"Get In Front": Dancers raising awareness and funds for cancer prevention

It's a crazy thing, but just about every month of the year is marked for awareness of some kind of cancer, from Melanoma Monday to Brain Tumor Awareness Month to Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month. Sad to say, cancer is on the minds of a huge cross-section of the human population, and with good reason. According to the American Cancer Society, over a million people will be diagnosed with cancer each year in the US alone. Odds are that one in two men and one in three women will develop some type of cancer during their lives.

What you don't hear as much about is the research being done on preventive measures, and that kind of work is what inspired the Get In Front gala, which raises money for the Cancer Prevention Institute of California.

The 2013 gala will take place at Yerba Buena's Lam ResearchTheater on November 12, and a constellation of stars from Bay Area dance companies--including San Francisco Ballet, ODC, Ballet San Jose, AXIS DanceCompany, Smuin Ballet, Renegade Rockers, Zhukov Dance Theatre, Robert Moses'Kin Dance Company, LEVYdance, and Margaret Jenkins Dance Company--are on the program.

Last year's Get in Front gala was an enormous success, selling out the Herbst Theatre and raising nearly $150,000 for CPIC. This year the logistics have been a challenge, with organizers James Sofranko, Garen Scribner and Margaret Karl operating in two different companies, indeed, on two different continents.

When they first conceived the gala, all three were dancing with San Francisco Ballet, but since then Scribner has moved to Nederlands DansTheatre, based in The Hague. 

James Sofranko and Garen Scribner

I sat down to chat with Sofranko and Scribner at a cafe in San Francisco when the former had returned from a New York tour and the latter happened to be in the area for  NDT's shows at Cal Performances.

You're in two different cities, in two different companies, on different continents--how you are both managing it this year?

JS: We have a good team of people! It's not just Garen and I, but also our friend Margaret Karl, is also a producer of the show. She's handling the after- and the pre- parties.

GS: there's the three of us and also a project manager that we hired, as well as support from the CPIC staff, they take care of all the administrative and back end details, which is great. Last year was our first year doing the event so we had a huge learning curve. We really didn't know what the project would end up looking like, and it ended up becoming a big deal, completely sold out. As we went through that process though, we  tracked what we did, how we did it, who took care of it. So this year we were a little more specific about who would do what. Jim has been in charge of communicating with the companies and dealing with programming. Margaret is in charge of all of the events, contracts with the theater, things like that. And I headed up the development portion, working with sponsors and fundraising and community. And then creatively we handled the details and big decisions as a group.

Who are some of the performers this year?

JS: Sarah Van Patten and Daniel Deveison are doing a pas de deux from Yuri Possokhov's "Fusion." Michael McGraw will be playing live for it.

GS: Also Isaac Hernandez's little brother Esteban, who just joined San Francisco Ballet right out of the Royal Ballet School, will be doing the Slave variation from Corsaire, and he is fabulous. Scott Marlowe from LEVYdance is doing a solo, and ODC is bringing a work of Brenda Way's, Unintended Consequences.

JS: And Ballet San Jose is sending a pas de deux with the Cuban dancer Jorge Lopez Barani and Jumna Ige, they'll do Diana & Actaeon.

GS: Also there are two world premieres, one from Zhukov Dance Theater and one from Axis Dance Company.

And are you guys choreographing this year?

JS:  Not this year. Last year I had a piece in it, but this year we had so many companies wanting to be a part of it.

GS: Last year we didn't know what kind of participation we would have, but so many people came forth and said yeah, we would love to be a part of it. This year people sent us videos and so we were able to really look at the program and figure out how to put it together with a greater variety.

JS: For galas you're bound to get a lot of pas de deux, so we encouraged people to do group pieces this year, and that's been great. We have larger works from Smuin Ballet, from Robert Moses' KIN, from Margaret Jenkins.

GS: Renegade Rockers, one of the oldest breaker crews in the country will also be there, it's an amazing crew that has a group of kids that they work with who are also unbelievable performers.

JS: We're going to have over 50 dancers total in the program.

And what is your fundraising goal this year?

