Co-Presented by RAWdance and ODC Theater
Land Acknowledgement / About “The Healer” / Bios / Special Thanks / About RAWdance / About ODC Theater / Upcoming Events
Choreography: Katerina Wong, with the performers
Performance: Michaela Cruze, Juliann Witt, Katerina Wong, and Stacey Yuen
Cinematography: Jenny Chu
Editing: Loren R. Robertson
Original Score: Daniel Berkman
Scenic Design: Chad Owens
Lighting Design: Del Medoff
Video produced by Loren Robertson Productions
Costume Coordination: Jhia Jackson
TCM Consultation: Shawna Seth
Text: Szuson Wong, Doctor of Energy Medicine
Guest Speakers: Rebecca KellyG, Shawna Seth, and Xan West
Q&A Moderator: Yutian Wong
Understudy Dancer: Katherine Disenhof
Public Relations: John Hill
Promotional Photography: Hillary Goidell and Chani Bockwinkel
Community Performers
(family, friends, mentors, and all around incredible women):
Suzy Acquisto, Alex Carrington, Katherine Disenhof, Julie Doupé, Cristina Ibarra, Amy Miller, Elizabeth Sheets Orcutt, Michelle Ramos, Wendy Rein, Arielle Tonkin, Becca Welna, Robin Wong, & Agnes Yoon
Digital Marketing Assistant: Jasmine Rivers
Caption Writer: Lidia Garman
Audio Describer: Rachael Dichter
This work is dedicated to Dr. Szuson Wong, a holistic healer and loving aunt.
Land Acknowledgement
We would like to acknowledge that ODC Theater and RAWdance’s home base are 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 Lenape homeland. 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.
About “The Healer”
The Healer is a holistic online experience and virtual dance performance. After months of isolation, anxiety, frustration, loss, grief, and uncertainty, The Healer creates space for personal reflection, communal breath, and universal release. Choreographed by Co-Artistic Director Katerina Wong in memory of her late aunt, Szuson Wong, The Healer mines the ancient history, systems, and beliefs of Traditional Chinese Medicine to magnify and marvel at humanity’s innate ability to overcome physical and emotional suffering
Prior to each live-streamed performance, a guest speaker will share insights into their healing practices, inviting us to ground ourselves and setting the stage for the performance. Each performance concludes with a live Q&A with artistic collaborators, moderated by Yutian Wong. The running time for the full presentation will be approximately 70 minutes.
Friday, January 29 at 6pm PT / 9pm ET
Pre-show Guest Speaker: Shawna Seth – An Intro to Traditional Chinese Medicine Themes + the Creative Process
Saturday, January 30 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET*
Pre-show Guest Speaker: Rebecca KellyG – A Sensory Soundscape on Growing through Discomfort
*Live Captioning and Audio Description services are available for this performance.
For d/Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing audience members, Live Captioning will be provided by CaptioningStar.
For blind and visually impaired audience members, RAWdance partners with Gravity Access Services to offer audio described versions of our videos. Audio description is an audio track spoken by a professional audio describer to audience members with visual impairments to provide clear and engaging descriptions of the meaningful visual details of a video.
Saturday, January 30 at 8pm PT / 11pm ET
Pre-show Guest Speaker: Xan West – Community Healing and Daily Meditation Practices
Bios
Daniel Berkman (Music Composition) is a Bay Area multi-instrumentalist, composer, electronic…
…musician, producer and innovator of electro-acoustic music. He has several acclaimed albums to his credit including film soundtracks, ballets, works for kora, cello, viola da gamba, guitar, keyboard instruments, ukelin, LyraVR and electronic music under his moniker Colfax. Daniel has been a composer and musical accompanist for the San Francisco dance community since 1998, working with Janice Garrett and Dancers, Lizz Roman and Dancers, Berkeley Ballet Theatre, Post:Ballet, ODC, San Francisco Ballet, and many others. DANIELBERKMAN.COM
Michaela Cruze (Performance) obtained her Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from Chapman University…
…in 2011. Upon graduation, Michaela apprenticed with Kolben Dance in Jerusalem, Israel. Michaela returned to the States in 2012 and moved to San Francisco. She has performed with Scott Wells, Christine Bonansea, and Detour Dance. She is a current company member of FACT/SF and LEVYdance. Michaela is also a personal trainer and small business owner. movewithmichaela.com / @michaelascruzen
Katherine Disenhof (Understudy Dancer) was born and raised in Mill Valley, California, where she studied…
…classical ballet at Marin Ballet. She graduated from Stanford University in 2012 with a BA in Human Biology and received the Louis Sudler Prize in the Performing and Creative Arts. Katherine was a Company Dancer with San Francisco’s Robert Moses’ Kin from 2013-2017 and with Portland’s NW Dance Project from 2017-2020, touring domestically and internationally with both companies. In 2012 she joined the staff of San Francisco’s Alonzo King LINES Ballet and currently serves as their Marketing Manager.
