Greetings DSWG community, This month's "meetings" will take place in the form of a workshop and a demonstation. Sabar in the Studio Workshop: Sunday, October 23 at 1pm Demonstration: Thursday, October 27 at 4pm Bancroft Studio, UC Berkeley campus Join Cir Bye, expert in the Senegalese communal dance form known as Sabar, and Khadim Niang, noted Sabar drummer, in two unique events: Learn Sabar through a three-hour dance & drumming public workshop on October 23, then join Cir Bye on October 27 as he demonstrates and discusses this unique and beautiful collaboration between the dancer, the drummer, and the audience. Bye and Niang's performances are part of a three-week residency supported in part by the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts. Workshop participants limited to 40. Participants under 18 years of age need to bring a completed risk waiver form. Reserve Space by Email at lisawymore@berkeley.edu. Demonstration seating is first-come, first serve at the door. Be sure to arrive at least 1/2 hour in advance of the demonstration.
Archive for 2011|Yearly archive page
DSWG October events: Sabar in the Studio @ UC Berkeley
In Uncategorized on October 20, 2011 at 11:00 pmSept. Meeting with Prof. SanSan Kwan and Dancer/Choreographer Lenora Lee
In Uncategorized on September 19, 2011 at 4:31 amSeptember Meeting:
A special welcome to new TDPS faculty member, Professor SanSan Kwan;
A conversation with CounterPULSE artist-in-residence, Lenora Lee
Wednesday, September 21
6 – 8 PM
Dwinelle Annex Room 126, UC Berkeley campus
Join us in welcoming Professor SanSan Kwan to TDPS, DSWG and UC Berkeley! This evening’s meeting will feature Professor Kwan, who will discuss her research in Chinese diasporic performance. CounterPULSE artist-in-residence Lenora Lee will also join us and provide us the opportunity to ask questions about her work. This will be a great opportunity to learn about Professor Kwan’s exciting research and Lenora Lee’s intriguing artistic work.
DSWG Fall 2011 Schedule
In Uncategorized on September 2, 2011 at 6:36 amGreetings DSWG community,
Welcome to the 2011 – 2012 academic year! This semester’s DSWG schedule reflects the excitement circulating in our home department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley. DSWG would like to extend a warm welcome to our department’s newest faculty member, Professor SanSan Kwan, a scholar of dance and performance studies. We are honored to have her join us for the first meeting of the year and hope that you will take advantage of this great opportunity to get to know her and her research. Additionally, we are greatly anticipating the TDPS dance program’s artist-in-residence Company Jant Bi and Senegalese dancer/drummer Ciré Béye in October. These are but a few of the exciting things happening with DSWG this year!
Current DSWG organizers, graduate students Heather Rastovac and Naomi Bragin, and faculty advisor Lisa Wymore, would also like to welcome our new co-organizer; TDPS Ph.D. candidate Chia-Yi Seetoo. We look forward to Chia-Yi’s unique contributions to the group (please see her bio at the end of the e-mail).
We hope to see you all at our upcoming meetings and events. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions
Best wishes,
Heather, Naomi, Chia-Yi and Lisa
DSWG Fall 2011 Schedule:
September Performance:
CounterPULSE Summer 2011 Artists in Residence: FACT/SF & Lenora Lee Dance
Thursday – Sunday, September 8 -11, 8PM
*Post-show discussion on Saturday, September 10 – SOLD OUT – buy your tickets for other showings soon!
$20 At-the-Door, $15 Online (http://counterpulse.org)
1310 Mission Street @ 9th
San Francisco, CA 94103
Pretonically Oriented v.3 looks deeply at creative processes and products, proposing the creation of a dance work as a metaphor for the creation of identity. Formative experiences, statements of self, the rehearsal process, and performances are all juxtaposed to have a deeper look at what things are and how they came to be that way. Reflections explores the unraveling stories of three succeeding generations of Chinese men as they redefine themselves in the American context. Storytelling through movement, video projection, Chinese lion dance, and martial arts traces their experience after immigrating through Angel Island — creating community and sense of place as contemporary Chinese Americans.
