About the Series / Land Acknowledgement / Program / Bios / Thank You / Support
RAWdance Co-Artistic Directors & Hosts: Wendy Rein, Ryan T. Smith, & Katerina Wong
CONCEPT series Coordinator & Co-Curator: Megan Kurashige
RAWdance Program Manager: Aiyana D’Arcangelo
DJ: DJ Willie Adams
Live Captioning provided by Captioning Star
About the CONCEPT series
The CONCEPT series is a modern-day salon that shares innovative contemporary dance with an intimate vibe. After 14 years of live performances at San Francisco venues, this is the second time the series will be presented in a digital format, creating a platform for artists working with dances for camera.
We curate the series by artist, not by piece, to allow choreographers the flexibility to share whatever they’re working on at any point along the creative process. What’s important to us as curators is to offer a low-risk platform for testing out ideas in front of a live audience. Since 2007, the CONCEPT series has presented over 125 artists and helped shape the trajectory of countless new works.
Voted Best Way to Sample SF’s Contemporary Dance Scene in SF Weekly, one reviewer wrote “Dance aficionados and newbies find plenty to like in this semi-regular series […] You pay what you can to enter. There’s food. And the work is really good.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Land Acknowledgement
It is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that RAWdance’s home base is located in Yelamu, also known as San Francisco, on the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone people, who have continuously lived upon this land since time immemorial. RAWdance’s East Coast branch is situated in Lenapehoking, the ancestral home of the Munsee Lenape and Esopus peoples. We ask you to join us in acknowledging the Ramaytush Ohlone and Munsee Lenape communities, their elders both past and present, as well as future generations and encourage you to learn more about the land where you reside at NATIVE-LAND.CA. To take direct action towards rematriation (returning Indigenous land to Indigenous people), we also encourage everyone to seek out and participate in regional land reparation efforts such as the Bay Area’s Shuumi Land Tax.
Program
Fullstop Dance
Untitled (work-in-progress)
Choreography: Kathryn Florez, in collaboration with the performers
Performance: Claire Fisher, Kathryn Florez, & Katie Meyers
Videography & Editing: Marcus Mendez
Music: Mike Kilkenny-Patrick
Location: Jess Bullock & Eric Gordon
Thank you to Jess Bullock and Eric Gordon for providing the space to film. We’d also like to recognize SAFEhouse Arts, where ideas for this work were originally conceived in March 2020. Fullstop Dance is a fiscally sponsored project of Dancers’ Group.
Call It Art
a conversation (premiere)
Choreography: an improvisation by Kyle Limin
Performance: Kyle Limin (dancer) & Colin Fong (friend)
Videography & Editing: Kyle Limin
Erin Chih-Fang Yen
Back Too (premiere)
Choreography, Performance, & Editing: Erin Chih-Fang Yen
Videography: Ryan Treacy
Music: Erin Yen (feat. samples from Dean Martin & Magic Mountain High)
The exploration continues! How have you adapted to moving at home?
Gabriel Christian
the beaten path I (work-in-progress)
Choreography, Performance, Text, & Editing: Gabriel Christian
Videography: Esco Passalacqua
Music: Lamin Fofana, “Blues”
I hope you’ll truly ask yourself: What do we do with this country’s old monuments? And do we replace them?
Claire Deane / A-Y/dancers
ClaireFIT (a character study) (premiere)
Choreography & Performance: Claire Deane
Music: Composed and performed by Harrison Manning, inspired by music by Los Del Rio
Ryan T. Smith & Wendy Rein / RAWdance
Ember (premiere)
Direction, Choreography, Videography, & Performance: Wendy Rein & Ryan T. Smith
Editing: Ryan T. Smith
Music: MIT Symphony Orchestra
Katerina Wong / RAWdance
Slipping Sand (premiere)
Direction, Choreography, Performance, & Editing: Katerina Wong
Videography: Dennis Zollo
Music: Daniel Birch, Blue Dot Sessions, & Ketsa
Dance Party!
After the films, we’ll all dance our hearts out together! If you’re feeling shy, feel free to turn off your camera. Otherwise kick your shoes off (if you’re wearing any) and we’ll all share the spotlight together as we get down with DJ Willie Adams.
Bios
Gabriel Christian is an american artist specializing in experimental choreography, high dramatics, social practice, and poetics. For more than ten years, their work has metabolized the vernaculars within the BlaQ (Black+Queer) diaspora—futurity, afrovivalism, slippage—through body-based live stage or public space performances, collaborations, and digital interventions on their IG: @doom_body. At the heart of all of their work, they strive to center oral tradition and movement as conduits for equitable conversations around belonging, spirit, abundance, and care.