GS: We would like to raise $250,000. It sounds like a lot, but a goal is a goal for a reason, you shoot for it and if you hit it then great and if not, you did your best and still got as close to it as possible. But we're doing really well, and we've had some generous sponsorships from individuals and organizations like The Fisher Family, Tim Dattels and Kristine Johnson, Reed Krakoff, the Fullerton Family Foundation, Fremont Bank, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, airBNB and Genentech, the support has been amazing.

JS: And the goal of course is to raise money, but it's also to raise awareness about cancer prevention and the research CPIC does to prevent cancer. Their research can inform all of us on a day-to-day basis on practically every decision we make, from exercise to diet, to the air we breathe --it all relates to cancer in our lives. Cancer is becoming more and more prevalent and we need as much knowledge out there as possible.

Do you have a personal reason for wanting to support this cause in particular?

JS: My grandmother had breast cancer, she survived, but still, it was a scary experience for the family.

GS: And we recently lost a Ballet San Jose dancer to cancer.

JS: We lost two people in the ballet world actually. Tiffany Glenn, from Ballet San Jose, and also one of our fly men at SFB, Kevin Rogers. he was still with us last year  and we dedicated the show to him.

GS: What we've found is that getting exposure and raising awareness for what CPIC does is difficult, because people don't want to talk about cancer. It's something that they want to avert their eyes from, rather than look at head on. What we really like about this organization and their ethos is that it's about taking action now and thinking about what we can do today to help us out in the future.  I like the organization for that reason. They're not so cure-oriented, they're not looking for a fix. Trying to fix a problem when it's already there is so much harder than stopping it before it starts. We thought that presenting world class dance, with these incredible athletes and artists, in connection with this cause was a perfect way to manifest that idea of prevention.

So how does it feel being on this side of a show, organizing rather than performing? Do you like it?

JS: I do like it. It's a little more responsibility, but it really gives you insight. I've all been on tour numerous times with San Francisco Ballet, and as a dancer you don't really think about how all these things are done. You go to your dressing room and there's a sign that tells you where to go, the schedule is already made. Now I understand all the energy and time that goes into making that happen.

Have you thought about doing this kind of event in other places, or expanding this one?

JS: I think there is a lot of potential there, as we saw last year doing this gala. There are artists who want to give back to the community--musicians, visual artists, technical artists. There are so many way that new ideas can come out of this. We want to look at how can we use everyone's talents, pool them for the greater good of the community.

GS: I also think that there is a misconception out there that high level, world class dance is out of reach for the general public, unless you have experience, or you've danced yourself or you grew up watching it, that it would be hard to appreciate it.  I think dancers internalize that attitude but that a performance like this, in a way, gives them an opportunity to ground their work and put it in the context of the broader scope of things.  Being able to give back this way makes dancers feel that what they do really means something to the people around them--not just the donors and balletomanes, but to everybody in the community.

Tanya Bello's Project. B: Dance as play

The serious side of playtime inspired choreographer Tanya Bello's "Games We Play(ed)," which her company Project. B. premieres this weekend on a program at ODC's Dance�Commons.

A familiar face on Bay Area stages - Bello has danced for ODC, as well as for Robert Moses, Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton - she has recruited for her own 3-year-old company a coterie of top-tier dancers, including Katherine Wells and Norma Fong from Robert Moses' Kin, and Kelly del Rosario of Margaret Jenkins Dance Company.

Read More: Tanya Bello's Project. B: Dance as play

'Parades and Changes': Anna Halprin

There's a ritualistic resonance to the return of Anna Halprin's "Parades and Changes" to the Berkeley Art Museum this weekend. Forty-three years ago, the dance piece marked the opening of BAM, symbolic of then-director Peter Selz's desire to re-engineer how art and audiences came together. Now "Parades and Changes" will mark the museum's closure, as it moves to a new home in downtown Berkeley.

In developing "Parades and Changes," Halprin and composer Morton Subotnick, who also performs this weekend, invented their own method of "scoring" the work. Various activities, the tearing of sheets of paper, dressing and undressing, musical episodes, etc., were set down on a parade of colored index cards, which could then be shuffled or changed depending on which seemed to suit the context of the performance and the culture of the moment. Halprin notes that that flexibility made "Parades and Changes" malleable enough to fit any venue, and also kept it relevant through the years.

