FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival 2024 Weekend Two at ODC Theater includes a generous helping of contemporary dance performances. Joining three premieres and a fresh work by local artists, we experience two intriguing pieces by visiting artists: Los Angeles-based Summation Dance/LA and the Chicagoan Sophie Minouche Allen. The presentation of this duo of visiting artists, along with the magnetic Jenna Riegel, whose compelling Vavara stole the show during Weekend One show, is a hallmark of the Summer Dance Festival, now in its 5th year.
Hot, live and otherwise, inspired by the 1981-2000 anti-nuclear protest of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp in Berkshire England, created and performed by Allen, is the most affecting work. The piece opens with Allen center stage, almost lovingly clutching a grey cinder block in her arms. Rotating slowly on a tight center, she gradually increases speed until the momentum causes her long wavy hair to bell out from her head. She resembles a discus thrower as she extends an arm, gripping the heavy block at its end as if it too, is caught in the centrifugal force of her spinning.
With a new trajectory, Allen crosses to us, setting the block down. She picks up an oversized hour glass, filled with small blood-red jagged pebbles. She lifts the timeclock, shakes it briefly so we may hear the gravel moving within it and sense its weight, and turns it upside down sending the sands of time into motion.
While keeping her focus on the ebbing minutes, Allen fills the stage with her dancing. Thrilling us, as she whips by, twirling in the air, her body vertical like an ice-skater’s, before unfurling into huge open-bodied barrel turns. A speedy dash ends in a deep plié from which she regards us, her breath heavy in the space. Gathering her resolve in this spare moment of calm, she resumes her work, marching purposefully, arms extended overhead, across the space.
Finally, Allen wraps a long red strap around and through the holes of the cinderblock. Had she been outside I am sure she would have dragged it with her body in some way, but given the delicacy of the linoleum floor, she instead cradles the bundled concrete to her chest and then deadlifts it overhead, carrying it off, as the lights fade.
Sophie Minouche Allen bows with cinderblock against looming shadow of hourglass; Photo Jen Norris
With a glimmer of anticipation in her eye, Erin Yen performs an interactive solo titled Run-On, in partnership with a volunteer audience member. After briefing him quickly, out of earshot of the audience, she seats him at a clothed card table on stage. The stranger, in this case a middle-aged man with long blond locks, faces her on a diagonal as she performs a series of full-bodied gestures. He watches, mimics, sometimes agreeing or disagreeing by shaking his head, and other times slaps out a rhythm atop the table. Yen responds to him, and he to her, taking turns, as if in conversation. There is joy to be had in observing the newbie working to capture the spirit of her finger twirl. As the conversation intensifies, their movements overlap, as if interrupting. The growing insistence of her gestural argument makes their differences of opinion legible. Program notes indicate Run-On honors Yen’s late grandmother as it explores diverse perspectives of storytelling and questions the cyclical way in which people communicate.
Erin Yen conferring with her volunteer duet partner prior to their performance; Photo J. Norris
For their dance, sister score, Zoe and Rose Huey face us, hand-in-hand. In an elongated sibilant whisper, they jointly utter a series of words. Despite repetition, the words are annoyingly difficult to decipher. Moving to center stage they lie on their backs, becoming twin starfish joined at the hands. Now audibly, they reiterate “regular,” “intertwined,” “flat,” “pinky,” “back.”
Mirroring each other, like Rorschach inkblots, they form matching body shapes for each word. “Intertwined” finds their arms and legs jutting out and crossing toward each other, creating a pyramid of tangled limbs. When they get to “back” they roll away from each other to lie in a loose fetal position, their spines to each other.
They keep up their patter and shape-making in synch as their cadence increases ever faster, causing a delightful muddle near the end. Finally, they stand and we realize that the terms refer to the various ways the siblings join hands. Perhaps this charming game is one they played as children.
Summation Dance/LA presents a selection from their founder, Taryn Vander Hoop’s When will I be? (2022) which “investigates how capitalism lives in our bodies." The six dancers dressed in matching faded denim coveralls are interchangeable cogs in a wheel, struggling between independence and conformity. They form a line along the backwall, facing away in identical posture with spread legs matched by stick straight arms echoing the diagonal lines of their legs. To move, they pivot on a foot while swinging their stiff bodies around like plastic toy soldiers.
Some break from the model enticing others to join. A pair relaxes into each other, rediscovering their humanity in a safe space away from the others. Too soon, the pressure to follow expectations overwhelms, and one reassumes the erect posture, as her disillusioned mate clings ineffectively at her heels.