Jhia Jackson (Costume Coordination) is an artist, scholar, and organizer who regularly engages in…
…interdisciplinary projects. At the core of her practice is the belief that art and life are not distinct. She has performed with Movement of the People Dance Company, dNaga Dance for the World Parkinson Congress, Alexandra Pirici, and Epiphany Dance Theater among others. She is the founder of Emerging Black Bay Artists, a Joe Goode Co-Production artist, and a doctoral candidate in sociology at UCSF.
Rebecca KellyG (Guest Speaker) is an Equity and Justice facilitator/consultant, interdisciplinary artist, and former…
… civil rights attorney committed to fostering self-care for collective justice. Founder of Rebecca KellyG Consulting, her practice is rooted in anti-racism and centers on working with creative communities to heal from internalized oppression and move culture and institutional practices toward equity. Select speaking appearances include The United State of Women, Lincoln Center Theatre-LCT3, and The Broadway Advocacy Coalition. She holds such honors as The Diversity and International Action Council Adjunct Professor Award for Diversity and Inclusion from Wagner College and the George N. Lindsay Civil Rights Legal Fellow with The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Her artistic and equity work has been included in The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Black Girl Magik, and the Every Woman Biennial NYC. For more information on Rebecca, please visit her website REBECCAKELLYG.COM or follow her on Instagram at @REBECCAKELLY_G
Del Medoff (Lighting Design) is an Oakland-based lighting designer/technician who has designed for…
…dozens of Bay Area companies including Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, Deborah Slater Dance Theater, Christy Funsch, Peiling Kao, Sharp and Fine, 13th Floor Dance Theater, Bellweather Dance, and many more. He has always felt strongly connected to dance and is grateful to the community for giving him a home. You can’t have a light without a dark to stick it in. – Arlo Guthrie
Chad Owens (Scenic Design) has created original staged designs for more than 100 productions, for…
… companies including Washington National Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Cal Performances, Aurora Theatre, and West Edge Opera. Set Design and Art Direction for film include Blue Jasmine, Milk (Oscar and Art Director’s Guild noms for best production design), Chasing Mavericks, Haywire, The Pursuit of Happyness (sic), The Wild, Haiku Tunnel, Woman on Top, and Bunraku. Owens has also worked extensively as an Art Director for TV, and an Associate Designer on Broadway. He is based in Oakland.
Shawna Seth, L.Ac. (Guest Speaker) is a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist trained at…
…the Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College in Berkeley. She ran her own practice in San Francisco using gentle traditional Japanese and Chinese methods to help patients regulate their cycles, prepare for pregnancy, and thrive and recover postpartum. While preparing for her second masters as a physician assistant, Shawna applies her creativity to dance consulting and lightsaber choreography. SHAWNASETH.COM or Instagram @ACUPPAQI
Xan West (Guest Speaker) is the Executive Director of OneLife Institute for Spirituality & Social Change…
… which provides healing justice for marginalized communities through retreats, classes, and workshops. She is also a preacher of Black Lives Matter and other millennial liberation theologies, a teacher of direct action, and a grassroots organizer. Proud to have been born & raised in Oakland, Xan has over 20 years of experience in social justice movement work, mostly related to police accountability, queer rights, and community healing. She is a Black queer femme and most importantly a mama to her toddler, Glory. ONELIFEINSTITUTE.ORG
Juliann Witt (Performance) was born in Marin and began dancing at the age of three…
As a young dancer she trained at the California Academy of Performing Arts and attended summer programs with American Ballet Theatre and Alonzo King LINES Ballet. Juliann received her BFA in Dance Performance from SUNY Purchase and performed briefly in NYC post graduation. Since returning to the Bay Area she has had the pleasure of dancing with many great artists and companies including DTSF, Nol Simonse, Bellwether Dance Project, Dexandro “D” Montalvo, Fullstop Dance, Robert Moses’ Kin, Liv Schaffer, Concept o4, and the San Francisco Symphony. She has been a member of RAWdance since 2018, and is incredibly grateful to have participated in numerous performances with these incredible artists!
