"enchanting... bursting with ideas and invention like a treasure chest so packed with jewels that the lid won’t stay down."
Leah Garchik, San Francisco Chronicle
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Created specifically for ODC’s B’Way Theater with an all Bay Area cast, Alone Together flips the orientation of the proscenium, placing the audience on the stage and the performers in the seats. Other-worldly dreamscapes give way to volcanic dance numbers, ranging from the audacious to the familiar, combining Galasso’s signature cinematic approach with a riveting score by composer Dave Cerf. Alone Together is Galasso’s third installment of her multi-chapter performance series, Of Iron and Diamonds, based on Boccaccio’s Decameron. Each chapter is uniquely site- and cast-specific, revealing a sharply present, whimsical take on this seminal literary work, while remaining reflective of a contemporary approach to performance rooted in the avant-garde. The previous chapter, "Of Granite and Glass," opened the 2018 River To River Festival in downtown New York City, and was featured in The New York Times' #speakingindance video series. |
ORIGINAL FILM WORK TO PREMIERE JUNE 4, 2021
Catherine and Dave created a 30-minute film inspired by the original production, with five of the original seven cast members.
Streaming through ODC's Online Theater Festival through June 30, 2021. "Of Iron and Diamonds V3: Alone Together"
Commissioned by ODC Theater, San Francisco Premiered December 6-8, 2018 Choreography by Catherine Galasso
Music and Sound Design by Dave Cerf Performances by Arletta Anderson, Eric Garcia, Cookie Harrist, Hien Huynh, Phoenicia Pettyjohn, Karla Quintero, Galicia Stack Lozano Dramaturgy and Scenic Design by Jesse Hewit Lights by Grisel GG Torres Costumes by Monique Jenkinson Creative Producer Tara Sheena |
"full of self-conscious humor and dynamic reframing of what it means to perform and to watch."
~ Dasha Bulatova, Piedmont Post
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all photos by Robbie Sweeny
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"evocative [...] eerie... [creating] a rich tapestry of moments that flew by like some film editor’s work on speed."
~ Rita Felciano, DanceViewTimes.com
The Team
Dave Cerf (MUSIC) works across time-based media: photography, film, sound, and music. His aim is to make these media feel more alive and present via live performance and hands-on software interfaces. Over the last decade, Dave has collaborated on a tour of abandoned drive-in movie screenings, a live documentary (Utopia in Four Movements with Sam Green), Shirley and Spinoza—a never-ending Internet radio stream—and Pop-Up Magazine, a "live magazine" based in San Francisco. Dave and his chamber ensemble Threnody Ensemble have composed music for Sam Green's The Weather Underground and the experimental films of Pat O'Neill and Jennifer Reeves. Deeply dissatisfied with the available tools, Dave worked for eight years at Apple as an interface designer for Final Cut Pro X and wrote several editions of the 2400-page user manual. Still deeply dissatisfied with the available tools, he began investigating alternative sound and video representations with Robert M. Ochshorn at Alan Kay’s Xerox PARC reboot CDG in San Francisco, helmed by Bret Victor. At the same time, he assisted sound and picture editor Walter Murch on two feature films: Hemingway and Gellhorn (HBO) and Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland (Disney). There was also a 6-month detour to volunteer at the Dalai Lama’s video archive in Dharamsala, India. He recently completed the editing, sound design, and music for Mexican filmmaker Natalia Almada’s fourth feature film as well as a performance about his personal history told via the rise and fall of public pay phones.
Arletta Anderson is a Bay Area-based dance artist and performance maker. Locally, she has danced with various choreographers such as Christy Funsch, Simpson/Stulberg Collaborations, and Stephen Pelton. She is currently working with Gerald Casel, detour dance, Aura Fishbeck, Deborah Karp, and Lauren Simpson. With collaborator Adam Smith, Arletta creates multidisciplinary performance work that sits somewhere between, and outside of, dance and experimental theater. They have presented their work throughout San Francisco and have been artists-in-residence at CounterPulse, as well as guest artists at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
Eric Garcia is a choreographer, performer, filmmaker, and activist whose feet are deeply rooted in the Bay Area. He is the Co-Director of detour dance and the Tiny Dance Film Festival, and proudly serves as Production Coordinator with Fresh Meat Productions, Sean Dorsey Dance, and the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. Eric hosts a monthly drag cabaret at Make Out Room and a more sporadically at The Rite Spot. Inspired by personal narrative and storytelling, Eric has collaboratively worked with groups of incarcerated men, senior adults, LGBTQ youth, and self-identified non-dancers on various performance projects. He was the recipient of the 2017 CHIME Award with Margaret Jenkins and was nominated for a 2016 Isadora Duncan Dance Award.
Cookie Harrist is a dancer based in San Francisco. Cookie works in the spaces between release technique, contemporary dance, contact improvisation, queer performance art and vocal performance. She has performed in works by Joe Goode, Sara Shelton Mann, NAKA Dance Theater, Public Movement, Kim Epifano, Larry Arrington and Hana van der Kolk, among others. Keep up with Cookie’s classes and performances via instagram: @cookieismyrealname.
Hien Huynh was born in Da Nang, Vietnam. Through embodied practices, Hien endeavors to seek understanding of the inner self to deepen awareness and open heart for human compassion. He is honored to have performed in the works of Lenora Lee Dance, Kim Epifano, Robert Moses’ Kin, Kinetech Arts, PUSH, Deborah Slater Dance Theater, The MoveMessenger(s) and punkkiCo.
