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.

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/

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.

* * * * * * * *

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

* * * * * * * * *
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/

* * * * * * * * *
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

We hope you have all had a wonderful summer and wish to extend a warm welcome back! Please join us for the opening meeting of DSWG and what promises to be a year of groundbreaking adventures in dance scholarship and artistic practice. We would like to express our gratitude to last year’s coordinators, Ashley, Sima and Mary, for all of their valuable contributions to the growth of DSWG. In our newly assumed positions, we hope to bring diverse and crucial perspectives on dance, performance, practice and scholarship and very much look forward to getting to know all of you better. In the meantime, allow us to briefly introduce ourselves.

Naomi Elizabeth Bragin: 1st year PhD student in Theater, Dance & Performance Studies, UC Berkeley (BA Dance, Wesleyan University; MA Folklore, UC Berkeley). Naomi is a dancer, choreographer, educator and scholar. She researches the roots of hip-hop during the Bay Area’s Funk and Black Power Eras, considering how political/politicized movements link with local movement aesthetics, to corporealize experiences of solidarity and liberation. Her style is informed by house, waaking, hip-hop and Afro-Caribbean dance.

Heather Rastovac: 2nd year PhD student in Theater, Dance & Performance Studies, UC Berkeley (BA Persian language, Anthropology and Dance, University of Washington). Heather is a dancer, choreographer, artistic director and scholar. Her research interests include the history and position of dance in the Iranian cultural sphere, post-1979 Revolution aesthetics in Iran and the Iranian diaspora, and the role of Persian poetry in Iranian performance arts. She is particularly interested in contemporary Iranian experimental and multi-media performances, how they shape Iranian dance aesthetics, and their relationships to the state, transnationalism and globalism.

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Fall 2010 DSWG CALENDAR

September Meeting: Popping and Other Dis/Appearing Acts
Monday, September 13, 2010
6 – 8 PM
126 Dwinelle

For our first meeting, DSWG Coordinator and incoming PhD student Naomi Bragin will discuss her research, in preparation for her panel presentation at Show & Prove, a hip-hop studies symposium taking place at the Department of Performance Studies at NYU later in the month. In addition to continuing the flow of feedback and engagement within DSWG, we believe this is an excellent opportunity for us as new coordinators to orient you to our research on a deeper level.

Conference information:
Show & Prove: The Tensions, Contradictions and Possibilities of Hip-Hop Studies in Practice
September 18-19, 2010
Department of Performance Studies at New York University
http://www.nyu.edu/life/student-life/diversity-at-nyu/multicultural-educationandprograms/show-and-prove.html

September Event: Corporeal Nationalisms: Dance and the State in East Asia
September 10-12, 2010
370 Dwinelle, UC Berkeley campus
Free and open to the public!

Corporeal Nationalisms: Dance and the State in East Asia will convene an interdisciplinary and transnational community of scholars to investigate through analysis and practice the significance and power of dance and its relationship to the state and the nation in contemporary East Asia. Following a practice as research approach, we will integrate scholarly/performative papers, roundtables, movement workshops, and dance on film screenings into a coherent intellectual event, held over the weekend of September 10-12, 2010, at UC Berkeley. The conference calls for critical conversations within and between the different cultural and political entities of contemporary East Asia, including Japan, the People’s Republic of China, South and North Korea, and Taiwan.

For more details:
http://eventful.com/berkeley/events/corporeal-nationalisms-dance-and-state-east-asia-/E0-001-032809737-4

The Conference is currently looking for volunteers. If interested, please contact: Emily Wilcox (eewilcox@berkeley.edu)

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October Meeting: date, time and speaker TBA
October Event: Sins Invalid (5th annual performance)
“Sins Invalid celebrates the power of embodiment and sexuality, stripping taboos off sexuality and disability to offer a vision of beauty that includes all bodies and communities.”
Friday, October 8th, 8 PM
Saturday, October 9th, 8 PM (ASL interpreted and Audio described)
Sunday, October 10th, 7 PM
Z Space @ Theater Artaud
450 Florida Street, San Francisco, CA
2010 artists include: Aurora Levins Morales, Antoine Hunter, Leroy F. Moore Jr., Juba Kalamka, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Ellery Russian, Amal Kouttab, Pamela Greenberg, Tina D’Elia, Adrienne Krug, Todd Herman, seeley quest, Maria Palacios, Alex Cafarelli, Nomy Lamm, and Patty Berne.

Wheelchair accessible.
Buy tickets online or for cash at the door. $15 – $25 sliding scale; no one turned away for lack of funds.
Please note: Show contains explicit content
For more information, please visit: www.sinsinvalid.org

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November Meeting: date and time TBA.

Bay Area native Adia Tamer Whitaker will be presenting on her research and artistic process, as well as conducting a master class that explores connections between Afro-Haitian dance and hip-hop culture.

Adia Tamar Whitaker is one of the youngest professional choreographers and master teachers of Afro-Haitian folkloric dance in the United States. A former member of Blanche Brown’s Group Petit La Croix and Colette Eloi’s Reconnect, she has studied and performed Afro-Haitian dance in the U.S. and abroad for 13 years. Her artistic work focuses on neo-folklore of the African Diaspora, linking contemporary modern dance, original vernacular movement, and traditional dance theater. Recently Whitaker completed the first part of a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study grant in Ghana. Her new project combines dance, media and music inspired by “ampey,” a rhythmic game played by little girls in Ghana.

http://counterpulse.org/performing-diaspora/artists/adia-tamar-whitaker/
www.myspace.com/asedance

November Event: Performing Diaspora: Ampey!
Nov 11-21, 2010
Thurs-Sat at 8pm, Sun at 3pm
Tickets: Purchased online before 9/30 – $14 (Members $9)
Purchased online after 9/30 – $19 (Members $14)
Purchased at Door – $24 (Members $19)
“Ampey!” is a multidisciplinary theater, music and dance piece that explores the spiritual, emotional and physical disconnect between African-Americans and Continental Africans. Choreographed and written by performance artist Adia Tamar Whitaker, “Ampey!” breaks open the paradigms that each culture grasps onto in regards to identity and social construct.

For more information, please visit: http://counterpulse.org/performing-diaspora-adia-whitaker-ampey/

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December 2010

No DSWG meeting

Event: date and time TBA.

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DSWG Contact Information

E-mail: dswgberk@gmail.com

Please find details below on Jess’ thesis performance at UCDavis. The performance will be a wonderful continuation of the explorations that we began yesterday. Also, I will include details on the Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer visits that are happening this week!

Enjoy and I hope to see you all soon.
Ashley

Jess Curtis Fri-Sat, Feb 12-13 & 19-20, 8pm and Sun, Feb 21, 2pm “dances for non-finctional bodies” (excerpt) Vanderhoef Studio Theater, Mondavi Center UCDavis

Yvonne Rainer residency at Mills College Dance Department THIS Saturday, Jan 30. Details at www.mills.edu/academics/graduate/dnc

Trisha Brown exhibit at Mills College Art Museum. Lecture and performance THIS Wed, Jan 27 5:30-8pm. Performances Feb 2, 10 & 17 5:30pm.

Dear colleagues -
Find attached a postcard flier for the upcoming visit by Yvonne Rainer to Mills
College on January 30th. There is generous room for all who attend, so please feel
free to distribute this to friends, colleagues and students. No RSVP or
reservations necessary, and all levels of movement experience are welcome in the
Trio A “Teach-In”. Please feel free to contact me for any additional information.

We hope to see you -
Linda K.

Linda K. Johnson
Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance
Mills College
Richards Lodge, #103
lijohnson@mills.edu
510.430.3259