Read more: 'Parades and Changes': Anna Halprin

Flamenco, Spanish poet intersect in opera

Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca wrote: "I know there is no straight road/ No straight road in this world/ Only a giant labyrinth/ Of intersecting crossroads."

Lives twine and intersect in richly imagined episodes of byzantine complexity in Osvaldo Golijov's opera "Ainadamar," which Opera Parallele, under Nicole Paiement's direction, performs this weekend at the Yerba Buena Center's Lam Research Theater.

Read More: Flamenco, Spanish poet intersect in opera

Black Choreographers Festival: Tigner

It wasn't a dream - the drums playing a mysterious rhythm that Latanya d. Tigner heard every night in Congo. Still, no one else could hear them it seemed, and so she concluded they must be talking directly to her for a reason.

Those drums and the many experiences Tigner brought back with her from a 2010 visit to the Republic of the Congo inspired her latest choreographic venture, "Ndozi/BaNkaka: Those Who Sit With Us," a collaboration with drummer Kiazi Malonga that features on the second of three weekends of the ninth annual Black Choreographers Festival, which begins on Saturday.

It was on her first night in Brazzaville, Tigner recalls, as she turned into bed, that she heard the drumming.

Read More: Black Choreographers Festival: Tigner 

Bebe Miller's multimedia 'History'

How do you embody the internal life of the choreographic process? Bebe Miller's latest work, "A History," which her company performs this weekend at the Forum at Yerba Buena Center, takes on what drives the creative process and how to capture and document the essence of a work.

Miller says the idea for the project arose out of conversations with Talvin Wilks, her longtime dramaturge, and veteran dancers Angie Hauser and Darrell Jones, who have performed with Bebe Miller Company for more than a decade, about what really drives their work.

Read more: Bebe Miller's multimedia 'History'

Ethnic Dance Festival's public auditions

This weekend, a world of dance comes to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, as hopefuls from ethnic dance troupes across Northern California will audition for the 35th annual San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival.

"It's a great way to see the wonderful variety of cultures we have in this area," says Carlos Carvajal, co-artistic director of the festival. "Nowhere else can you do an international festival of this range in which all the participants live locally. Usually festivals as diverse as this have to bring people from other countries, but we have Mexico folklorico dancers, Indian dance, Spanish, Middle Eastern, Tibetan - and they're all local artists."

Read more: Ethnic Dance Festival's public auditions

Cid Pearlman's 'Shark' feeds off limitation

In the 1990s, the bohemian choreographer Cid Pearlman's company, Nesting Dolls, was known for its exuberant interdisciplinary collaborations. Pearlman now works out of the Santa Cruz area, where she teaches at Cabrillo College and makes work with her company, Cid Pearlman/Performance Projects. That multilayered approach shades her latest work, "Your Body Is Not a Shark," which premieres this weekend at ODC Theater and which finds Pearlman joining forces with former Kronos Quartet cellist Joan Jeanrenaud, UC Berkeley's Denise Leto and Maya Barsacq, director of the Santa Cruz chamber orchestra Cadenza.

Read more: Cid Pearlman's 'Shark' feeds off limitation

Best of dance in 2012

High: "Onegin" at San Francisco Ballet: John Cranko's ravishing "Onegin" inspired not only luscious dancing but also transformative performances of enormous dramatic depth, from the corps to the principal and across four casts of dancers at San Francisco Ballet. Everywhere you looked onstage, the dancing transcended mere steps, confirming yet again that this is a ballet that has the power not only to change the way you think about artists you've watched for years, but also to change the way you see dance forever.

Low: The ousting of Dennis Nahat at Ballet San Jose: In a split that was as unpleasant as it was confounding, in January, Ballet San Jose's board abruptly removed Dennis Nahat as artistic director of the company he founded, while commencing a partnership with American Ballet Theatre. After a shakeup in the ranks, and a precipitous reorganization of artistic leadership, the company seems to have regained some of its footing. But while no one disputes that change is part of the artistic life of any organization, it didn't have to happen this way.

