Dance Cast

Sima talks with Christy Funsch, Artistic Director of Funsch Dance Experience, about her upcoming durational performance EPOCH, which takes place in-person and online on Saturday, October 2, 2021 from 10am to 10pm. In cheeky defiance of Doris Humphrey’s warning “All dances are too long,” EPOCH unfolds over 12 hours, in a gratuitous surplus of movement, interrupted by moments of nothingness, to challenge the valuing of acquisition and excess. Is endurance political? What bonds does an unlikely scenario forge?

EPOCH features an original sound score by Cheryl Leonard and color theory-influenced lighting designed by Danielle Ferguson. EPOCH includes Wrecking by Maurya Kerr, Coral Martin, and Jes DeVille; each of these artists' re-imaginings of the choreography will be performed within the original work. A list of the key entry points will be provided and audiences are welcome to come and go throughout the day.

A transcript of this episode is available at odc.dance/stories.

Raissa Simpson is an African American/Pilipino choreographer and artistic director of the San Francisco-based PUSH Dance Company. Her multidisciplinary dances are at the intersection of complex racial and cultural identities and centers around discourse on the complex experiences of racialized bodies. A graduate of SUNY Purchase, Simpson had an extensive performance career with Robert Moses Kin and Joanna Haigood’s Zaccho Dance Theatre. Her choreography honors include Magrit Mondavi Award, San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Family Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, and Grants for the Arts. Her choreography has been presented by Joyce SoHo, Aspen Fringe Festival, Dance St. Louis, Ferst Center, Los Angeles Women’s Theater Festival and Black Choreographers Festival. She has held creative residencies at Dance Initiative Carbondale, Santa Clara University, Bayview Opera House, Sacramento State University, Margaret Jenkins’ CHIME, African American Theater Alliance (AATAIN!) and CounterPulse. She received a Phyllis C Wattis Foundation with Bayview Opera House for her most recent work, The Motley Experiment. Check out Raissa's essay, “Writings on Dance: Artistic Reframing for Celestial Black Bodies,” out now in Critical Black Futures: Speculative Theories and Explorations (2021).

A transcript of this episode are available at odc.dance/stories.

ODC Writer in Residence Sima Belmar talks with the artists responsible for ODC's first full-length film, Up For Air/Decameron: Brenda Way, Kimi, Okada, and Kate Weare. (NB: The fourth choreographer, KT Nelson, could not join us for the conversation.) The film features members of ODC/Dance and Kate Weare Company, and is inspired by Bocaccio's 14th-century novel Decameron. (No need to have read it to enjoy the film!) The novel is about the retreat of ten young Florentines seeking to avoid the plague of 1385. The work touches on the combustible nature of love, the need for connection and those values that help us survive catastrophic times: humor, resilience, and grace. Find out more at odd.dance/upforair. 

Latanya d. Tigner has performed professionally with Dimensions Dance Theater within multidisciplinary works rooted in African diasporic dance forms since 1986. She holds a B.A. in Physical Education/Dance and a Master’s in Arts Administration. She directs Dimensions Dance Theater’s youth company and lectures at University of California, Berkeley and Mills College. In her 30-plus-year dance career, Latanya has created commissioned works for Dimensions Dance Theater, Black Choreographers Festival, Robert Moses’ Kin, UC Berkeley, Mills College, and has presented work in SF Ethnic Dance Festival, CubaCaribe, and Mabina Dance Festival (Congo-Brazzaville). She has also set choreography for Cal Shakes' black odyssey, SF Shakespeare's A Winter’s Tale, Ubuntu Theater's Dance of the Holy Ghost, Delina Brooks' An Open Love Letter to Black Fathers, Contra Costa College's In the Blood, For Colored Girls, and Godspell, and Li Smith's Victorious. Additionally, Latanya serves as Co-Artistic Director of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival for the 2018–2021 seasons, and is a founding member of Oakland Anti-Racism Organizing Committee. Latanya has ongoing research on African dance retentions in African American social dance, which has led to the creation of Dancing Cy(i)phers, an annual symposium that connects the coded languages of African rooted dance.

Transcripts of this episode are available at odc.dance/stories.

Benedict Nguyen is a writer, dancer, and curator based on occupied Lenape and Wappinger lands (South Bronx, NY). Benedict's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in AAWW’s the Margins, Flypaper, and PANK. Their fiction writing was supported by an AWP Writer to Writer Mentorship in 2017. They’re at work on a novel. Their criticism has appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Shondaland, the Establishment, and Culturebot, among others, and in commissioned profiles for Danspace Project, Baryshnikov Arts Center, and Fusebox Festival. As the 2019 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow at ISSUE Project Room, Benedict created the multidisciplinary performance platform “soft bodies in hard places,” which has partnered with Materials for the Arts, Culturebot, the Asian American Writers Workshop, Center for Performance Research, and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance! (BAAD!). They’ve performed in DapperQ Fashion week and in recent works by Sally Silvers, José Rivera, Jr., Nick Mauss at the Whitney Museum, Monstah Black, and more. They've worked as an arts admin unicorn and grant writer for Jennifer Monson, Donna Uchizono, and John Jasperse. They've served on selection committees for Movement Research at Judson Church, the MAP Fund, and Bronx Council on the Arts. Otherwise, Benedict has worked a tutor, grant writer, Postmate, cater waiter, and more.

