Dance takes center stage at SF International Arts Festival
Friday May 25, 2007
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Sunday May 27, 2007
from
7:00pm - 11:00pm
Dance companies from the United States, the Congo and South Africa will excite and delight audiences at this year’s 4th Annual San Francisco International Arts Festival (www.sfiaf.org).
The estival explores the explosion of Contemporary dance and performance as an art form in sub-Saharan Africa, which has been funded in large part by the Cultures France organization. Following in the footsteps of the great Salia nï Seydou, who performed at SFIAF 2003, the Dance en Creations series will showcase three of the African continent’s brightest emerging stars, two of whom are making their US debuts, performing alongside two of the Bay Area’s most renowned contemporary companies.
All Dance en Creations programs will take place Thursday, May 24 – Sunday, May 28 at Dance Mission Theater (3316 24th St @ Mission). Tickets are available through the Box Office at TIX Central at San Francisco’s Union Square and by phoning (415) 439-2456 and online at www.sfiaf.org.
Dance En Creations Program I -- featuring Dimensions Dance Theater with the Anthony Brown Orchestra (USA) and Nelisiwe Xaba (South Africa).
In her Bay Area debut, Nelisiwe Xaba brings two works to Project Artaud: They Look at Me and That’s all They Think refers to the story of Sara Baartman, known in France as the ‘Hottentot Venus’. Baartman has become a symbol of the oppression of the African woman by colonization, and the zoo-like way of looking at Africans. She was taken from South Africa in 1810, and then exhibited as a freak across Britain. In 1814 she was taken to France, where she became the object of scientific and medical research that formed the bedrock of European ideas about black female sexuality. She died the next year, but even after her death, Sara Baartman remained an object of imperialist scientific investigation. In the name of Science, her sexual organs and brain were displayed in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris until as recently as 1985. Plasticization is a solo work, which examines how society has become increasingly plastic and materialistic; intimacy happens through barriers, and we have lost our sense of touch.
Dimensions Dance Theater will perform the world premiere of Cross Currents, a multimedia portrait in music, movement and words that is a reflection of the migration of African Americans to the Bay Area. This collaborative work explores the interpersonal and historical experiences, as well as the legacy of African Americans who migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area during the mid-20th century. Cross Currents features the choreography of Deborah Vaughan, artistic director of Dimensions Dance Theater, and musical compositions from Anthony Brown, artistic director of the Asian American Orchestra. Together, they will bring to life the untold stories of the encounters of black people with Asian/Pacific Islanders, Latinos and the Caribbean's peoples of the San Francisco Bay Area
Dance en Creations Program II -- featuring Robert Moses’ Kin (USA), Compagnie Li-Sangha (Congo) & Mhayise Productions (South Africa).
The Congolese choreographer, Orchy Nzaba will present a piece titled Mona-Mambu, a Congo expression describing the ability to see and approach the realities of life with clear-sightedness. These realities tell us that the Congo people have always known how to re-transcribe their daily life through proverbial scenes and original body movements.
Mhayise Productions will perform Umthombi (which means male adolescent) by Musa Hlatshwayo. The piece methodically shows the symmetry and dissymmetry between two characters at different phases of their lives. The relationship between the two is one of transmission and initiation. The initiation deals with mastering knowledge of the body and the path to wisdom.
Robert Moses’ Kin's untitled new work fits in with Robert Moses' unique choreography which the San Francisco Chronicle described as " an edgy but eloquent style that roils from jive to jete in an instant, a brilliant facility for carving space, and a confrontational way off addressing the absurdities of race in America without ever simplifying or sermonizing" (Howard, Rachel. 2007, February 10. San Francisco Chronicle).
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