Dance Brigade
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Stella Adelman
415-826-4441;
Press photos available upon request and online at www.dancemission.com
Dance Brigade’s Dance Mission
presents
SUMMER FEAST COVELO
A magical afternoon of dance, music, drumming, and poetry.
Featuring work by Bruce Ghent’s Maikaze Daiko, Krissy Keefer and Dance Brigade, Embodiment Project, Christelle Durandy, and Ramon Ramos Alayo.
When: Sunday, September 11 * Show 4:00pm, Gates 3:00pm
NEW DATE!!
Where: Hidden Oaks Park
76699 Covelo Road, Covelo CA
Tickets: $5 for Round Valley Tribal Members
$15 for General Public
Free for youth 12 years and younger
Advance tickets available at brownpapertickets.com or 1-800-838-3006
For more information: www.dancemission.com * 415-826-4441
“In an age overrun with art as a cold, slick, commodity, the Dance Brigade’s work remains the real thing.” – Dance Magazine
(May 2016) Known widely throughout Northern California, Dance Brigade is presenting its third annual Summer Feast, an outdoor dance theater extravaganza in rural Covelo, California. The performance this year will be held at the Round Valley Indian Tribes’ beautiful Hidden Oaks Park Amphitheater and will include dance, drumming, music, and poetry. Featuring over twenty artists from the Bay Area, the magical afternoon of outdoor performance will consist of breath-taking modern dance, pulsating Taiko drumming, and inspiring Hip Hop and Street Dance.
San Francisco-based Dance Brigade is celebrated for its scrumptious dancing and delicious fun. The company explores the intersection between art and social politics with fierce inventiveness and deft comic touch. Ramon Ramos Alayo is known for his synthesis of Afro-Cuban modern, folkloric and popular Cuban dance. Embodiment Project is an urban dance theater company that seamlessly intersects high-energy street dance, live song, choreo-poetry, and theater. Their performances are hailed as “rocking and joyous.” Christelle Durandy is hailed for her mosaic of musical artistry. Her voice is a cross-cultural jazz combination that draws upon a vast spectrum of Soul, Caribbean and Latin inspirations. Fire-y Taiko drumming is by Maikaze Daiko.
Summer Feast Covelo will feature a new work by Krissy Keefer, Gracias a la Vida. Gracias a la Vida pays homage to Nueva Trova and the cross fertilization of the socially conscious music from Latin America (Nueva Cación) and the protest music of the United States. Keefer draws on the work of Silvio Rodriquez, Nina Simon, Marvin Gaye, Neil Young, and Mercedes Sosa, paying tribute to the musical giants who were the inspiration of her political and artistic life.
In addition to performance, Summer Feast artists will teach a special set of classes on Sunday, September 18 at Long Valley Dance in Laytonville, CA.
About the artists:
KRISSY KEEFER / DANCE BRIGADE
Dance Brigade is biting, intellectual, insightful wit, and provocative originality. This dynamic multi-racial troupe of women proves that socially relevant dance can be technically brilliant, as well as exuberant with down-home hilarious fun. This company dances at full throttle. Artistic Director, Krissy Keefer explores the intersection between art and social issues with fierce inventiveness and a deft comic touch. Her content driven choreographies are a high-energy blend of ballet, modern dance, jazz, song, text, sign language and explosive Taiko drumming. The company has created over 12 full-length concerts of contemporary dance theater including Pandora’s Box, Ballet of the Banshees, Cinderella, Queen of Sheba, Cave Women, Spell, The Revolutionary Nutcracker Sweetie and The Great Liberation Upon Hearing. For these productions, they received numerous grants and awards. Dance Brigade resides at Dance Mission Theater in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District. At Dance Mission they operate a 140-seat theater, run three dance studios, offer adult and youth classes, produce groundbreaking events, and direct Grrrl Brigade, Dance Brigade’s youth company.
In 1984, Krissy Keefer and Nina Fichter, original members of Wallflower Order, founded Dance Brigade to create and perform dance-theater that addresses the complex problems of contemporary American women. Together they developed a new kind of modern dance-theater that was stylistically rooted in martial arts, athleticism, and social justice. As the Wallflower Order’s members went their separate ways, Keefer and Fichter created the Dance Brigade to carry forward their activist vision. Their original works continued to explore social issues such as war, poverty, breast cancer, women’s history, death and dying, and spirituality from a feminist perspective.