Claire Deane is the director of the Hudson Valley-based repertory company A-Y/dancers. With A-Y, Claire has performed works by Merce Cunningham, Doug Varone, and Hannah Garner. In her solo work, Claire explores humor, narration, Western pedagogical forms and the pop culture cannon to connect with audiences. aydancers.com / @qlurdeane / @aydancers
Claire Fisher grew up in Tracy, California. She received a majority of her training from Alonzo King LINES Ballet, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and Northwest Dance Project. Residing in San Francisco, Claire is currently a freelance dancer and has appeared in works and collaborations with Fullstop Dance, Liv Schaffer, Hayley Bowman, Brannigan Dance Works, dazaun.dance, and The MoveMessenger(s).
Kathryn Florez trained at the SF Conservatory of Dance under Summer Lee Rhatigan. She founded Fullstop Dance in 2015 and has since presented work at ODC Theater, Palace of Fine Arts, Cowell Theater, and others. Katie’s choreography and teaching have been commissioned by The Merde Project, TWObigsteps (Vancouver), SALT Dance’s Link Program (SLC), ODC’s Hot Spot, and Shawl Anderson Dance Center. She’s currently an Artist-in-Residence at Berkeley Ballet Theater and is working with David Herrera Performance Company. fullstopdance.com
Kyle Limin is an educator, choreographer, and performing artist with a focus on contemporary and hip hop dance. He continues to contribute over a decade’s worth of work to his hometown, San Francisco, and the greater Bay Area. He directs his own company, Call It Art, and teaches at Alonzo King LINES Ballet, City Dance Studios, and Dance Mission Theater. In addition, he teaches in schools ranging from elementary to university level. @graykiddo
Katie Meyers trained at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance under the direction of Summer Lee Rhatigan. Currently she works with Alex Ketley’s The Foundry, The Invisible People Dance Project, and Kathryn Florez’s Fullstop Dance. She also teaches at Marin Ballet and Marin Dance Theater. Katie is grateful to Fullstop’s continued movement throughout the pandemic and is looking forward to being involved with RAWdance’s CONCEPT series!
A native New Yorker, Wendy Rein has been dancing and breaking furniture since age 3. With a BA from Brown University, she worked with Misnomer Dance Theater before moving to San Francisco, where she co-founded RAWdance and had the privilege of performing with artists such as Amy Seiwert, Deborah Slater, Alma Esperanza Cunningham, Nancy Karp, Mary Carbonara, and others. She also worked for many years on a series of dance film projects with RJ Muna. Since RAWdance expanded to NY’s Hudson Valley in 2019, Wendy has been absorbing and dancing in her new wild surroundings. @_rawdance
Ryan T. Smith received his BA in Theatre Arts and French Literature from Brown University before moving to San Francisco. Ryan had the opportunity to work with many Bay Area artists such as Alma Esperanza Cunningham, Stephen Pelton, and Amy Seiwert, and was a member of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company for 11 years, participating in large scale international collaborations with artists and organizations in Kochin, Kolkata, Guangzhou, and Jerusalem. A Co-Founder of RAWdance, he has served as Co-Artistic Director since 2004, shifting from the Bay Area to New York’s Hudson Valley in 2019. @_rawdance
Katerina (Katie) Wong has performed with over 15 Bay Area dance companies since graduating from Princeton University and moving west, including RAWdance, Printz Dance Project, PUSH Dance Company, LEVYdance, Concept o4, and the San Francisco Symphony. Katie’s choreography has been commissioned by PUSH Dance Company, Pop-Up Magazine, FACT/SF, Cutting Ball Theater, California Academy of Sciences, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and ACLU of Northern California. After a long history with the organization, Katie stepped into a new Co-Artistic Director role with RAWdance in 2019. @_rawdance / katerinawong.com / @katerinawong
Erin Chih-Fang Yen investigates self and ‘other’ in a growing age of technology. She holds a BFA from The Ohio State University, where she became fluent with Laban’s Systems of Movement Analysis. She was the first to use “Labanotation” to document Doug Varone’s work Possession (’94). Erin has danced with companies such as Alvin Ailey and BalletMet, and she has performed works by artists such as Ohad Naharin, Bebe Miller, and Johannes Weiland. @echo_ecy
Special thanks!
To our guest artists Erin, Gabriel, Kathryn, Kyle, and Claire for their artistry and for venturing with us into our second digital CONCEPT series. To Megan in her role as co-curator and for her help in putting together every CONCEPT series. And for making the series possible, thanks to Aiyana, Dennis, Marc, Evelyn, Jasmine, our board, and all of you!
Support
The CONCEPT series is made possible through the generosity of ticket buyers and donors. Thank you so much for your contribution to the series and to our guest artists!
RAWdance is supported in part by the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation and Grants for the Arts.