Why it’s called American Street Dancer
Books are banned, DEI scuttled, and Africanist studies scaled back. Yet, the irrepressible spirit of African American artists is not extinguished.
PlusWorld-class review of ballet and dance.
SFDanceworks performs only a short run once a year, but it fills a big void in San Francisco. Unlike Chicago or New York, we in the Bay Area have no Hubbard Street, no Gibney Company or Cedar Lake (RIP) to offer works by Ohad Naharin or Alejandro Cerrudo or other internationalist contemporary dance makers. When it comes to avant-gardism, our local behemoth, San Francisco Ballet, serves only an occasional dash of what you might call the Nederlands Dans Theater or NDT-adjacent aesthetic. (Though this is poised to change next year, with a commission from Aszure Barton on SF Ballet’s horizon.) Enter SFDanceworks. Founded in 2016 by former SF Ballet soloist James Sofranko, a Juilliard grad, the company is driven by its dancers’ hunger for exploration. And that hunger was evident throughout the company’s sixth summer season.
Performance
Place
Words
“Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”
Your weekly source for world-class dance reviews, interviews, articles, and more.
Already a paid subscriber? Login
Books are banned, DEI scuttled, and Africanist studies scaled back. Yet, the irrepressible spirit of African American artists is not extinguished.
Plus“Lists of Promise,” a new work currently in a two-week run from March 13- 30 at the East Village cultural landmark, Theater for the New City, promised more than it delivered, at least for now.
Plus“State of Heads” opens with a blaze of white light and loud clanking onto a white-suited Levi Gonzalez, part Elvis, part televangelist addressing his congregation. A pair of women sidle in—Rebecca Cyr and Donna Uchizono—dressed in ankle-length white dresses and cowered posture.
PlusThe late John Ashford, a pioneer in programming emerging contemporary choreographers across Europe, once told me that he could tell what sort of choreographer a young artist would turn into when watching their first creations.
Plus
comments