Interestin SFAI Talks

All lectures are held on Fridays at 5:00pm in the SFAI Lecture Hall on the 800 Chestnut Street campus and are free and open to the public (unless otherwise noted).

Friday, November 13 — 5:00pm
Charles Atlas
“Video In and As Performance”

Since the mid-1970s, Charles Atlas has been working as a film and video artist in various mediums: multichannel video installations, feature-length documentaries, video artworks for television, live electronic performances, and pioneering media/dance works. He has collaborated with such choreographers/dancers as Michael Clark, Merce Cunningham, and Douglas Dunn, and with such performers as Marina Abramović, Leigh Bowery, and Diamanda Galás. In 2006, a selection of film and video works was screened in a retrospective at the Tate Modern in London. In 2009, he collaborated with Mika Tajima/New Humans and Judith Butler on Today Is Not a Rehearsal at SFMOMA. Venues at which his work has been exhibited include the Whitney Museum of American Art and MoMA in New York City; and the Musée National d’Art Moderne collection at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Atlas has received three Bessie Awards and was the recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Art’s biennial John Cage Award in 2006.

Friday, November 20 — 5:00pm
Yvonne Rainer
“One Day When I Was Growing Up in the 60s . . . ”

Distinguished Professor in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine, Yvonne Rainer began her career in the arts, in the 50s, as a dancer and choreographer. In the early 70s, after nearly twenty years working in modern dance, she turned her attentions to filmmaking. Over the subsequent twenty-five years, she made seven experimental feature films, including Lives of Performers (1972), Privilege (1990) (see below), and MURDER and murder (1996). Encouraged by a commission from the Baryshnikov Dance Foundation, she returned to choreography in 2000 for the White Oak Dance Project. Recent work includes choreography on AG Indexical, with a little help from H.M. (a revision of Balanchine’s Agon), on RoS Indexical (a revision of Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring), and on Spiraling Down (a meditation on soccer, aging, and war), as well as a video installation for a traveling solo exhibition comprising dance and texts that touch on art and politics in fin-de-siècle Vienna. Rainer published a memoir, Feelings Are Facts: A Life, in 2006.

Saturday and Sunday, November 21 and 22 — 7:30pm
Film Screenings: Journeys from Berlin/1971 (Nov. 21) and Privilege (Nov. 22)
Yvonne Rainer (director), in person

Conveying with wit and inventiveness the personal implications of sociopolitical issues, the films of Yvonne Rainer (who will be present at both screenings) interweave narrative and non-narrative elements, blur the line between fact and fiction, deconstruct cinematic conventions, and expand upon the immediacy, corporeality, and emotional complexity of her dance and performance work. Journeys from Berlin/1971 (1980) is a groundbreaking exploration, both personal and political, of psychiatry, feminism, terrorism, and power. Privilege (1990) takes on the rarely explored subject of menopause and constructs a witty, complex critique of empowerment and class by delving into issues of age, sexuality, and race. Both films are presented in conjunction with San Francisco Cinematheque (www.sfcinematheque.org). Admission: general public—$10.00; San Francisco Cinematheque members—$5.00; SFAI students, faculty, and staff—free.

Jess Curtis and Maria Scaroni: The Symmetry Project, Study #19

The Symmetry Project – Study #19: solo medi(t)ations/intersections

Sept. 22-23 2009 6:00 -10:00 pm

Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia Street, San Francisco

Gravity presents

Maria F. Scaroni and Jess Curtis
In a new installation work

After sold out performances of Symmetry Study #14 in March 2009 at CounterPULSE and Symmetry Study #17, Transmission, a Union Square site-specific community installation for the San Francisco International Arts Festival, Gravity returns with a gallery based “live-art” installation, The Symmetry Project – Study #19: solo medi(t)ations/intersections. Debuting at Intersection for the Arts on September 22nd and 23rd for four hours each day, The Symmetry Project – Study #19 is the newest work in a celebrated series of sparse, otherworldly movement pieces by choreographer/ performers Maria Francesca Scaroni and Jess Curtis.

The medi(t)ators: Two naked bodies, one male, one female, with and without fur jackets, negotiating perception and exposure moment-by-moment, and reclaiming through their physical presence a symbolic, broad meaning of their organs and parts.

Scaroni and Curtis take their physically based art form out of a traditional theatrical context into an art gallery as a live-art installation, thus affording viewers the ability to see the body and its metaphorical possibilities through different filters, durations of time, and points-of-view, each informed by the visitors’ own bodies within the gallery.