Katerina (Katie) Wong (Choreography/Performance) 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, FACT/SF, Cutting Ball Theater, California Academy of Sciences, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, and ACLU of Northern California. In 2017, she was the first dance artist to tour nationally with Pop-Up Magazine, which culminated in a performance at Lincoln Center. She is a 2019 Dance/USA Institute for Leadership Training mentee, a 2020 Women of Color in the Arts Leadership Through Mentorship participant, and a member of APAP’s Emerging Leadership Institute Class of 2020, and an invited artist of the 2019 Asylum Arts Bay Area Jewish Artist Retreat. After a long history with the organization, Katie stepped into a new Co-Artistic Director role with RAWdance in 2019. katerinawong.com / @katerinawong
Dr. Szuson Wong, Ph.D., R.N. (Text / In Memoriam) was an energetic healer, international speaker, and…
… accomplished author. Szuson began her healing career and calling under the tutelage of her grandfather, becoming a Registered Nurse then earning a degree in Acupuncture from the Beijing International School of Acupuncture, followed by a Doctorate in Energy Medicine, thereby integrating knowledge and practices from the East and West. With 30 years as a health and wellness practitioner, her passion was to empower people to transform their lives and communities.
Yutian Wong (Guest Moderator) is a Professor of Dance in the School of Theatre & Dance…
…at San Francisco State University where she teaches courses in critical dance studies. Wong is the author of Choreographing Asian American (Wesleyan University Press, 2010), editor of Contemporary Directions in Asian American Dance (University of Wisconsin Press, 2016), and co-editor with Jens Richard Giersdorf of The Routledge Dance Studies Reader 3rd Edition (Routledge, 2018). LEARN MORE
Stacey Yuen (Performance), a Bay Area native, received her BFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts….
She went on to work with Seán Curran and the Santa Fe Opera, and to travel to Greece to perform in works by Johannes Wieland and Stella Zannou at the one small step dance festival. She spent three seasons as a dancer and rehearsal director with the Sticky Trace Company in Germany. Since returning to the Bay, Stacey has worked with Robert Moses, Katie Faulkner, Jennifer Perfilio, Lenora Lee Dance, Alyssandra Katherine Dance Project, and RAWdance. staceyyuen.com
Special thanks
A deep thanks goes out to the extraordinary dancers, composer, designers, and guest speakers who offered their creative energy, intelligence, and fortitude to make this premiere a reality! A heartfelt hug goes out to the amazing women who helped create the introduction to this piece. Many thanks as well to those working behind-the-scenes, including the ODC Theater staff, Aiyana, John, our board, our volunteers, and the many funders and donors who have made The Healer possible. Sharing our gratitude to Wythe Bowart, Nuria Bowart, Matt Haber, and Lynne Steinsieck for the bamboo donations. Special thanks to Joe Goode Performance Group’s The Feedback program, and Shawna Seth for their advice, support, and encouragement. Thank you to John O’Brien and Meg Young for helping to accommodate the dancers. And of course thanks to all the family, friends, partners, students, and fuzzy creatures who support us in all that we do!
About RAWdance
RAWdance champions the power of movement as an indispensable source of connection and a visceral medium to illuminate the issues of our time. We commit to creating adventurous, thoughtful, and welcoming programming that challenges what contemporary dance is, where it happens, who it includes, and the role it plays in our lives.
