas and ainsley e. tharp came…

natalya janay shoaf. Photo by Brooke Anderson. A Bed of One’s Own in Flyaway Productions’ If I Give You My Sorrows By Garth Grimball Opposites attract. But opposition alone thwarts attraction. To attract, to synthesize into something unique and fecund demands an openness. Flyaway Productions’ If I Give You My Sorrows, performed Jan 31 –…

Left to right: SanSan Kwan, Chi Chi Chang, Johnny Cox, and Catalina O’Connor in "Convergence" by ChingChi Yu (March 2024). Image Description: Four dancers in a cluster in black costumes, looking upward with hands by their sternums. From Blog Director Jill Randall: Looking back at 2024, we covered 10 different projects on Life as a…

  Aviva Rose-Williams and Molly Rose-Williams. Photo by Hillary Goidell. Game Time Brings It By Sarah Genta Like boxers in their pre-match corner, Aviva and Molly Rose-Williams are commiserating and getting psyched. Aviva chops Molly’s shoulders, pats down her back, gluts, hips. They switch. It’s Aviva’s turn. Reciprocal psych. As folks trickle to their seats…

FACT/SF in "Extra." Photo by Robbie Sweeny. FACT/SF’s Summer Dance Festival Keeps The Conversation Going By Garth Grimball On the opening night of the second weekend of FACT/SF’s 5th annual Summer Dance Festival, artistic director Charles Slender-White spoke about the importance of dialogue as a mission for the festival. Dialogue between artists and artistic dialogue…

Josh Icban and Megan Lowe. Photo by Vita Hewett. Megan Lowe Dances Finds Partnership In Just A Shadow By Garth Grimball   Megan Lowe is prolific. In the past three years her company, Megan Lowe Dances, has produced or participated in 10 unique performances. On Friday night, Lowe and collaborators premiered Just A Shadow at…

Hollywood Texas. Photo by Sloane Kanter. Drag, Modern Dance, and REBIRTH By Garth Grimball “Since I don’t have any pee, will someone spit in my mouth instead?” performer Hollow Eve requested midway through REBIRTH: The Death of Drag. Fellow castmates obliged. On May 17-19 Oaklash celebrated its seventh year of bringing drag and queer performances…