2024 EXCHANGES
FRESH
opening party
15th year anniversary
Come celebrate our 15 years of FRESH.
We will be hosting our Opening Party
after the Feb 9 2024 performance.
featuring Fresh co-founder Albert Mathias
lets boogie!!!
there will be birthday cake;)
Friday, February 9
9:30pm after Performance night 1
@ Dance Mission Theater
***purchase performance night 1 ticket for full access to after party ++ arrive at 9:30pm to PARTYYY
Sorry I Missed Your Show:
TONIC
film screening + talk back
Film screening of Kathleen Hermesdorf and Albert Mathias 2018 piece, Tonic as part of the Sorry I Missed Your Show series at YBCA, curated by Jose Omé Navarrete Mazatl. It will be followed by a conversation with Albert Mathias, hosted by Hannah Wasielewski. The event runs only from 3:30-4:45! (YBCA closes at 5)
Saturday February 10
3:30pm-4:45pm
@ YBCA
**admission $9 at the door
OBJECT OF
DANCE
What could a drag persona called ‘Object of Dance’ talk to us about?
What is a drag of contemporary dance? In this solo I am trying to stretch the concept of a drag from the body (identity) towards movement, speech and dance as a (theatre) performance. I am appropriating, estranging and modifying the way I perform - gender, body, presence, materiality, movement - by splitting the roles of an author, spectator and performer into fragments smaller than a singularity.
‘This work lays upon Pregrad’s strong performativity, and is structured as a wild poem in movement, made of a dog’s bark, a ballet jump, a gaze returned through a mirror, an apple bite, an ox’s horn, a postmodern glitchy and flowing body and a lip-synch of an inner voice.’
Sonja Pregrad is a Croatian choreographer, performer, teacher and performance curator. She is a founder and producer of the festival IMPROSPEKCIJE (since 2007) that FRESH has been exchanging with for the last two years, as well as ANTISEZONA collective, running a program of performance art at Contemporary Art Museum in Zagreb.
As a performer she has been working with choreographers Meg Stuart, Boris Charmatz, Isabelle Schad, visual artist Sanja Iveković, and others. She has been continuously teaching at New Media department of Fine Art Academy and Dance department of Dramatic Art Academy in Zagreb and at ROAR Berlin independent program.
This practice of making by translating has been developed through her ongoing teaching in dance and visual art contexts. It has also been very inspired by the non-stopping practice by American artist and mentor Jeanine Durning. She believes every moment we put our commitment into is a seed containing our life’s work. And it’s a play and a practice to sharpen our perception in how we work with it.
Sonja holds an MA Solo Dance Authorship from Universitaet der Kunste Berlin. For her choreographic and performance work she has received three Croatian National Theatre Awards and 5 nominations, three Croatian Dance Associations Awards and a special mention of 26th Slavonian Biennale, and has also been awarded for the organisation and curation of the festival Improspekcije (since 2007).
Sunday, February 11
6pm
@ Dance Mission Theater
$5-$25 sliding scale
Kathleen Hermesdorf LEGACY Gathering
Sharing | Pedagogy | Potluck | Healing
Monday, February 12
7pm
@ CounterPulse
donation based $5-$20
A space to share, heal, and bring forward the teachings of our beloved
Kathleen Hermesdorf and Albert Mathias.
Throughout the evening, we will share in facilitated discussion -diving deep into GUT Motives pedagogy- physicality, philosophy, and practice. Understanding how we bring Kathleen’s legacy forward while uncovering the multidimensionality of the masterful teaching work she developed with Albert.
A collective moment of honoring, memorializing, and remembering the portal of transformation they walked us through while we danced together.
We will share food, stories, histories, embodiment, and inspirations. Ritual, conversation and dreaming forward with legacy practice.
Bring an item for the altar and a dish to share
All are welcome- Hosted by Hannah Wasielewski Joined by Special Guest Albert Mathias, Marit Brook-Kothlow, Jo Kreiter, gizeh muñiz vengel, Amy Wasielewski, Jo Marit, and more.
