West Wave Artists + Workshops
PROGRAM B - Jan 16-17 @ 7:30pm (includes ASL interpretation both nights)
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Zahna Simon creates new work around themes of intersectional identities of Deaf females weaving American Sign Language (ASL), poetry, dance, music and silence. She invites Deaf artists Ayisha Knight-Shaw (Deaf Actress/Poet) and Joanne Yee (Deaf Dancer/Actress/Artist designer) into the work.
A San Francisco native and Deaf from birth, Ms Zahna Simon is honored Changemaker of the year 2018 for San Francisco Live Oak School where she is a former alumni. She is a professional dancer, choreographer, chemist, Deaf advocate and access consultant. She trained at School of the Arts with Elvia Marta, City Ballet School, Academy of Ballet and Alonzo King’s LINES Pre-Professional Programs. Simon holds a BS/BFA in Chemistry and Dance at UCI where she trained with Donald McKayle. A former chemist by day at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and dancer by night, Simon is Assistant Director for Urban Jazz Dance Company, Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival (BAIDDF) and works full time at a small Fiduciary Office. She performed with Kim Epifano, SF/SD Trolley Dances, Alameda Island City Waterways, Man Dance Company, Abilities Dance Boston and more. She has been featured in KPBS TV, CBS Bay Sunday, Dance Magazine, Dance Teacher Magazine and Ikouii Creative’s Book IN THE STUDIO, published on Stance on Dance and was a Deaf Editor for Sins Invalid Disability Justice Primer. She is on the Advisory Council for SF Disability Cultural Center, production team for Signing Animation, involved in Dance/USA’s Deaf and Disability Affinity Group, and peer reader for 2022 Dance/USA’s fellowship.
SPECIAL PANEL – Sat Jan 11 @ 1pm Deaf Artists and Culture ASL in the Arts
Mourning Piece (title not confirmed) is a duet by Kevin Wong and Matthew Wong built through honoring their relationship. As a series of rituals to let the moment end, Kevin and Matthew create a practice to help them play with and reflect on the what if–what if the ritual ends, what if the ritual isn’t over, what if the ritual doesn’t happen. Come create the frame, add some light, and follow the guide to discover what comes next. Content Warning: This piece uses flashlights and may shine into your eyes.
Kevin and Matthew Wong have been developing their artistic relationship since middle school and continue to source inspiration from their past to create for their future. Growing up as queer, Chinese Americans in San Francisco, they question where the lines of “Asian”, “American”, and “Asian American” are in connection to how they develop our queer identities. Rooted in filial piety, how can our chosen and assumed identifications blur the lineages, generational trauma, and narratives that get passed along through our artistic practice? They approach these curiosities through movement/music improvisation, storytelling, and community research to understand how identity, representation, and culture inform our world. Utilizing co-directing and individual investigations, they bridge their unique artistic experiences to create pieces that reveal our intimate practice through lead-and-follow, speaking while moving, and archival research. As they prioritize both the physical and sonic spaces in their art-making practice, Matthew and Kevin believe that the performance expands beyond the bounds of the “theatre space” and into the spiritual, emotional, and mental being.
WORKSHOP – Sat Jan 11 @ 11am-12:30pm A music and dance improvisation jam. Collaborators Matthew and Kevin Wong will guide a space for dancers and musicians to come together. From a lens of developing intimacy to support improvisational decision-making, we will create multiple experiences for us to get to know each other, challenge our habits, and explore the possibilities of collaboration. This is a semi-formal jam where the guides will offer a way into the session, ways to take risks, and possibilities for joy and pleasure to arise. Come with an open mind and aim to be curious, have fun, and build connections through movement or sound (or both!).
Kamala Fifield (she/her) a dance artist and choreographer based in SF. She performed with various companies and taught in different settings, sharing the joy of dance and yoga. Kamala worked with choreographers such as Tara Pilbrow, Kim Epiphany, Kristine Damrow, Alexandra Pirici, Yaniv Abraham, and Guy Shamrony, Daniel Ezralow.