Study #19/ solo medi(t)ations/intersections : An intimate ritual of the everyday. Symmetrically inhabiting the gallery space at Intersection for the Arts for 4 straight hours on two consecutive days, Scaroni and Curtis improvise individual and intersecting itineraries, medi(t)ating on the external inputs and internal impulses inherent to bodies in space and time, while constrained by the self-imposed rule of symmetrical movement.

The Symmetry Project is a journey through perception. Two naked bodies interact through a highly structured improvisational score, constricted by a specific physical practice; that of moving symmetrically, relative to themselves or to each other. Constrained to a physical practice, a constructed space of temporary “habitus”, the performers bodies continually tune and adjust their frequency, reformulating the perception of the self and of the other. In the sharing of a central axis, spine, mouth, genitals, face, and anus, performers Scaroni and Curtis reveal their interconnectedness and centrality in embodied experience. Through exposing the body’s awkwardness, its monstrosity, its potential failure and finiteness, The Symmetry Project – Study #19 creates a space for visitors to experience the possibility of the unknown, the wondrous, and the ecstatic.

Come any time stay as long as you want.

Bill T. Jones

Check out this NY Times article on Bill T. Jones’ newest work, Fondly Do We Hope…Fervently Do We Pray.

Bill T. Jones Salutes His Friend Lincoln

Several DSWG members saw Bill discuss this work at Yerba Buena last May. He will return with his company for the west coast premiere of Fondly Do We Hope… October 1-3 at Yerba Buena Center for the Performing Arts.

Workshop with Sima in Berkeley

SUNDAYS in SEPTEMBER
a 3-class series in ADVANCED MODERN
with Sima Belmar
September 13, 20 & 27
10 – 11:30 AM

This 3­ class series  is  for  advanced  dancers interested  in  exploring
ideas about perception, performance, language, memory, and action
through choreographed movement. The structure of the classes will
follow  a  fairly  traditional modern  dance  technique class  ­­  full­body
warm­up, floor and standing exercises, lots of choreography  ­­ with
theoretical  concepts  drawn  from  philosophies  of  mind  and  somatic
practices threaded throughout. Questions of how to ”be present,” literal
and figural (or metaphysical) mechanics, seeing and being seen, non­
doing, relationality and spatiality will be addressed as we dance. The
object of the series is to invite the technically built­up dancer to break
down hard won habits in order to awaken to the affordances of space,
time, and being­related; in other words, to dance with more choices.

PRE­REGISTRATION REQUESTED. Students may attend 1, 2 or all 3 classes. There are several registration options:

  I will attend all 3 sessions for the discounted rate of $30 for the series; enclosed is my check (or cash in person)

  I will attend on the dates circled below and pay the $13/class drop­in rate or use my class card

September 13    September 20    September 27
Name ___________________________________________________________________________________
Address _________________________________________________________________________________
Phone __________________________ E­mail __________________________________________________

Return this form with your payment of $30 for the 3-class series or choice of dates you will attend.
(If you plan to use your class card or pay the drop in, you still need to RSVP by returning this form to us.)
Shawl-Anderson Dance Center  2704 Alcatraz Ave  Berkeley, CA 94705
(510) 654-5921     www.shawl-anderson.org

Born and raised in Brooklyn, SIMA BELMAR is currently a PhD student in Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley,  where  she  is working  at  the  intersection  of  contemporary  dance  disciplinary  practice,  postmodern choreography,  somatic  practice  (especially  The  Alexander  Technique),  performance  theory,  and  phenomenology.  Her theoretical  influences  include  Mark  Franko, Shannon Jackson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Peggy Phelan; her practical influences include Jeffrey Bihr, Nina Haft, Randee Paufve, and Shelley Senter. In her dance classes, Sima seeks to expose the circuit that runs between technical dance training and theoretical   issues surrounding “seeing and being seen,” breath, language, contact, memory, and history, as well as to create a space where dancers  open up their options for choreography and performance. Sima wrote about dance for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Dance Magazine,  In Dance, Dance Teacher, and other publications for over a decade, and received her MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in 2003.

