covering the dance scene in the San Francisco Bay Area

September 8 , 2003

The Heartbreaking Strangeness
of Tere O'Connor

Tere O'Connor Dance
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Thursday, Sept 4 and Saturday Sept 6

reviewed by Ann Murphy

Last Thursday night, in the new International Arts Festival's opening dance salvo, Tere O'Connor Dance made its first Bay Area appearance. The company showed San Francisco what we've long been missing. Plenty of choreographers are dramatists, a few are essayists, and monologists are legion. The rarest are the poets, and New York's O'Connor is one of them. This bard of dance has a fairy tale take on modern, classical and vernacular movement that encapsulates a world of magic and darkness and shows us the heartbreaking strangeness of being human.

Winter Belly and Choke, the two works on Thursday's program established O'Connor up front as a choreographer of undiluted curiosity, wit, delicacy and a deep, almost woeful bitter sweetness. His dances have a beautiful, animal aliveness; they often make us laugh the way the physicality of Chaplin or Keaton does.

full article

Kids Only

Company C
Cowell Theater
September 5, 2003

reviewed by Rachel Howard

When can a children’s ballet charm grownups, too? When the music is as layered and complex as, say, Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.” Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale” also fits the bill, but although it was composed as a ballet in 1918 it is rarely performed as one. The fiendishly polyphonic music, for a small ensemble, is surprisingly folksy, danceable, and memorable if not downright catchy. Combine that with a dramatic reading of C.F. Ramuz’s rhymed story about a military man who sells his fiddle—and with it his soul—for corrupting knowledge, and you’ll have audiences of all ages paying attention.

Which is not too say that Charles Anderson’s new production, premiered at the Cowell Theater Friday, succeeds.

full article

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SEPT 9: WOMEN’S WORK SERIES
This week the bi-monthly showcase presents the HeartRhythms Drum Choir with Congolese dancers.
Sept. 9, 8pm, Venue 9, 252 Ninth St., San Francisco, (415) 289-2000, www.venue9.com.

SEPT 12-13: FAT CHANCE BELLY DANCE
”Musette Arabe,” American Tribal Style belly dance set to traditional Middle Eastern song and contemporary world fusion music, performed live by Helm and percussionist Tobias Roberson.
Sept. 12-13, 8pm, Sept. 13, 2:30pm, Magic Theater, Fort Mason Bldg. D, Buchanan and Marina Streets, San Francisco, (415) 431-4322, www.fcbd.com.

SEPT 12-13: HUCKABAY MCALLISTER DANCE
Emma Lou Huckabay and Jenny McAllister make a quirky choreographic pair. ”Tending to Mortal Needs,” an eclectic program of sensual, quirky, and humorous modern dances presents four premieres and three repertory works.
Sept. 12-13, 8pm, Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina and Buchanan St., San Francisco, (415) 345-7575, www.hmdance.org.

SEPT 12-14: ELVEL AND AL-CHUREK
Folk dancers, musicians and shaman elders of Central Asia perform centuries-old rituals in “Ancestors of Siberia,” part of the SF World Music Festival.
Sept. 12, 8pm, Sept. 14, 3pm, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard St., San Francisco, (415) 978-2782, www.sfworldmusicfestival.org.

SEPT 12-14: FACING EAST DANCE AND MUSIC
Premiering Sue Li-Jue’s “Held So Close,” a multi-media dance work exploring the Angel Island detention of Chinese Americans.
Sept. 12-13, and 20, 8pm, Sept. 14 and 21, 2pm, McKenna Theater, SFSU, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco, (415) 338-2467, www.fedm.org.

SEPT 12-14: MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP
A world premiere set to Bartok; Morris’s recently premiered solo to music by Lou Harrison; “Going Away Party,” set to Bob Willis and his Texas Playboys;” and “Grand Duo.”
Sept. 12-13, 8pm, Sept. 14, 3pm, Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave., Berkeley, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu.

SEPT 12-14: MARY CARBONARA DANCES
This very promising young company, led by a veteran performer of the SF scene, presents a second annual season, “Children’s Stories,” with live music by Carbonara’s longtime collaborator Peter V. Swendsen. Margaret Jenkins Dance Company member Heidi Schweiker contributes a work.
Sept. 12-13, 8pm, Sept. 14, 7pm, Dance Mission, 3316 24th St. (at Mission), San Francisco, (415) 273-4633.

SEPT 12-14: OAKLAND BALLET
Oakland Ballet has begun a profound transformation in recent years, which makes every program a cliffhanger. Artistic director Karen Brown opens her third season at the helm with the world premiere of Michael Lowe’s “Double Happiness,” featuring the same live musicians, Melody of China, that helped make his “Bamboo” such a success. Also on the program: the company premiere of Robert Garland’s “Joplin Dances,” and works by Balanchine and Francesca Harper.
Sept. 12-13, 8pm, Sept. 14, 2pm, Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland, (510) 625-8497, www.oaklandballet.org.

SEPT 13: WILL POWER
The Bay Area Hip Hop Theater Festival, the San Francisco International Arts Festival, and AfroSolo come together to premiere “Flow,” a tale of seven storytellers surviving a world of urban pitfalls. Robert Moses choreographs, Danny Hoch, and DJ Reborn provides the music.
Sept. 13, 8pm, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, 701 Mission St., San Francisco, (415) 978-2787, www.yerbabuenaarts.org.

SEPT 14: HIP HOP THEATER JUNCTION
The Bay Area Hip Hop Theater Festival presents “Rhyme-Deferred,” a modern day spin on the story of Cain and Abel directed by Kamilah Forbes.
Sept. 14, 8pm, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, 701 Mission St., San Francisco, (415) 978-2787, www.yerbabuenaarts.org.
—Rachel Howard

Calendar Listings source courtesy of IN DANCE, a FREE monthly publication of Dancers' Group at http://www.dancersgroup.org

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