Phoenicia Pettyjohn is a longtime SF resident, movement artist, educator and certified Axis Syllabus teacher. She currently teaches in the San Francisco Ballet DISC program. Her performance collaborators include Aura Fischbeck Dance, Christy Funsch Dance, Miriam Wolordowski Sense Object, Rosemary Hannon, Susan Rethorst, Kira Kirsch, Alma Esperanza Cunningham Dance and Peck Peck Dance Ensemble among many others. She is thrilled to be working on her fourth production with Catherine Galasso.
Karla Quintero is an Izzie Award winning dancer based in the Bay Area, currently performing with Hope Mohr Dance, GERALDCASELDANCE and Aura Fischbeck Dance. She holds a BFA in Dance Performance from the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance and a BA in Urban Studies from Barnard College.
Galicia Stack Lozano is a 7th grader at Millennium School in San Francisco. She attended the San Francisco Ballet School and studies dance at school. Galicia plays violin and is currently working as a Junior Reporter for Xyza Magazine. Galicia is very excited to be part of Ms. Galasso's piece and plans to continue dancing for decades to come.
Grisel GG Torres (LIGHTS) is from the Bay Area by way of migrant parents from Guanajuato, México. GG studied Light Design, Technical Theatre, Stage Management, and Props Design at SFSU's School of Theatre and Dance. In August 2018, GG happily became the Venue Manager at the Joe Goode Annex. She is also the Staff Production Manager for Golden Thread Productions, the first American Theatre Company devoted to stories of the Middle East. She primarily designs lights for movement based productions and companies such as PUSH Dance Company, Keith Hennessy/CircoZero, and Sara Shelton Mann/Mixed Bag Productions. When not in production mode, GG likes to write melodies, paint, and create movement based performance art herself and sees these art forms as a vantage point for self-healing. She is extremely grateful to have a hand in making some of the Bay Area's best radical art.
Jesse Hewit (DRAMATURG/SCENIC DESIGN) is an artist, cook, and curator, based in San Francisco, who currently serves various communities as curator of the 2019 West Wave Dance Festival, and ongoing curator of Aggregate Space Gallery's Friction/Function series. His most recent (2017) original works include Faith Material Activism at CounterPulse and TIDES TIDES TIDES at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and his recent dance and dramaturgical collaborations have included working with Sara Shelton Mann, Fauxnique/Monique Jenkinson, Keith Hennessy, Larry Arrington, animals and giraffes (Claudia La Rocco and Phillip Greenlief) and writing for SFMOMA's OpenSpace and CounterPulse's Wreck Room Blog. He is currently working on a book of three longer essays about erotic memory, friendship, and family. His work and teachings has been presented (and supported by residencies) locally, nationally, and internationally, through festivals, universities, and arts centers internationally, including Ponderosa (Stolzenhagen), PICA’s TBA (Portland), FRESH Festival (San Francisco), HZT (Berlin), YBCA (San Francisco), FLOCK (Portland), and The Firkin Crane (Cork). His practice draws from shifting socio-political urgencies, his formal training in experimental theater/dance/sociology, and his commitments to alt-logics, cross-disciplinary composition, and radical empathy.
Monique Jenkinson (COSTUMES) (along with her drag queen alter ego Fauxnique) performs locally and internationally in wide-ranging contexts from nightclubs to theaters to museums, and made herstory as the first cis-woman to win a major drag (queen) pageant. Honors include residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts and Atlantic Center for the Arts, an Irvine Fellowship at the de Young Museum, GOLDIE and BESTIE awards, 7X7 Magazine’s ‘Hot 20’ and TBA and Izzie award nominations as well as support from CHIME, SF Arts Commission, and the Kenneth Rainin and Zellerbach foundations. She has performed her solo works at YBCA, ODC, Counterpulse, Joe Goode Annex and the deYoung in SF, at Joe’s Pub, New Museum and Movement Research in NYC, and in London, Berlin, Rome and Zürich. Jenkinson created curriculum for San Francisco Art Institute and St. Mary’s College and recently engaged in public conversation with both Judith Butler and Michelle Visage within days of each other. She is working on a drag memoir for Amethyst Editions/Feminist Press.
Tara Sheena (CREATIVE PRODUCER) is a performer, dancer, writer, and producer based in Brooklyn, NY. As a performer, she is engaged on upcoming projects with choreographers Ivy Baldwin, Keely Garfield, Ursula Eagly and Nadia Tykulsker. Recently, she has been involved in the work of Catherine Galasso, Lindsey Dietz Marchant, Beth Graczyk, and in the feature film Shirley, choreographed by Faye Driscoll and directed by Josephine Decker. As an arts writer, she has been obsessed with the ways capitalism, race, and performance intersect in dance spaces, what she refers to as "Capital-D Dance." Her writing has been published in Hyperallergic, the Brooklyn Rail, Fjord Review, DIY Dancer, the Huffington Post, and Critical Correspondence. Originally from Michigan, she graduated from the University of Michigan in 2011 with a BFA in Dance and BA in English.
THANK YOU
To everyone who helped us meet our fundraising goal!
To everyone who helped us meet our fundraising goal!
Of Iron and Diamonds, the series, is made possible by Arts Brookfield, Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, ODC Theater, and the Assets 4 Artists Program. This project is funded, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The project was developed through residencies at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, ODC, and through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Extended Life Dance Development program made possible in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.