September Meeting:
A special welcome to new TDPS faculty member, Professor SanSan Kwan;
A conversation with CounterPULSE artist-in-residence, Lenora Lee
Wednesday, September 21 (Date to be confirmed – please look out for confirmation e-mail)
6 – 8 PM
Dwinelle Annex Room 126, UC Berkeley campus
Join us in welcoming Professor SanSan Kwan to TDPS, DSWG and UC Berkeley! This evening’s meeting will feature Professor Kwan, who will discuss her research in Chinese diasporic performance. CounterPULSE artist-in-residence Lenora Lee will also join us and provide us the opportunity to ask questions about her work. This will be a great opportunity to learn about Professor Kwan’s exciting research and Lenora Lee’s intriguing artistic work.
October Workshop:
Senegalese dance tradition of Sabar with Company Jant Bi dancer/drummer Ciré Béye
Sunday, October 23
1 – 4 PM
Bancroft Studio (corner of Bancroft Way and Dana St.), UC Berkeley campus
Free and open to the public (space will be limited)
Join Ciré Béye, expert in the Senegalese communal dance form known as Sabar, and Khadim Niang, noted Sabar drummer for a three-hour dance & drumming public workshop. This event will be free and open to the public but space will be limited to 40 participants. Individuals may choose to participate or observe. In order to reserve space, please follow directions on this info link: http://tdps.berkeley.edu/productions-events/lectures-events/
October Performance:
A demonstration by TDPS artist-in-residence Company Jant Bi, Ciré Béye and Khadim Niang, Post-show reception sponsored by DSWG
Thursday, October 27
4 PM – Demonstration seating is first-come, first serve at the door. Be sure to arrive at least 1/2 hour in advance of the demonstration.
Bancroft Studio (corner of Bancroft Way and Dana St.), UC Berkeley campus
Free and open to the public.
http://tdps.berkeley.edu/productions-events/lectures-events/
Join Ciré Béye as he demonstrates and discusses the unique and beautiful collaboration between the dancer, the drummer, and the audience in the Senegalese communal dance form known as Sabar. There will be a post-show reception sponsored by DSWG.
November Performance:
Internationally acclaimed dancer, Shantala Shivalingappa, performs the Classical Indian dance form, Kuchipudi
Tuesday, November 1
8 PM
Herbst Theatre
401 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco
Tickets $50/$40/$35
http://sfperformances.org/performances/1112/Dance.shtml
Dancer/actor, Shantala Shivalingappa, has been the talk of the dance world for her gripping, precise and dramatic performances of Kuchipudi, a classical Indian dance form that dates back to the 3rd century BCE. Her works sparkle with the narrative universality of epic movement. She was a hit of the 2009–10 San Francisco Performances Dance Series and audiences have eagerly anticipated her return. This performance will also feature musicians from India.
http://www.shantalashivalingappa.com/
November Meeting:
A discussion led by Heather Rastovac and Chia-Yi Seetoo on selected passages from Worlding Dance (2009), an anthology edited by Susan Leigh Foster
Thursday, November 10 (Date to be confirmed – please look out for confirmation e-mail)
5 – 7 PM
Dwinelle Annex Room 126, UC Berkeley campus
In tandem with this month’s suggested performance of Classical Indian dance, this meeting will consist of a discussion led by graduate students Heather Rastovac and Chia-Yi Seetoo on selections from the anthology Worlding Dance. This volume of essays questions the processes of collection/classification of the world’s dance forms and the foundations upon which the terms ‘ethnic’ or ‘world’ dance were created.
December Performance:
Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts with John Crawford and Music by Ryan Smith
“otherworld (machine)”
Friday, December 2
7:30 PM
L@TE: Friday Nights @ BAM/PFA
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way
$7 general admission; Free for Cal students and BAM/PFA members
Tickets available at the door
As part of the Berkeley Art Museum’s L@TE: Friday Nights, TDPS’ own Lisa Wymore directs a performance involving layered real-time and pre-recorded video captured from across BAM/PFA and mixed live! ”otherworld (machine)” brings together multiple sites of production and multiplicities of bodies to create layered image collages. Inspired by Kurt Schwitter’s Merzbau, “otherworld (machine)” is a project that will be altered continuously, built upon, carved through, and ultimately never completed. Real time video files captured at two different sites are layered and edited simultaneously incorporating video effects that are material in nature. The performers are both live and pre-recorded, the material objects are both virtually produced and real in their prospective co-located spaces. The collage is created within multiple computers and can be viewed within the live performance spaces or from various viewing angles throughout the museum.
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*Please look out for DSWG’s Spring schedule in early January.
Also, please join us on our new online forum under the Townsend Digital Lab:
http://townsendlab.berkeley.edu/
In order to participate, click on the tab on the right: “Create account” and then search for us under “Projects.”