Most improved: Emerging Pictures' "Ballet in Cinema": In times past, balletomanes resorted to secretly traded, shaky and shady videotapes if they wanted to savor the Bolshoi performing "The Bright Stream" or catch a glimpse of the Nederlands Dans Theatre in between infrequent U.S. tours. Now "Ballet in Cinema" has made it possible to see everything from the Royal Ballet's latest "Swan Lake" to Martha Clarke works at La Scala, right in the comfort of your own neighborhood movie theater. Of course, nothing beats seeing live performance, but if a jaunt to the great theaters of Europe isn't in your immediate future, this comes close.

MVP: San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival: Hundreds of world dance performing troupes and organizations make their home in the Bay Area, and for 34 years the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival has brought that enormous diversity of dance to the stage - Indian bharatanatyam, Brazilian capoeira, West African dance, Argentine folklórico, Appalachian clogging, flamenco, Celtic dance - the list is both dazzling and exhaustive. Whether the troupe is earthy or airy, traditional or avant-garde, the Ethnic Dance Festival creates a milieu in which Chinese lion dances can coexist with Ewe warrior dances from Ghana while offering a lens on the human experience that can be thrilling, touching, informative and entertaining, often all in the same evening.

Top 10

Los Farruco: (Bay Area Flamenco Festival, Sept. 30). Every performance of Los Farruco feels like flamenco as it should be - low on frills and furbelows but high on octane and electric in its execution.

"Swan Lake": (Mariinsky Ballet, Cal Performances, Oct. 10). The iconic Mariinsky proved once again that true beauty in classical ballet is found not only in the elegant details but also the meticulous and loving attention to tradition.

Clas/Sick Hip Hop Festival: (Dec. 1) Marc Bauthi Joseph's brilliant informal format put the audience on the same floor with icons of hip-hop, and when you saw the look of inspiration in the eyes of the younger dancers crowded around the feet of Nonstop and I Dummy, admiring, analyzing and absorbing dance, suddenly it felt as if theatrical dance had fresh relevance to a new generation.

Renee Robinson performing with Alvin Ailey: (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Cal Performances, March 17) We didn't know it then, but it was the last time the Bay Area would see Renee Robinson in her iconic yellow dress rocking our souls in Alvin Ailey's joyous "Revelations." The inimitable Robinson, who retired in December after 31 years with the company, spread her infectious enthusiasm like a gospel, and we were her willing acolytes.

Boy Blue's "Emancipation of Expressionism": (San Francisco International Hip Hop DanceFest, Nov. 18) Hip-hop at its most expressive took on the inexorable momentum of a freight train when London's Boy Blue performed at the hip-hop festival crackling with adrenaline, barely reined in by mathematical precision.

Katherine Wells in "Helen": (Robert Moses' Kin, March 30) Was Robert Moses creating a tribute to an unforgettable woman? The remarkable Katherine Wells was mesmerizing, seductive and authoritative - a dancer that you can't stop watching, no matter what she's doing or where she is onstage. KT Nelson's "Transit": (ODC Dancing Downtown, March 17) Max Chen's quirky and inventive sculptures only added to the velocity and dynamic range of KT Nelson's wistful portrait of the pulse and hum of urban life.

"Constellation": (Lines Ballet, Oct. 19) The stars aligned in one of Alonzo King's most satisfying and playful works, an array of thrilling and kinetic dance framed by Jim Campbell's innovative LED light designs.

Ohad Naharin's "Max": (Batsheva Dance Company, San Francisco Performances, Feb. 23) Ohad Naharin's visceral Gaga technique and its interplay of muscle and bone was surprisingly compelling in a display that was as inviting as it was ritualistic.

"Tarantella": (Diablo Ballet, May 5) Robert Dekkers soared in lofty jumps and Hiromi Yamazaki flirted with intricate pointe work - together they brought to the notoriously tricky "Tarantella" a glamour and delightful vivacity - and a sense of fun too rarely seen in Balanchine's works.

Read more: Best of dance in 2012 

Women make a move into hip-hop

Once exploited as sexy decoration, women are making moves both feminine and fierce in the hip-hop world, holding their own as true contenders from the social dance battleground of the breaking scene to the crews of theatrical hip-hop performers. And though this weekend's Clas/Sick Hip Hop festival at the Yerba Buena Center Forum will feature an evenhanded mix of male and female hip-hoppers from across generations, one can't help noticing that women are rising to prominence in what was once a male-dominated culture.

