6 Fresh Festivals and Premieres We've Got Our Eyes On This Month
This month, festivals are unfolding in the Bay Area and thought-provoking premieres are making their debuts in New York City—and it’s all available to watch online. Meanwhile, across the pond, a show that got its start as a livestreamed event is being adapted for live, in-person audiences. Here’s what we have our eye on.
Drawing Audiences In
Rambert in Wim Vandekeybus’ Draw from Within
Camilla Greenwell, Courtesy Sadler’s Wells
LONDON
Originally conceived of as a livestreamed performance in which cameras followed the performers around Rambert’s headquarters, Draw from Within has been reimagined for the proscenium. Sadler’s Wells plans to present the company in Wim Vandekeybus’ hyperphysical, dance-theater romp through atmospheric, ever-shifting dreamscapes to limited capacity, in-person audiences June 2–5. sadlerswells.com.
Summer in San Francisco
Catherine Galasso and Dave Cerf will present a film adapted from their 2018 Alone Together.
Robbie Sweeney, Courtesy John Hill PR
ONLINE
The ODC Theater Festival (formerly the Walking Distance Dance Festival) might be entirely virtual this year, but it’s not skimping on new works from Bay Area creatives. ODC Theater resident artist Antoine Hunter, Hope Mohr and Maxe Crandall, Garrett + Moulton Productions, Robert Moses’ Kin, Margaret Jenkins and Rinde Eckert, Jeremy Bannon-Neches, Nicole Maria Hoffschneider and Noah Wang will premiere eight new dance films. Other Bay Area mainstays, including ODC Dance and Monique Jenkinson (aka Fauxnique), will also make appearances over the course of the two-week festival. Festival passes for access to all livestreams and exclusive on-demand content are available, as are single tickets for livestreamed events. June 3–12. odc.dance.
Ad Astra
Kyle Marshall’s STELLAR
Maria Baranova, Courtesy BAC
ONLINE
Described as a “dance of speculative fiction,” Kyle Marshall’s STELLAR takes inspiration from both jazz and Afro-futurism. The work grew out of a series of virtual improvisation sessions and was filmed at Baryshnikov Arts Center in March. The BAC commission will be free to stream June 7–21. bacnyc.org.
20 Years Fresh
Sean Dorsey Dance Shawna Virago, Courtesy Sean Dorsey
ONLINE
The 20th-anniversary bash of the Fresh Meat Festival has gone digital. The multidisciplinary event, directed by pioneering transgender choreographer Sean Dorsey, centers transgender and queer artists, and this year boasts a number of commissions. Dance artists appearing June 18–27 include Deaf choreographer Antoine Hunter, DANDY (Black artist-activist duo Randy Ford and David Rue), dance-theater ensemble Detour Dance, bachata duo Jahaira & Angelica, #kNOwShade Vogue Ensemble, multigender multihyphenate NEVE, disabled dancemaker Toby MacNutt, Vanessa Sanchez and La Mezcla (a music and dance ensemble rooted in Chicana, Latina and Indigenous traditions), and, of course, Sean Dorsey Dance. The festival is presented free of charge, though registration is required. freshmeatproductions.org.
Danced to Death
M. Sharkey, Courtesy Richard Kornberg and Associates
ONLINE
One year after its intended premiere, Katy Pyle’s Giselle of Loneliness makes its long-awaited debut this month. As the dancers of Ballez audition for the titular role in the iconic ballet, with the audience as the judge, the work interrogates what is held up as the ideal of white femininity in ballet, the ways dancers who don’t conform to that ideal are tortured by the form itself, and how audiences are complicit. In continuing to queer ballet’s canon, Ballez asks how the art form can transform for a more inclusive future. The work will be livestreamed from New York City’s Joyce Theater on June 10, and will be available to view on demand through June 23. joyce.org.
Leading With Hope
Andrew Eccles, Courtesy AAADT
ONLINE Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater takes its spring gala virtual this year. Themed “Hope, Promise and the Future,” the evening will pay homage to Washington, DC, as an epicenter of potential social change. Company members Ghrai DeVore-Stokes, Chalvar Monteiro and Kanji Segawa premiere new commissions on their colleagues, drawing on the evening’s theme. The free-to-watch program will stream on June 24 at 7:30 pm ET. alvinailey.org.