Hannah Wasielewski (she/her) is a dancer, performer, educator, and biodynamic craniosacral therapist based in Portland, Maine. Formally based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she is grateful to have worked on FRESH Festival by Kathleen Hermesdorf’s side from 2016-2019. Her practice today is centered around contact improvisation, experimental contemporary dance forms, and healing through radical performance.
Creatures of the Night
On Tuesday, February 13, Angels and Fresh Festival present Creatures of the Night, a special edition of Angels showcasing performances on the edge between drag and performance art. A guest DJ will play music from 9 pm until 1 am, with a drag show at 10:30 pm. Aunt Charlie's Lounge is located at 133 Turk Street, just across the street and down the block from CounterPulse, and is a cash-only bar. Angels charges a $5 cover.
21 +
This venue is not wheelchair accessible.
Angels is a drag show and dance party held monthly at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, the Tenderloin’s only remaining drag bar. Produced and hosted by Myles Cooper, Brittany Newell, and Maria Silk, Angels brings together a variety of local and visiting drag performers, performance artists, musicians, and DJs. Curatorially open-minded and eclectic, Angels continues the legacy of previous Tuesday night parties at Aunt Charlie’s like High Fantasy (2010-2018) and Chasers (2018-2020). Like these previous incarnations, Angels invites club kids, drag babies, and underground performers to shine alongside Bay Area drag legends in a glamorous and intimate setting. Angels currently produces a show at Aunt Charlie's on the second Tuesday of every month.
Thursday, February 15
7pm
@ CounterPulse
donation based $5-$25
supported by performance primers
RIPE
FRESH and ABG present throwing clay: teacher, trickster, chaos, clay
**bring altar item
Join Asian Babe Gang's Kim Ip and Aiano Nakagawa as they facilitate an open, interactive rehearsal full dance-y offerings to ancestors, spicy proposals, butterflies, metaphorical glitter, and tenderness. Babes, Emma Dewey and Samuel Melecio-Zambrano (who met at ABG's Mixed Mixer Event), will each be sharing a work in progress, improvisational score and/or piece of choreography. This is an opportunity for the KH FRESH community and beyond to come experience dance in an interactive, engaging, and emergent way! Audience will be asked prompted questions and encouraged to provide reflections + feedback about the work to further support the artists' creative process.
Aiano Nakagawa is a dance artist, performer, educator and producer. Kim Ip is a dance maker, performance artist, pop culture connoisseur, and dance daddy. She is honored to be curating RIPE with Aiano <3. Together they are curating on behalf of ABG. Asian Babe Gang, is a horizontally-led, Bay Area-based collective of queer, Asian-American, women and femmes who work at the intersection of community-building and performance. Core members include dance artists Malia Hatico-Byrne, Rose Huey, Kim Ip, Melissa Lewis Wong, Aiano Nakagawa, and Nina Wu.
RIPE Performers: Emma Quan Dewey + Samuel Melecio-Zambrano
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Emma Quan Dewey is a Bay Area-raised dancer and choreographer putting down roots in Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone lands (Oakland).Emma’s work grounds itself in dance as an imaginative, world-building act / as a ritual to move through the intimate ways identity, power structures, and history play out at the level of the body / as an offering to be in relationship with land, ancestors, and spirits. Ongoing creative inquiries center on transmuting the embodied afterlives of US empire in her Chinese and white lineage into more liberated, connected ways of being.
Emma is a company artist with Dancing Earth Creations and holds a BA in Dance and Anthropology from Bowdoin College. They have shown work at Dance Mission Theater, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, and the School for Contemporary Dance & Thought.