"We need to get this message across that women are out here on the planet doing amazing physical moves," says New York b-girl Ana "Rokafella" Garcia, who has also made a film about the b-girls of her generation titled "All the Ladies Say."

Read more: Women make a move into hip-hop

Sidra Bell, LEVYdance in residency

Upon first walking into LEVYdance's Heron Street rehearsal studio, it's hard to find choreographer Sidra Bell. Dancers Scott Marlowe, Yu Kondo Reigen, Paul Vickers, Josiane Valbuena and Sarah Woods are moving in pairs and solos throughout the sea-foam green space and the artistic director of the 10-year-old company, Benjamin Levy, lurks watchfully behind a table to one side of the studio.

It's only after a long moment that you hear Bell's voice coming from deep in a corner of the room, where she's hunkered down on the floor with a laptop, from which she controls the soundscape that underlies her latest commission "less," a work LEVYdance premieres this weekend at the ODC Theater.

Not that Bell is by any means retiring by nature. But what becomes clear is that her working style is to step out of the way of the dancers, both figuratively and literally.

Read more: Sidra Bell, LEVYdance in residency

S.F. International Hip Hop DanceFest

Mad skills are in the house this weekend, when 16 hip-hop companies and crews from all over the world take the stage at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre for the San Francisco International Hip Hop DanceFest.

This is the 14th year for the high-octane festival, dreamed up by Bay Area hip-hop maven Micaya, who launched the first edition back in 1999 at Theatre Artaud. This year, the two programs, which run from Friday through Sunday, feature artists, including Oakland's Mix'd Ingrdnts and San Francisco's SoulForce Dance Company and international crews ILL-Abilities, England's Boy Blue and Norway's dEEp doWN dopEiZM.

Read more: S.F. International Hip Hop DanceFest

Sidra Bell, LEVYdance in residency

Upon first walking into LEVYdance's Heron Street rehearsal studio, it's hard to find choreographer Sidra Bell. Dancers Scott Marlowe, Yu Kondo Reigen, Paul Vickers, Josiane Valbuena and Sarah Woods are moving in pairs and solos throughout the sea-foam green space and the artistic director of the 10-year-old company, Benjamin Levy, lurks watchfully behind a table to one side of the studio.

It's only after a long moment that you hear Bell's voice coming from deep in a corner of the room, where she's hunkered down on the floor with a laptop, from which she controls the soundscape that underlies her latest commission "less," a work LEVYdance premieres this weekend at the ODC Theater.

Not that Bell is by any means retiring by nature. But what becomes clear is that her working style is to step out of the way of the dancers, both figuratively and literally.

Read more: Sidra Bell, LEVYdance in residency

Lenora Lee Dance, 'The Escape'

"I try to create works that are personal and historical to my own family, and also talk about themes in the broader American historical narrative," says Lenora Lee, whose company celebrates its fifth anniversary this weekend at Dance Mission Theater in San Francisco.

"Although my work might be specifically about the Chinese American experience," she says, "I find that audiences of all backgrounds can relate to the stories. The loss, grief, separations, beauty, conflict - those are core to everyone."

Read more: Lenora Lee Dance, 'The Escape'

Flamenco a way of life for Los Farruco

Stormy, soulful, inspired, extemporaneous and often temperamental, flamenco gitano or gypsy flamenco is considered by some to be the highest form of the art. To see flamenco puro is to experience more than just a performance - it is an entree into a conversation in which the singers, the musicians and the dancers have myriad sentiments and convictions to share - with each other, with us and with a higher power.

"Gypsy flamenco is very much a real transmission of emotion and the culture that they live and breathe," says Nina Menendez, the organizer of the Bay Area Flamenco Festival, which begins Monday.

Read more: Flamenco a way of life for Los Farruco 

Carlos Molina highlights new ballet 'Fausto'

There's a laconic ease to Carlos Molina's demeanor as the former soloist from American Ballet Theatre works with a willowy Annabelle Henry in a pas de deux from "Fausto," a new work that Napoles Ballet premieres this weekend at the Cowell Theater.