Chia-Yi Seetoo’s bio:
Chia-Yi’s research interests include contemporary dance, transnational performance, corporeality, translation, “Eastern Body” dance aesthetics, modern Chinese culture, and Chinese diaspora. Her dissertation discusses post-1980s modern dance from Taiwan as it corresponds with Chinese diasporic performance and fosters inter-Asian exchanges in relation to articulations of identity and in response to modernization and globalization. Her other interest in art practice has been in the intersection between dance and video art. She has made and performed in a number of intermedial video-dance works, presented at UC Berkeley and UC Riverside.
Dance Studies Working Group Description
DSWG was established in 2004 and became a Townsend Center Working Group in 2005. We consist of diverse communities working in the field of dance, including practicing artists, dance writers, critics, theorists, and Bay Area community members. For the past seven years we have been committed to the study of dance from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Our activities foster dialogue across disciplines, with many members belonging to more than one discipline. DSWG meets twice per month. Typically we view dance, or participate in movement workshops or open studios once a month. The second meeting varies in format and involves discussion around a specific set of texts and/or is an opportunity for graduate students to present and discuss their written research, often relating directly to the dance performance, workshop, or open lab experienced in that same month. A member of the group spearheads each meeting. This designated leader acts as facilitator and moderator for the discussion and often opens the meeting with a small lecture/presentation.
DSWG Contact and Social Media
E-mail: dswgberk@gmail.com
Blog: www.dswgberk.wordpress.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=22662077207&ref=ts
Townsend Digital Lab: http://townsendlab.berkeley.edu/
2011 – 2012 DSWG schedule update mid-August 2011.
In Uncategorized on July 7, 2011 at 10:15 pmStay tuned for our 2011 – 2012 DSWG schedule, which we will post in mid-August 2011. We have some exciting things planned!
DSWG Spring 2011 Schedule
In Uncategorized on January 19, 2011 at 6:20 amGreetings DSWG community,
Happy New Year! We hope you’ve had a lovely holiday season. We are excited about the new semester of Dance Studies Working Group meetings/events and though we are still in the process of solidifying some details, we wanted to give you all a sneak peak of how the schedule is unfolding. We hope to see you all at one of the meetings and/or events very soon!
Spring 2011 DSWG SCHEDULE
No January Meeting
January Event #1: Internationally renowned hip-hop choreographer, dancer, educator and black dance historian Dr. Rennie Harris – Two events at Stanford University.
Rennie Harris in Conversation
- Harris is joined by Stanford Drama faculty and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Harry Elam, whose scholarly work focuses on contemporary African American drama and performance.
The Aurora Forum at Stanford
Thursday, January 20, 2011
7:30 PM
Pigott Theater
This event is FREE
For more information: http://livelyarts.stanford.edu/event.php?code=AURO-X1
A towering figure in hip-hop, choreographer and dancer Rennie Harris is a pioneer in introducing his art form, which he perfected in the clubs and parties of his North Philadelphia home in the 1980sóto the national and international stage. With his nearly two-decades-old company, Rennie Harris Puremovement (RHPM), he has enthralled audiences the world over with the explosive power and uncanny precision of his choreography garnering three Bessie Awards, a Herb Alpert Award, and three Alvin Ailey Awards in the process. (On the theme of Ailey: The Los Angeles Times praised Harris’s full-length work Facing Mekka as arguably the greatest tribute to Black womanhood since Alvin Ailey’s Cry in 1971.) As Dance Magazine summed up Harris’s extraordinary impact on contemporary dance: Harris has crafted and transformed this street-smart, urban dance form into a complex, concert-stage product. Through his choreographic overhauls he has made theater dance history. Central to Harris’s work is the philosophy that, contrary to stereotypical (and often negative) portrayals of hip-hop in the commercial media, the art form has a unique ability to express universal themes that extend beyond racial, religious, and economic boundaries. To cultivate this message, Harris and RHPM have conducted lectures and seminars at universities and community centers nationwide.
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Rennie Harris Puremovement (Performance)
Saturday, January 22, 2011 | 3:00 pm, Family Matinee
Saturday, January 22, 2011 | 8:00 pm
Memorial Auditorium
POST-PERFORMANCE DISCUSSION following the 8:00 PM performance with Robert Moses and artists.