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Born and raised in Florida, Samuel Melecio-Zambrano is a dancer, maker, and teacher based on Ramaytush Ohlone land (San Francisco, CA). They were first exposed to dance in the womb, as their mother salsa-ed her way about the living room. In 2018, they received a BFA in Dance from the University of South Florida. Samuel then moved to Melbourne, Australia to continue training, and following a fruitful stint as an avocado picker in Queensland, Australia, Samuel moved back to the United States. Now in San Francisco, they have performed with BANDALOOP, FACT/SF, Robert Moses' Kin, Kinetech Arts, Kristin Damrow & Company, Garrett + Moulton Productions, and Mark Foehringer Dance Projects among others. Emma is a company artist with Dancing Earth Creations and holds a BA in Dance and Anthropology from Bowdoin College. They have shown work at Dance Mission Theater, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, and the School for Contemporary Dance & Thought.
Bay Area Now
to be unseen
Dazaun Soleyn (he/she/they), with an intention to create art that aims to illuminate the human soul, has presented work in the Bay Area since 2013. Before moving to the Bay, he graduated as the University of South Florida's Outstanding Graduate with a BFA in Modern Dance Performance and Choreography. Upon graduation, Dazaun was accepted as a Trainee at the Alonzo King LINES Ballet Training Program (LBTP). His teaching credits include the Alonzo King LINES Ballet Training Program, University of South Florida, Cal-State University East Bay, Alonzo King LINES Ballet BFA Program, Gibney Dance Center, America Ballet School, Dance Mission Theater, and ODC Commons. His work has been shared at Dance Mission Theater, Shawl Anderson Dance Center, Laney College, the University of San Francisco Studio Theater, Z Space, the Joe Goode Annex, Red Poppy House, Florence Schwimley Little Theater in Berkeley, and ODC Theater. Dazaun has also been commissioned to create works for the Oakland Ballet Company, The Alonzo King LINES Ballet Summer Program, and the University of San Francisco Performing Arts and Social Justice Department. In the Fall of 2018, Dazaun received a CA$H grant to present his first evening-length work entitled "Existence," which used the dynamic aesthetics of hip-hop, contemporary, and floor techniques to reveal the beauty and complexity of the minority experience with code-switching and assimilation. And was named Most Notable Debut by the SF Chronicle in 2018. Recently, Dazaun graduated from California College of the Arts with a Master’s in Architecture. Dazaun is an Adjunct Professor at the University of San Francisco, a Gyrotonic Instructor, a Reiki Master, an Apprentice Herbalist, and a candidate for a Master's in Architecture from California College of the Arts. His artistic mediums include dance, architecture, sculpture, and interactive installations. Dazaunsoleyn.org
Rama Hall is a professional dancer based out of the Bay Area, California. He’s been studying street dance styles for the last 14 years. His main style is House Dance, but he also studies Freestyle Hip Hop, Popping, Locking, Breaking, and other street dance styles, as well as various African Styles, Contemporary, and Capoeira.
For 14 years Rama has been a core member of the Bay Area dance theater company Embodiment Project, performing for sold out audiences in the Bay and other areas in the country.
One of Rama’s greatest passions is teaching dance to adults, young adults, and youth, in the Bay and abroad, and has been teaching weekly adult classes for the past 10 years, including 8 years at Dance Mission Theater in San Francisco.
Rama is a Co-Director of the youth theater company “Seeds” based out of ODC Dance Commons in San Francisco. Rama is also a Teaching Artist for Destiny Arts Center teaching the youth and servicing schools in East Oakland.
Rama has made a name for himself in the battle/competitive scene in the US and Europe winning many competitions in places such as the Bay Area, NYC, DC, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, London, Mexico City, and Peru. One of Rama’s biggest highlights is competing at the Juste Debout Finals in Paris in front of 16,000 people, and also making top 6 and top 4 two different years in House Dance Forever Amsterdam.
Rama is deeply rooted in community, and supports the Bay Area, as well as the international dance community in many ways. Rama spends several months every year since 2010 traveling the world, gaining inspiration in dance, and bringing that experience back into his teaching and artistry in the Bay. Rama is a passionate steward and educator of House Dance and Street Dance culture.