SHAWL­ANDERSON DANCE CENTER provides Bay Area dance students of all ages and levels with high caliber training in both contemporary
and traditional movement forms in a welcoming, non­competitive environment. The Center is a non­profit organization founded in 1958 by Frank Shawl & Victor Anderson and is committed to nurturing and mentoring the growth of dancers and choreographers; cultivating a healthy and
supportive atmosphere for expression; sustaining traditions essential to excellence in the field; and, fostering the evolution of the art of dance.

Free Dance at the SF Conservatory of Dance

SF Conservatory of Dance
Dancemakers' Forum
-A series of free Sunday workshops & showings of works-in progress to 
familiarize dancers and dance lovers with innovative
dance companies, hosted by the San Francisco Conservatory of
Dance

The Fall 2009 series will feature:

 > AXIS Dance Company 
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102685215153&s=304&e=001d4chjSiI4IbondyFs-yruXjZZ--NhuD-ZxnTJITukZTRmYQ5UOn425qeFVsGbZ3VAD202oat1AoL2D-LvxkKcKnY4QUgiXn0haCW3vj5XamDryLvpcep2Q==>
   Judith Smith, artistic director
   September 13

 Dandelion Dancetheater 
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102685215153&s=304&e=001d4chjSiI4IZ_MJeliZ90TuOXFMUdZlt1zHoS5b_8_uZgoDRLrRF9M5fOYNhVxJaWaJ2BjOF5E3sBFt1PTh633SLyUT14wLcJk69ITkUriSrD1YjB4oSzWFVDKMAQQR9GQ7nCkaZgBRU=>
    Eric Kupers & Kimiko Guthrie, co-artistic directors
    October 11

 inkBoat 
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    Shinichi Iova-Koga, artistic director
    November 15

The Foundry 
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102685215153&s=304&e=001d4chjSiI4IYgYikDxS6hDHnDT1je_NCtPWLoveVkstyzWv1erwheH5Hl3CHopay5bLXoTg3cGGDTJNZ3HhyZxalBfBaVhSsqWdOmDIz-ktGj2Ft4DuWf7Q==>
    Alex Ketley & Christian Burns, co-artistic directors
    December 13

Workshops: 2:00 to 3:45 pm
Showings: 4:00 to 5:00 pm

These free Sunday events will begin with a workshop conducted by the 
guest company, open to dancers of all disciplines, followed by a 1-hour 
showing of the company's work, open to both dancers and non-dancers. The 
afternoons will conclude with an informal chat/Q&A session and reception 
with complimentary light refreshments, wrapping up at 5:30pm.

Participants are welcome to attend the workshop, the showing, or both. 
Pre-register by email <mailto:julia@sfconservatoryofdance.org> or 
register in-person at least 15 minutes before the event (Please note: 
each workshop and showing is open to the first 30 registrants)

All events will take place at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance,
301 Eighth Street 
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102685215153&s=304&e=001d4chjSiI4Ib8jUcOJCfik_DqBGFUKpnxVmX6jvr-_uCrVGLmMi5u1KOLSy_mp_b2tq2S35TTdW6kQP9lv8aX7mZfaA7IEptwROMnY5Is9G6nK7hSnFgfejIYJjQfnupQOEOySWRShvX7DULezwD00gJ3eSEu4Ezx>(x

Folsom).

For more information contact Julia Hollas
Julia@SFconservatoryofDance.org <mailto:julia@sfconservatoryofdance.org>
415-640-7009
San Francisco Conservatory of Dance 
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102685215153&s=304&e=001d4chjSiI4IYwI7nctw4QNY-Hhl3jFlhJXl_UB4CKPAmRN-3GDRJxIk-IOCKesyv43Pw9rv-z1iQ0mjba1avcWq_XPgUmYnpYpd9bUBR2lfRTQW1q-OWh2HMLuDvG-YpV>

Some UCB Freebies

Bill Viola Events

“The Movement in the Moving Image” 7:00pm Monday, Sept 28 2009 Sibley Auditorium

Discussion with Bill Viola 4:00pm Tuesday, September 29 2009 Location TBD

Berkeley Center for New Media Arts, Technology and Culture Colloquium

Monthly Mondays at 7:00pm Location varies with each event. This year’s artists include Mark Hosler, Camille Utterback, Candice Breitz, Ben Rubin, Mark Tribe, David Harrington, Joe McKay, Shari Frilot, Leo Villareal, Anne Walsh and Chris Kubick, and Eugene Thacker. See link for more details.

Check out MILKBAR this Friday!

http://milkbar.org/

This is Mary’s performance series and Ashley is performing. Please come!