In selecting artists for this year’s Fact/SF Summer Dance Festival, Artistic Director Charles Slender-White was clear on his top criterion: “We looked for clarity of voice, artists whose work doesn’t look like anybody else’s,” he said.
A glance at the festival’s two-weekend lineup, opening Friday, July 29,at the Mission’s Joe GoodeAnnex, suggests that aim was successful. How’s this for variety?: The Bollywood-ballet-queer culture mashup of Bay Area dancers Amit Patel& Ishika Seth will share a bill with the eye-popping video projections of Pittsburgh duoSlowdanger, the quirky dance theater of San Francisco’s Sharp & Fine, and the nightclub-influenced performance art of Seattle’s Drama Tops.
But just as noteworthy as the diverse slate of adventurous dance is how it came together.
Having founded his own company in 2008, Slender-White deeply understands the challenges faced by small, experimental troupes and is out to improve the field’s curatorial practices. So, rather than asking already-stretched artists to invest not only time but also money in an onerous application process, Fact/SF actually paid dance companies $25 each to apply.
The festival’s eight-person selection panel made sure that every one of its 50 applicants was personally and thoughtfully interviewed. Fact/SF also committed to paying the performers stipends that would make the festival worth their time. Finally, the panel pledged to an equity goal of presenting at least 50% non-white and LGBTQ artists.
“But when it came down to the decisions, we didn’t even really have to talk about demographics,” Slender-White says. “The diversity was already there. And the work that stood out for us, we just felt, ‘What a privilege it would be for us to play a role in bringing this person’s work to the stage.’ ”
The resulting festival, the third annual after two years of COVID hiatus, appears well poised to carry out its vision of mixing artists from the Bay Area and far beyond in an environment where both audiences and artists can exchange ideas and find pleasure in taking risks.
Megan and Shannon Kurashige, the sisters behind Sharp & Fine, say they’ve seized the festival’s spirit of openness to throw together fresh collaborations. Their premiere will feature a commissioned score by two composers, Max Judelson and Jordan Glenn. For their cast, they’ve combined a longtime collaborator, Detour Dance’s bold Eric Garcia, with a dancer completely new to them, Caitlin Hicks.
“We’re playing with an idea we hope to expand on for a longer piece in our company’s next home season: What does it mean to imagine the future?” Megan Kurashige said.
通常的姐妹们一起工作缓慢,揍你the heart” music, but in this premiere, part of the score is rapidly percussive and there’s “a strange solo that is Eric’s imagined kind of folk dance,” Shannon Kurashige said. “It’s totally wild.”
Knowing they’ll be sharing the slate with performers from Seattle and Pittsburgh, they said, has aided their boldness.
While the first weekend of the festival offers six groups in shorter works, the second weekend, Aug.5-7, presents just two companies and allows them to slow down and take bigger risks in the larger ODC Theater. One of these is Slender-White’s own group, dancing a new 40-minute piece set to the dramatic Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major. Slender-White was intrigued by the music’s origin story; Tchaikovsky wrote the music for a beloved student, Iosif Kotek, but Kotek refused to perform the work and the artists’ relationship never recovered.
“I’m not telling a love story onstage,” Slender-White said. “My work is rather abstract. But I was interested in what it’s like to make something for someone else and then not have it received in the hoped-for way. It’s pretty athletic and really fun to dance.”
The other company on weekend two is Disco Riot, which will in turn present Fact/SF in its hometown of San Diego next year, as part of Fact/SF’s Peer Organized Reciprocal Touringprogram. Disco RiotArtistic Director Zaquia Mahler Salinas said her group is bringing a 2019 piece inspired by famed“The Way of Zen” author Alan Watts’ talks on creation and origin stories.
“But it’s very playful and there’s a lot of fun, sweaty group dancing, and quiet moments, too,” said Salinas, who adds that she found a natural alignment with Slender-White’s goals for the festival.
“We’re both interested in redistribution of resources and understanding the systemic barriers of the nonprofit space, which is a kind of industrial complex,” Salinas said. “We both care about the intersectional experience of queer, trans and gender-nonconforming folks.”
As for her company’s live performance, “the sound is funky and synthy and meant to highlight the big energy of creativity. It’s a little magical,” she said. Just as Slender-White hopes the festival itself will be.
Fact/SF Summer Dance Festival:Weekend one featuring Sharp & Fine, Amit Patel & Ishika Seth, Chinchin Hsu,Slowdanger, and Drama Tops. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, July 29-30. Joe GoodeAnnex, 401 Alabama St., S.F.; weekend two features Fact/SF and Disco Riot. 8 p.m. Aug. 5-6, 3 p.m. Aug. 7. ODC Theater, 3153 17thSt., S.F. $15-$50.https://factsf.org/summer-dance-festival