In 1998, Dance Brigade began to operate Dance Mission at 24th and Mission Streets in San Francisco. At Dance Mission, they created an affordable 140-seat theater and rehearsal space for San Francisco dancers and artists. They expanded the Adult and Youth Dance Programs to include a full range of dance classes in Hip-Hop, Salsa, Bhangra, Brazilian, Bollywood, Afro-Haitian, modern, ballet and more. Some of the groundbreaking events Dance Brigade has presented and pioneered include the SkyDancers, Women on the Drum, Women Against War, and the Manifest!val for Social Change. Each year Dance Mission helps emerging artists launch their professional careers through the bi-annual Choreographers Showcase and the Down & Dirty Dance Series. In 2004, the Grrrl Brigade was formed as an intensive dance/leadership development program designed to provide high quality dance training, performance opportunities, and a sense of self-empowerment for San Francisco's girls ages 9 to18. This program began with 10 girls and has now over 60 girls participating.
RAMON RAMOS ALAYO
Cuba-born Ramón Ramos Alayo founded Alayo Dance Company in 2001. Alayo articulates his creative vision through a synthesis of Afro-Cuban modern, folkloric and popular Cuban dance. Alayo is the resident dance company of CubaCaribe. Alayo has grown an audience far more diverse than most Bay Area modern dance circuits, attracting devotees of both contemporary and folkloric arts. Alayo is known for tackling difficult issues such as slavery, racism and cancer, and since its inception has produced 12 evening-length productions that have received both critical and popular acclaim. They have performed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area at venues such as Theater Artaud, ODC Theater, Dance Mission Theater, Herbst Theater, Laney Theater, Sonoma Country Wine Theater, and La Peña Cultural Center, and have presented work in the Black Choreographer's Festival, The CubaCaribe Festival, and Intersection's Culture and Flow. In 2010 Alayo was one of the first American companies to ever perform at the Annual Festival del Caribe at Teatro Martí.
Alayo also performed at Teatro Mella in Havana, Cuba in July 2011. Alayo was featured in the article "Dance Across America" in National Geographic Magazine in 2006, and received the prestigious Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation's "Emerging Choreographer's Award" (2005) to develop his piece, Blood + Sugar. Ramos was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award nominee for the ensemble performance of Los Guedes, performed at CubaCaribe Festival (2006). In 2011 Alayo Dance Company invited the Cuban company, Danza del Caribe, to collaborate with them in the States and three of the members defected and are now dancing with Alayo Dance Company.
Ramos Alayo was recognized as "Best Dance Dynamo" in the SF Bay Guardian's "Best of the Bay 2009" and was the recipient of a SF Bay Guardian 2010 Goldie Award, hailed by dance critic Rita Felciano as "the best Afro-Cuban dancer whose choreography stands well beyond traditional modes.”
EMBODIMENT PROJECT
Embodiment Project (“EP”) is a San Francisco-based urban dance theater company founded by Nicole Klaymoon in 2008. Quickly gaining critical acclaim, EP seamlessly intersects high-energy street dance, live song, choreo-poetry, and theater. EP recently received critical support from funders such as Gerbode and Hewlett Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, East Bay Fund for Artists, the City of Oakland’s Cultural Funding Program, Center for Cultural Innovation, Rainin Opportunity Fund, and the Zellerbach Family Foundation grant. Dance magazine Contributing Editor Rita Felciano called Embodiment Project one of the Bay Area’s “ten companies and artists who challenged expectations and unveiled surprises…in 2012.” The San Francisco Bay Guardian wrote that Nicole Klaymoon’s signature work House of Matter, “(w)as one of the most rocking and joyous dance shows to hit the town in a long time.”
EP performed in the collaborative, mixed media production Block By Block, directed by Sean San Jose, as part of the artist fellowship series at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. EP performed at numerous festivals including the 2013 and 2014 International Hip Hop Festival at the Palace of Fine Arts, Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s Left Coast Leaning Festival, G.R.A.C.E. Africa (Kenya), Booking Dance Festival at Jazz at Lincoln Center (NY), Daedalus Project on the Elizabethan Stage at Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OR), Dance Brigade’s Manifest-ival for Social Change (CA), Cuba Caribe Festival (CA), West Wave Dance Festival at Z Space (CA), ODC’s Walking the Distance Festival (CA), Krissy Kefer’s Voluspa: A Ghost Dance For 2012, and four consecutive years in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Green Show (OR).
EP has produced home season shows of original works to sold-out audiences for the past six years in San Francisco. The company has been awarded an artist residency at Intersection for the Arts, Red Poppy Art House, Destiny Arts Center, Dos Rios Artist Retreat Center, and Dance Mission Theater. EP has partnered with G.R.A.C.E. Africa on a interdisciplinary performance to disseminate information and raise awareness about HIV/AIDS in Kenya, Africa. They have also collaborated with ABD Productions for the past three years on a project called SKYWATCHERS, which is a community arts performance that partnered with formerly homeless residents of San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. EP presented Rennie Harris’ 18th annual Illadelph Legends of Hip Hop Festival at Destiny Arts Center in Oakland.