Promo photo of Summation Dance/LA performing Taryn Vander Hoop’s When will I be? Photo: John Suhar
Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş‘s ends of Axis choreographed in collaboration with fellow dancers, Tamara Chu and Maddy Bullard, premiered earlier this summer at imPACT Center. Per the program notes, ends of AXIS "highlights the experience of mental illness from several perspectives, to witness, to be witnessed and to fail to witness, within the complexities of the crisis." From the start there is an outsider persona, Flasher-Düzgüneş, who carries a lantern, sometimes bringing light to the dark stage, other times gliding spectrally behind the translucent backdrop. The light may represent the elusiveness of sanity or perhaps the light holder is one who witnesses without acting.
Chu and Bullard dance a powerful and dramatic duet, though it is not clear who is having the mental health crisis and who is a loved one trying to help, but caught in its thrall. Blurring the sane and the mad may be the best way to portray the helplessness one experiences in the presence of a beloved’s crisis, especially in our society where only some have access to healthcare, and fewer still to psychiatric resources.
The techno pop music of British phenom Charli XCX fills the space, as a quartet of dancers in gold sequin bomber jackets, over metallic red and blue spandex, enter as a posse. Their chests are proudly out, their uneven gaits suggestive of showgirls who have lost a stiletto. Extra, a quartet created and performed by FACT/SF company members Keanu Brady, Katherine Neumann, LizAnne Roman Roberts, and Charlie Slender-White, around a concept by Slender-White, offers a series of unison sequences suitable for the backup dancers in a commercial music video.
Despite the glittery costumes, and the finale placement, Extra is oddly melancholy. The facial expressions tend toward affectless. Del Medoff’s lighting is shadowy, with one cue composed solely of acid-green backlight. Is the intention to show the dark side of show business? As the relentless beat plays on, I consider the all-consuming effort to stay apace in a materialistic world, and wonder if I would see that in this dance had it not been prefaced with other’s pieces about mental illness and insidious corporate greed. Either way, I am grateful for FACT/SF’s continued commitment to supporting their colleagues near and far with production and touring support and shared bills, such as this varied and interesting evening of dance.
Review by Jen Norris, published August 28, 2024.
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August 23, 24, & 25, 2024
ODC Theater, 3153 17th Street, San Francisco, CA
fact/sf artistic director
Charlie Slender-White
lighting design & technical Direction
Del Medoff
production Assistant
Zoë Quon
Show Order
sister score, Zoey Huey
when will i be? (excerpt, 2022), summation dance / la
hot, live and otherwise, Sophie Minouche Allen
INTERMISSION
ends of axis, MAxine flasher-düzgüneş
Run-on, ERin YeN
EXTRA, FACT/sF
Production Credits
Run-On
Choreography and Performance: Erin Yen
Costume Courtesy of Deborah Slater Dance Theatre
Props/Set Courtesy of Kendall Away and Sydni Self and the Yen Family
Sound Design: Ben Juodvalkis
Lighting Design & Technical Direction: Del Medoff
Technicians: Shy Baniani and Taylor Rivers
Hot, live and otherwise
Choreography and Performance: Sophie Minouche Allen
Soundscore: Chien-An Yuan
Prop Design: Arabella Zurbano
Costume Design: Sophie and Karin Minouche in collaboration with Crimson Moeller
Lighting Design & Technical Direction: Del Medoff
Technicians: Shy Baniani and Taylor Rivers
ends of Axis
Original Premiere: July 26-27, 2024, iMPACt Center for the Arts and Dance
Choreography: Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş in collaboration with the dancers
Performance: Maddy Bullard, Tamara Chu, and Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş
Projection Design: Cameron Surh
Projection Dancer: Hiroka Nagai
Music: “You Burn Me” by Laurel Halo (Courtesy of Awe Worldwide), original sound by David Caparó
Lighting Design & Technical Direction: Del Medoff
Technicians: Shy Baniani and Taylor Rivers
Summation Dance / LA
When will I be? (excerpt, 2022)
Originally Premiered in 2022
Choreographer: Taryn Vander Hoop
Performers: Kacie Boblitt, Sumi Clements, Sadie Crystal, Emily Keller, Krystal Masteller, Alexandra Rix
Original Music Composition: Malcolm Tulip and Squash & Biscuit
Costume Designer: Leon Wiebers
Lighting Design & Technical Direction: Del Medoff
Technicians: Shy Baniani and Taylor Rivers
FACT/SF
ExtraConcept & Direction: Charles Slender-White
Choreography & Performance: Keanu Brady, Katherine Neumann, LizAnne Roman Roberts, Charlie Slender-White
Music: Charli XCX
Lighting Design & Technical Direction: Del Medoff
Technicians: Taylor Rivers & Shy Baniani
sister score
Choreography and Performance: Rose Huey and Zoe Huey
Lighting Design & Technical Direction: Del Medoff
Technicians: Shy Baniani and Taylor Rivers