Classes/EVENTS

Alternative Conservatory
presents
IQ|ID (inquiry into dance series)

Keith Hennessy | Dissertation Interrogations | video/lecture/discoure
Wednesdays > 7-9:30pm
March 14 & 28 and April 11 & 25
$5 (no-one turned away)
Underground at KUNST-STOFF arts | 1 Grove Street | San Francisco CA 94102

March 14     Str8 White Contact
March 28     Mangrove
April 11         The Wallflower Order Dance Collective
April 25         The Gay Men’s Theatre Collective

March 14     Str8 White Contact
The paradox of Contact Improvisation, a seemingly universal dance for all bodies, born during the cultural utopia of the early 70s, that continues to reinforce white and hetero norms.

March 28    Mangrove
An all-male collective of Contact Improvisers, started in 1975 in SF, based at Project Artaud and Mariposa Studio. Embodying both postmodern dance/Judson aesthetics and also counter-cultural norms re: hippy masculinity, anti-hierarchical organization and collective process, rejection of disciplinary borders. Looking at ways that hetero men assimilated feminism and gay liberation through collaborative improvised dancing. Looking at their influence on Bay Area performance (Contraband and so many others) and on the development of contemporary dance and performance in the US and Europe.

April 11    The Wallflower Order Dance Collective
An all-female dance collective, born in Eugene in 1975, disbanded in the early 80s, with 2 members (Krissy Keefer and Nina Fichter, RIP) starting The Dance Brigade, a still thriving company based at Dance Mission. The role of female and lesbian separatism in the development of progressive politics, postmodern dance and performance, contemporary theory and psychology. The prefiguring of several key tendencies in 80s postmodern/contemporary dance: athletics, martial arts, spoken text and song, hybridization or integration of multiple dance techniques (ballet, modern, postmod, pop and folk). The influence of feminist and socialist modern dance from NYC in the 30s, Brecht and politically engaged theater, 3d world revolutionary movements esp in SE Asia and Africa, popular forms of theater/dance/performance and women’s craft. And maybe even a comparison with Grand Union (Yvonne Rainer-instigated collective embracing abstract formalism and politics).

April 25     The Gay Men’s Theatre Collective
Started in SF in 1976, they toured one performance (Crimes Against Nature) for two years. The first group of non-women to adopt feminist collective theater practices (consciousness raising groups, a particular approach to anti-patriarchal anti-hierarchical organizing). Charting the influence of Contact Improv (specifically Mangrove), lesbian and feminist theater (specifically Lilith), and radical political theater (specifically The Living Theater). Dramaturgy that embodies spiral, circle and ritual rather than heroic narrative and catharsis. The impact of AIDS on gay/queer culture, and the development of contemporary dance and performance (7 of the 11 collective members have died of AIDS).

KEITH HENNESSY was born in a mining town in Northern Ontario, Canada, lives in San Francisco, and works regularly in Europe. He is an award-winning performer, choreographer, teacher and organizer. Hennessy directs Circo Zero Performance, a laboratory for live performance that defies genre and expectation. Rooted in dance, Hennessy’s work embodies a unique hybrid of performance art, music, visual and conceptual art, circus, and ritual. A Queer 20th Anniversary features Hennessy in two solo performances, Saliva (1988-89) & Crotch (all the Joseph Beuys references in the world…) (2008), as well as How To Die (2005-06) in the collaboration with Jules Beckman and Seth Eisen.

Hennessy was a member of Sara Shelton Mann’s legendary Contraband (85-94), as well as the collaborative performance companies CORE (95-98) and the France-based Cahin-caha, cirque b’tard (98-02). His work is featured in several books and documentaries, including How To Make Dances in an Epidemic (David Gere, Univ of Wisconsin: 2004), Gay Ideas (Richard Mohr, Beacon: 1992), and Dancers in Exile (RAPT Productions, 2000). Hennessy is a co-founder of 848 Community Space/CounterPULSE a thriving performance and culture space in San Francisco.

Recent awards include two Isadora Duncan Awards (2009) for Sol niger, a Goldie (2007) and the Alpert/MacDowell Fellowship in Dance (2005). In 2009, Keith was awarded residencies at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and Djerassi. Recent commissions include Arsenic, Lausanne (Crotch, 2008), Centre ChorÈgraphique National, Belfort (Sol niger, 2007), Les Subsistances, Lyon (Sol niger 2007, Homeless USA, 2005), Les Laboratoires, Paris (American Tweaker, 2006), FUSED (French-US Exchange in Dance), and Lower Left Performance Co, San Diego (Gather, 2005).

Instigated by Keith Hennessy in 2001, Zero Performance and Circo Zero make live performance sparked by current and historic social realities. The work is interdisciplinary and experimental, operating within the tensions between intimacy and spectacle, rhetoric and ritual, personal and social. Rooted in contemporary dance and performance we also engage circus, theatre, music, visual and conceptual art. Under the influence of queer ideas, aesthetics and histories, Zero Performance evolves performance language and builds community through collaboration, crossing lines of artistic discipline, personal and cultural identity, and social expectations. Zero Performance participates in local and global struggles for justice, functioning as a collective space and public laboratory.

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BIODANZA: a Re-Encounter with Life and the Passion of Living

Weekly Class in San Francisco

Wednesdays, 7-9pm

at KUNST-STOFF arts

Aliria Serna, Facilitator under supervision

aliriaserna@gmail.com

(415)828-0650

www.biodanza.us

The class is given in Spanish, although most of the class is non-verbal

BIODANZA: a Re-Encounter with Life and the Passion of Living

Biodanza will make you feel Alive, Included, Creative, Connected, Empowered and Beloved

Biodanza is a personal empowerment system that uses specially selected music to activate your emotions.  In Biodanza, your movement is guided by those emotions, connecting you with the moment and everything around you.

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motives” Advanced Physical Practice w/Kathleen Hermesdorf & Albert MathiasMonday, Wedenesday & Friday 10:00-12:00

Starting: October 31st

“inside”

Contemporary Techniques w/Yannis Adoniou

Tuesday & Thursday 9:45-11:15

Starting: November 8th

“Jelly! Like a jam but also not at all”

Hybrid workshop/improve training ground w/ Laura Arrington

Sundays 4:00-6:00

Starting: November 6^th

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