Audrey Johnson is a queer, Black, mixed-race dance artist and plant worker with roots from Detroit, Michigan/Anishinaabe land, currently based in Oakland, CA/Ohlone land. Audrey’s performance, choreographic, and teaching work experiments with improvisation and embodied time travel, in refusal of colonized time and space.
Her performance work has been presented by CounterPulse, ODC, Gravity, FRESH Festival, RAWdance, (San Francisco); Queering Dance Festival, 2727 California Street (Berkeley, CA); the Malcolm X Jazz Festival (Oakland, CA); Sidewalk Arts Festival, Detroit Dance Exchange, and Daring Dances (Detroit, MI).
As a performer and collaborator, Audrey has danced in the companies and projects of artists Gerald Casel (SF), Jennifer Harge (Detroit), Biba Bell (Detroit), Detour Dance (SF), Stephanie Hewett (Oakland), among others. As an educator, she has taught dance as embodied practice at community spaces, dance centers, and youth programs, and is a current faculty member with the LINES BFA Program through Dominican University.
Audrey holds a BFA in Dance with honors from Wayne State University, and was a co-founder of Collective Sweat Detroit, an organization holding spaces for dance and dance artists in Detroit founded in 2017.
Saturday, February 17
3:30-5:30pm
@ YBCA
admission for YBCA $8 at the door
This program is presented in partnership with YBCA as part of Bay Area Now 9 public programming. Bay Area Now 9 dance programming is curated by José Ome Navarrete Mazatl.
FRESH
lemon party
Saturday, February 17
9-11pm
@ Dance Mission Theater
We are going to close this festival with an absolute BANGER! featuring gg torres.
Think sweet and totally SOUR ;0.
Lemon cocktails will be served
wear a mesh outfit!!(hot)
lets PARTAYYYY
Sunday, February 18
10am-2pm
@CounterPulse
$5-$25 donations all proceeds go to AROC and JVP
performance jam
This is a collage, a quilt, a portal, a spell. This is not a contact jam or compositional improvisation jam. This is a space where queer energies and potentialities explore, expand, and take off!! In this open-ended collaboration, we will co-create, synthesize, cry in the corner, decompress, dance like nobody's watching, perform for no one, perform for each other, co-conspire, and challenge what is polite.
We will make art.
We will collectively perform world-making, space-shaping, composting, and dissolving.
We will leave behind memories and maps for future convergence.
This is fantasy and fiction and something in between.
Logistics:
10am-2pm bring a lunch and snacks to share
10am-11am: warm-up + circle time
11am-12:30pm ITS SHOW TIME BABY
12:30pm-2pm debrief and clean up<3
1. All proceeds from this event will be donated directly to a Palestine organization in the Bay area
Donation-based event: $0–30
2. We will make a mess together and we will clean up our mess together
3. Costumes, textiles, props, a speaker, a camcorder, and art supplies will be provided. BUT>>> plzzz bring your costumes, props, materials, instruments, poetry, an idea, your favorite song, etc.
4. We will begin with collective decision-making and process, building a manifesto together, creating roles, setting intentions for the space, and naming desires.
5. We will end holding hands and holding each other in discussion and aftercare.
I am sourcing inspiration for space holding from my teachers and my teachers’ teachers: Kathleen Hermesdorf, Keith Hennessy, Ishmael Houston -Jones, Sara Shelton Mann, Abby Crain, Isabel Lewis, the Architects, Tommy DeFrantz, José Esteban Muñoz(Cruising Utopia).
This jam will be held by ainsley elizabeth tharp.
Sorry I Missed Your Show:
Whale Fall
film screening + talk back
Film screening of Whale Fall by mayfield brooks, as part of the Sorry I Missed Your Show series at YBCA curated by Jose Omé Navarrete Mazatl. talk back hosted by jose e. abad.
Sunday, February 18
3:30 pm - 5 pm
@ YBCA
*$9 ticket admission at door