As a producer, educator, and artistic entrepreneur, Johnnie Cruise Mercer leads as the Company Director of Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDprojectNYC (@jcm_redprojectnyc). His process-memoirs, happenings, and performance events have been commissioned/held at The Dixon Place, Bates Dance Festival (@batesdancefestival), Brooklyn Arts Exchange (@baxarts), AUNTS @NYU Skirball, The NADA Conference (@newartdealers), Abrons Arts Center (@abronsartcenter), The Fusebox Festival (@fuseboxfestival), Gibney (@gibneydance), Danspace Project Inc (@danspaceproject), The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center (@theclaricemd), and most recently at the 92Y Harkness Dance Center. Mercer is currently 2019-2021 Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (@baxarts), 2020-2021 Black Artist Space to Create AIR through The New Dance Alliance (@newdancealliance) and a 2020-2021 Ping Chong + Company (@pingchongco) Creative Fellow. Find out more info on the company and the work at www.trpnyc.com.

Transcripts of this episode are available at odc.dance/stories.

In response to COVID-19 and the dance industry’s pivot to dance for camera, the 2021 Opportunity Fund at ODC Theater helped underwrite the costs of producing a five-minute dance film for three artists: Jeremy Bannon-Neches, Nicole Maria Hoffschneider, and Noah Wang. The Fund subsidizes roughly 65% of the activity costs, which include film production, a mentorship series, and individual consultation for these young artists who participate in dance for camera training and feedback sessions in a 15-week process. The three  films are premiering in ODC Theater’s 2021 Summer festival Kick-Off on June 3. Get your tickets at odc.dance/calendar!

Transcripts of this episode are available at odc.dance/stories

Today Sima talks with Purple Fire Crow/Antoine Hunter, an award-winning African, Indigenous, Deaf, Disabled, Two Spirit producer, choreographer, film/theater actor, dancer, dance instructor, model, poet, speaker, mentor, and Deaf advocate. He teaches dance and ASL in both Hearing and Deaf communities and is the founder and artistic director of Urban Jazz Dance Company. Hunter has performed with many Bay Area dance companies, including Savage Jazz Dance Company, Nuba Dance Theater, Alayo Dance Company, Robert Moses’ KIN, Man Dance, Sins Invalid, Amara Tabor-Smith, Kim Epifano, PUSH Dance Company, Flyaway Productions, Joanna Haigood, OET theater, and the Lorraine Hansberry Theater. He has been producing the acclaimed Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival since 2013.

Still unclear what TikTok is and how it functions? You're not alone (but you're probably not a teenager). Today we talk with host Sima Belmar's 14-year-old daughter, Lucia Capezzuto, and Edgar Mendez, ODC's Digital Marketing Manager, about the platform and its intimate relationship with dance.

Transcripts of this episode are available at odc.dance/stories.

Since founding Robert Moses' Kin in 1995 in San Francisco, choreographer Robert Moses has created numerous works of varying styles and genres for his highly praised dance company. His work explores topics ranging from oral traditions in African American culture, the dark side of contemporary urban culture, the nuanced complexities of parentage and identity, to the simple joys of the expressive power of pure movement. 

In addition to his work with Robert Moses’ Kin, Moses has choreographed for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, San Francisco Opera (La Forza del Destino, 2005), Philadanco, Cincinnati Ballet, Eco Arts, Transitions Dance Company of the Laban Center in London, African Cultural Exchange (UK), Bare Bones (UK), Oakland Ballet, Moving People Dance, and Robert Henry Johnson Dance Company, among others. He has choreographed for film, theater and opera, with major productions for the Lorraine Hansberry Theater, New Conservatory Theater, Los Angeles Prime Moves Festival (L.A.C.E.), and Olympic Arts Festival.

An alumnus of California State University Long Beach and a highly regarded master teacher, Moses has taught on campuses and at festivals throughout the United States and internationally, including Bates Dance Festival, Colorado Dance Festival, International Festival of Contemporary Dance "Espuma Cuanatica" (Ensanada, Mexico), International Dance Festival, "Crossing Bodies" (Tijuana, Mexico), OPEN LOOK St. Petersburg International Dance Festival, Serendipity Arts Festival (Kolkata, India), Goucher College, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, University of Texas, Stockton University, and University of Nevada. 

In 2005, Moses was named Choreographer-in-Residence and Artistic Director of the Committee on Black Performing Arts at Stanford University, where he was on the dance faculty from 1995-2016. Moses was a professor of practice at Santa Clara University from 2018-2019 and is currently the Melody and Mark Teppola Presidential Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Dance and Theater studies at Mills College in Oakland, CA.

Transcripts of this episode are available at odc.dance/stories

For the inaugural episode of Dance Cast, ODC Writer in Residence Sima Belmar is joined by ODC founders Brenda Way, Kimi Okada and KT Nelson. They talk about the institution’s early days in Oberlin, OH, and how the company theater and school are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Transcripts of this episode are available at odc.dance/stories.