For a moment, his economy of movement might be mistaken for passivity. It's the end of a long day of rehearsals at the Shan Yee Poon studios in the Richmond district, and beside the sharp, almost adamantine shapes and trajectories that choreographer Luis Napoles demonstrates for them, Molina's small nods and quiet comments suggest a certain lassitude.

Read More: Carlos Molina highlights new ballet 'Fausto'

LEVYdance-Foundry alliance's promising prospects

Behind the heavy curtain in the lobby of Studio Gracia, hidden in a San Francisco SoMa alleyway, there's grooving going on. A pulsing beat echoes throughout the spacious refurbished warehouse home of LEVYdance as the dancers stretch and warm up under a disco ball in the mint-green studio.

Artistic associate and dancer Scott Marlowe joins in the good-natured joking that ensues when LEVYdance founder Benjamin Levy bounds irrepressibly across the polished hardwood floor, falling to the ground and pinwheeling his legs wildly.

"Don't worry," Levy shouts as he slides past a group of dancers in splits, "We're not doing floor work today ..."

LEVYdance-Foundry alliance's promising prospects

Luna Dance Institute in full swing as it turns 20

Rapt fascination was written on the faces of the two dozen schoolkids sitting scattered around the perimeter of Luna Dance Institute's main studio in an industrial building in the heart of Emeryville on Wednesday. Occasionally a teetering balance or a particular movement drew a quiet giggle, but for the most part, the students were mesmerized by the institute's "20/20 Points of View," in which Melissa Caywood of Deborah Slater Dance Theater performed a solo from Slater's latest work in progress.

"This has always been the dream," said Patricia Reedy, Luna Dance Institute's founder and director, "to bring together real working choreographers and kids - to get them thinking about how to get the kids engaged with dance."

It's been 20 years since Luna opened as a community dance space in Berkeley, a place that Reedy and her co-director, Nancy Ng, hoped would fill the need for rehearsal and class studios left by the loss of Citicentre Dance Theatre. Since 1992, the scope and complexity of Luna's programs have multiplied to include not only dance classes and summer camps for children and choreographic workshops for teens, but also professional development programs for teachers and dance artists, and support for school and community administrators who are interested in organizing dance programs in their home institutions.

Luna Dance Institute in full swing as it turns 20

Caroline Rocher connects the dots to Lines Ballet

Afternoon rehearsal is serious business in the Lines Ballet studios, where Alonzo King is working with the dancers on his lavish "Scheherazade" for the company's upcoming season at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Intensity and concentration are written across Keelan Whitmore's face as he works with the lovely Caroline Rocher. She gives a little shimmy that ripples from her hips to her shoulders, but then a smile begins to break out across Rocher's face. It's the first sign that they've hit a piece of the choreography that doesn't quite feel right and it also signals one of Rocher's more endearing qualities. Even when things aren't going perfectly, her outlook is always upbeat.

King comes over to help them push the partnering in a new direction, and when they repeat, there's a fearless spontaneity in her movement, even as she places each foot, each limb with surgical precision.

The luminous Rocher joined Lines Ballet in 2007, arriving with an impressive resume of national and international credits. If at first she seemed a touch otherworldly, even tentative, in her approach to King's famously probing and challenging choreography, nevertheless, in the five seasons she's danced with the company she's imbued her performances with a rare warmth and intelligence and become a soulful and unpretentious interpreter of his work.

Caroline Rocher connects the dots to Lines Ballet

ODC preps for Dance Downtown series at Yerba Buena

Things are getting a little talky during a rehearsal in the largest of ODC's broad, airy studios on Shotwell Street. Four of the company's women are dissecting a small problem - how to get a particular movement completely synchronized and match their angles. But as they work on it, choreographer Brenda Way taps Daniel Santos briskly on the shoulder and offers a simple imperative.

"Dance."

Within moments Santos and the guys are running through their paces under Way's watchful eye.

Clearly, there is not a minute to waste as the 10-member troupe preps for its annual ODC/Dance Downtown season, which opens tonight at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Over 41 years, under the close guidance of founders Way, KT Nelson and Kimi Okada, ODC has grown from a dance collective run by friends to a veritable institution, with its own school, home and theater. If there's one thing that has served this nimble organization, it is the ability to keep all those parts going.

ODC preps for Dance Downtown series at Yerba Buena