MAIKAZE DAIKO
Maikaze Daiko was founded with the mission to preserve and promote the rich, cultural and artistic heritage of the modern folk art form of taiko, known as kumi-daiko. Kumi-daiko, or modern taiko, was pioneered by the late Master Teacher, Daihachi Oguchi, who was a jazz drummer at the time when he first arranged traditional taiko drums and taiko music in way that could be played in a large group format. Up until that time, taiko was not played in large groups and was mostly associated with festivals, traditional theater (kabuki, noh, etc.), as instruments of war, and in religious ceremonies. Master Oguchi's revolutionary approach allowed taiko to evolve as a true community art form and resulted in over 4,000 taiko groups in Japan today. Grandmaster Sensei Seiichi Tanaka, known as the “Father of American Taiko”, carried the torch of kumi-daiko from his teacher, Daihachi Oguchi, to North America to form the first taiko group in 1968, San Francisco Taiko Dojo, It was at this dojo where Bruce "Mui" Ghent began his ardent and grueling training. Sensei Tanaka’s teachings led to the formation of the majority of taiko groups in the U. S. today with Maikaze Daiko representing the third generation of taiko artists to carry the torch of kumi-daiko.
As an emerging and innovative new organization, Maikaze Daiko strives to offer affordable classes and performances to educate our community about the dynamic art of taiko drumming. The dojo instructs over 50 students, ranging in age from 9 to 63. In addition to developing the discipline of mind and the physical strength required for this demanding pursuit, our students learn about the vibrant history and culture of taiko, both recent and ancient. All students are given the opportunity to perform in showcases each year as part of their training and mentored towards their future goals within the art form. Maikaze Daiko focuses on work that incorporates elements of world music, contemporary choreography, and interdisciplinary imagination as a medium to express the universal human condition as it relates to its environment, community and the future while being rooted in cultural traditions. Maikaze Daiko believes that the power of the taiko drum can bring together people of diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, and perspectives and that power unites them in a community embodied in performances that connect the rhythms of the body with the soul and the spirit of the heart.
Currently, Mr. Ghent serves as resident Taiko Director/Instructor/Composer at Dance Mission for the youth dance and taiko group, GRRRL Brigade, and the professional dance theater and taiko group, Dance Brigade, for whom his work was nominated for a 2000-2001 Isadora Duncan Award. In 2007, he started the beginnings of his taiko school which is now known as Maikaze (Dancing Wind) Daiko and produces and directs the SF World Percussion Arts festival in San Francisco, highlighting the top local Bay Area world percussionists. He serves as the Head Instructor for Yokayo Taiko in Ukiah, CA. and Mendocino Taiko in Mendocino, CA. and co-directs along with Odaiko New England’s former artistic director, Elaine Fong, a professional taiko ensemble called KIKU.
CHRISTELLE DURANDY
Christelle Durandy’s artistry is a mosaic; a cross-cultural jazz combination that draws upon a vast spectrum of Soul, Caribbean and Latin inspirations. The melodic threads of her musicianship transcend borders and weave an international music fabric rooted in herloyal love for percussion, polyrhythm and for words and languages rhythmic concepts.
Preserving her stylings, Christelle brings her musical colors to diverse projects. She fronts Edward Perez’ Festejation. She has been featured with Toshi Reagon and Allison Miller “Celebrate the great women of Blues and Jazz”, the Paul Carlon Octet, Max Pollak RumbaTap, Ricky Ford and Ze Big Band, Ran Blake,andChristelle heads the all-female World/Latin music collective Cocomama, in which she exhibits her talent as both a performer and arranger.
Of Reunion Island and French West Indies ancestry, Christelle Durandy combines colors of a rich tapestry of musical experiences as she began performing and touring at an early age with her family-based troupe in France. Under their guidance, she honed in on musical skills that she later developed during her apprenticeship in Europe, Cuba, and The U.S. Christelle has continually garnered critical praise for her passionate and fierce live performances, and has mesmerized audiences worldwide.
CALENDAR LISTING
Pleas note: Hi-res jpegs are available upon request and are online at dancemission.com
What: Summer Feast Covelo
A magical outdoor performance of dance, music, drumming, and poetry.
When: Sunday, September 11, 4:00pm
Gates open at 3:00pm
Where: Hidden Oaks Park
76699 Covelo Rd
Covelo, CA
Tickets: $5 for Round Valley Tribal Members
$15 for general public
Free for youth 12 years and younger
Brownpapertickets.com or 1800-838-3006
Information: 415-826-4441, www.dancemission.com
SPECIAL EVENTS
Dance and Drumming classes led by Summer Feast artists
Long Valley Dance
200 Branscomb Rd
Laytonville, CA
Sunday, September 18
11-12pm- Taiko Drumming (all levels, adults and teens)
12:15-1:15pm – Hip Hop (all levels, adults and teens)
1:30-2:20pm – Salsa (all levels, adults and teens)
$5/class
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