For more information: http://livelyarts.stanford.edu/event.php?code=RENN
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January Event # 2 – GUSH: Joe Goode Performance Group w/ AXIS Dance Company, and Ledoh / Salt Farm
Thursday – Saturday, January 13 – 29, 8 PM every night
Tickets: $15 – $35
Location: Brava Theater Center
2781 24th Street
SF, CA 94110
GUSH, Brava Theater Center’s inaugural dance-theater series, celebrates theatrical impulse and the desire to feel and express something in a big way. Curated by Joe Goode, it brings together artists and work that affect how we see the world. The three-weekend series includes Joe Goode Performance Group, AXIS Dance Company, and Ledoh / Salt Farm.
For more info: http://www.joegoode.org/
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January Event # 3 – Doing Dance Criticism – Panel Discussion
January 28 | 4 p.m. | Wheeler Hall, Maude Fife Room (315), UC Berkeley Campus
FREE and open to the public.
Four of the nation’s leading dance writers will discuss the roles and responsibilities of the critic and the changing nature of arts journalism.
Sarah Kaufman, dance critic for The Washington Post, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
Wendy Lesser, editor of The Threepenny Review, regularly writes about dance, music, and opera. She is the author of eight books, including The Amateur: An Independent Life in Letters and Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering.
John Rockwell, former dance critic, music critic, and editor of The New York Times Arts and Leisure section, is the board chairman of the National Arts Journalism Program.
Lewis Segal, formerly the staff dance critic for the Los Angeles Times, is a freelance arts writer based in Hollywood and Barcelona.
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February Meeting: A Discussion with Marten Spanberg, visiting artist from Sweden: contemporary choreographer, educator, and director of M.A. in Choreography at the University of Dance in Stockholm.
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
6 – 8 PM
126 Dwinelle Annex
UC Berkeley Campus
Mårten Spångberg is performance related artist living and working in Stockholm. His interests concern choreography in an expanded field, something that he has approached through experimental practices and creative process in multiplicity of formats and expressions. He has been active on stage as performer and creator since 1994, and has since 1999 created his own choreographies, from solos to larger scale works, which has toured internationally. As a writer, he has published texts in numerous magazines and books. He has thorough experience in teaching both theory and practice among other
places P.A.R.T.S, Ex.e.r.ce, ImpulsTanz, Univ. of Theater Stockholm. He’s influenced by Deleuze and actively engages Deleuzian ideas or problems in his performance and teaching.
February Event #1: A workshop for dance makers and thinkers with Swedish dance conceptualist & provocateur Mårten Spångberg
“Immateriality: Choreography as extended practice”
@ Kunst-Stoff Arts, 929 Market near 5th
Mon, Feb 13, 2-6pm, $10-20 sliding
To register: keith@circozero.org, 415.846.2273
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February Event #2: Black Choreographer’s Festival – Three weekends
Weekend #1:
February 11 & 12: BCF Concerts
February 13: Dance Conference and Youth Summit
Laney College Theater
900 Fallon Street, Oakland
Weekend #2:
February 17 – 20: BCF Concerts
ODC Theater
3153 17th Street @ Shotwell, SF
Weekend #3:
February 25 – 27: Next Wave Choreographers Showcase
Dance Mission Theater
3316 24th Street @ Mission, SF
For more information: http://bcfhereandnow.com/
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March Meeting: (Tentative) Lecture/Workshop with Rennie Harris on UC Berkeley campus
See above bio.
More details TBA.
March Event: Students for Hip Hop Symposium
Thursday, March 10th, evening on UC Berkeley campus
More details TBA.
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April Meeting and Event: Berkeley Dance Project 2011 “Stream” – Performances and Discussion with Artists
April 15, 16, 22, 23 at 8pm
April 17 at 2pm
Zellerbach Playhouse
UC Berkeley Campus
This year’s Berkeley Dance Project, directed by Lisa Wymore, is an exciting exploration into the world of technology. Guggenheim Fellow Ellen Bromberg and Lisa Wymore will present a new dance piece exploring the integration of media content with the moving body in performance; Peggy Hackney will utilize social media technology and dance notation in a multi-national, collaborative project on the politics and poetics of water; and Graduate student Hentyle Yapp will explore the effect of technology on movement and daily life.
DSWG will be arranging a discussion with the artists. More details TBA.
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May Meeting: Presentation by TDPS graduate student Heather Rastovac on Iranian dance to be presented at the International Conference “Dance/Body at the Crossroads” in Nicosia, Cyprus in June 2011. More specific topic, date and time TBA.
May Event: TBA
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DSWG Contact Information
email: dswgberk@gmail.com
