Greetings 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/