RAWdance is an award-winning contemporary dance company known for transforming theaters and public spaces through a mix of performance, curation, and collaboration. Under the artistic direction of Ryan T. Smith, Wendy Rein, and Katerina Wong, the company’s nuanced, charged dances pose questions ranging from the broadly social to the intimately personal. SF Chronicle described the company as ”witty, whip-smart, and beautiful to watch.” Critical Dance called RAWdance a “rare treasure” that “combines choreographic excellence, innovative structures, groundbreaking concepts and impeccable performances.” Founded in San Francisco in 2004 by Smith and Rein, the company grew to include Wong as a third Artistic Director in 2019, while also expanding to two locations — New York’s Hudson Valley as well as its home base in San Francisco.
RAWdance was proudly voted “Best Dance Company” by 48 Hills and the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s Best of the Bay in both 2019 and 2020.
Staff
Wendy Rein, Co-Artistic Director
Ryan T. Smith, Co-Artistic Director
Katerina Wong, Co-Artistic Director
Aiyana D’Arcangelo, Program Manager
Megan Kurashige, CONCEPT series Coordinator & Co-Curator
Board
Rebekah Enderle, Treasurer
Pam Kramer, Co-President
Melissa Hudson Bell
Iris Fluellen, Fundraising Co-Chair
Alexandra McClure, Secretary
Elizabeth Sheets Orcutt, Fundraising Co-Chair
Sean Waugh, Co-President
Supporters
This presentation of The Healer is supported in part by Grants for the Arts, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Joe Goode Performance Group’s The Feedback, The Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, ODC Theater, and many generous individuals.
Audio Description by Rachael Dicter of Gravity Access Services is generously supported by the Walter and Elise Haas Fund and The Kenneth Rainin Foundation.
Individual donations are essential to ensure that RAWdance can continue to create and present relevant, accessible, and exceptional dance now and into the future. Click here to make a donation.
About ODC Theater
ODC Theater Staff
ODC/Dance Artistic Director/Founder: Brenda Way
Executive Director: Carma Zisman
ODC/Dance Co-Artistic Director: KT Nelson
ODC School Director: Kimi Okada
Director of Production: Jack Beuttler
Theater Program & Operations Manager: Chloë L. Zimberg
Rentals Manager: Nicholas Wagner
Public Services Manager: Michael D. Lee
Theater Publicist: John B. Hill
Mission and Impact
ODC Theater exists to empower and develop innovative artists. It participates in the creation of new works through commissioning, presenting, mentorship, and space access; it develops informed, engaged, and committed audiences; and advocates for the performing arts as an essential component to the economic and cultural development of our community. The Theater is the site of over 150 performances a year involving nearly 1,000 local, regional, national, and international artists.
Since 1976, ODC Theater has been the mobilizing force behind countless San Francisco artists and the foothold for national and international touring artists seeking debut in the Bay Area. Our Theater, founded by Brenda Way and currently under the direction of Julie Potter, has earned its place as a cultural incubator by dedicating itself to creative change-makers, those leaders who give our region its unmistakable definition and flare. Nationally known artists Spaulding Gray, Diamanda Galas, Molissa Fenley, Bill T. Jones, Eiko & Koma, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, Ban Rarra, and Karole Armitage are among those whose first San Francisco appearance occurred at ODC Theater.
ODC Theater is part of a two-building campus dedicated to supporting every stage of the artistic lifecycle-conceptualization, creation, and performance. This includes our flagship company, ODC/Dance, and our School, in partnership with Rhythm and Motion Dance Workout down the street at 351 Shotwell. More than 200 classes are offered weekly and your first adult class is $5. For more information on ODC Theater and all its programs please visit: odc.dance.
Support
ODC Theater is supported in part by the following foundations and agencies: Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Anonymous Foundation Partner, New England Foundation for the Arts / National Dance Project, The Koret Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Wells Fargo Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission, MAP Fund, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, Sam Mazza Foundation, and The Fleishhacker Foundation. ODC Theater is a proud member of Association of Performing Arts Presenters, California Presenters, Dance USA, Dancers’ Group. ODC Theater relies on the generous support of donors like you. To give to ODC Theater, visit odc.dance/give.
Upcoming Events
RAWdance presents the CONCEPT series: Digital Edition 2
Friday, March 26, 2021 / Online