The performance in between embodies a cosmic narrative of matter, sound, and human experience. Kamala and Hannah Young explore how the environment influences our decision-making, examining the connection between our movement through the world and the sounds that shape our reality. The performance incorporates original sonifications created by NASA, which translate cosmic objects into sound.
PROGRAM B - Jan 16-17 @ 8pm + Workshops
Shotgun Baby Drunk Animal Jukebox by Chloe Cetinkaya is a semi-autobiographical solo collaging imagery from a rural Midwestern coming of age, female archetypes, sensual tracings of body and place, sexuality, and shady men in the periphery. It seeks an alternative ending to Susan Palwick’s short story, “Gestella”, about a werewoman who faces a terrible fate when she abandons her intuition for acceptance, a fate that the soloist is trying to avoid.
Chloe Cetinkaya (she/her) is a choreographer, dancer, teacher and writer. She earned an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is a certified yoga instructor and teacher of the Alexander Technique. She has performed locally in works by Alma Esperanza Cunningham. Chloe’s work is imaginative and visceral. Her choreography has been presented across the Midwest at Bryant Lake Bowl, Red Eye Theater, the Cowles Center for Performing Arts, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and Danceworks Milwaukee. Her writings on dance and interdisciplinary performance are published on her blog, From the Body, at chloenagle.com.
WORKSHOP – Sat Jan 18 @ 10-11:30am – Boundaries & Dance – In this workshop, we will strategize, share resources, and develop self-advocacy skills for dance contexts. Chloe Cetinkaya will guide the workshop using the book, “Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself” by Nedra Glover Tawwab. Participants will reflect on their experiences in dance, identify boundaries that will help improve their well-being in the dance field, and practice different strategies for setting those boundaries. Participants are encouraged to bring a notebook and to consider a dance context that they would like to focus on, for example: taking class, teaching class, dancing for another choreographer, being a choreographer working with dancers, etc.
Kuchipudi is one of the eight classical dance forms of India. It originated in the 15th century, in a small village of Kuchelapuram situated in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, India. Kuchipudi dance has a unique quality in which the dancers are scintillating, rounded and fleet-footed, while they perform with grace and incorporate fluid movements. Aarabhi Achanta presents a thillana, a vibrant dance segment that traditionally marks the conclusion of a Kuchipudi recital. This particular thillana, is set in the melodious Hamsanandi ragam and Adi talam and describes King Padhumanabhadasa of Travancore, who was a great patron of music and dance in the late 1700s.
Aarabhi Achanta is a Kuchipudi dancer who has been performing across the Bay Area and India for the past 14 years. She has trained for 14 years under Smt. Jyothi Lakkaraju at Natyalaya Kuchipudi School of Dance and graduated in 2022 with her Natyanjali, or solo dance debut. She has performed at many prestigious venues, from UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, to historic Dravidian Hindu temples, and won the Golden Nandi Award from the Chief minister of the Indian state of Andra Pradesh.
WORKSHOP –Sat Jan 18 @ 1:30-4:30pm Exploring Indian Classical Dance for Contemporary Dancers Immerse yourself in the rich tapestry of Indian classical dance in this unique workshop designed for contemporary and western dancers. We will be offering a captivating journey into the world of Kuchipudi, one of the oldest classical dance traditions of India. This workshop bridges the gap between Eastern and Western dance forms, providing participants with a fresh perspective on movement, rhythm, and expression.This workshop aims to broaden dancers’ horizons by covering vocabulary of new movements, expressions, and inspirations for creating new fusion choreographies. All are welcome regardless of background.
Mai Corkins presents You On Me On You is a celebration of improbable connection. It explores cycles/the idea of interlinking beginnings and endings. Most of all, it seeks to convey the delight to be found in unexpected people and places.
Mai Corkins is a Bay Area based dancer, teacher, and arts administrator. She received her dance education from Berkeley Ballet Theater and UC Berkeley, where she also studied English Literature. She has shown choreography at UC Berkeley and at the Emergence Dance Festival. In her free time, she enjoys baking, long walks, and good books.
Program C with Hannah Westbrook / Barb Lankamp Jan 18-19
Hannah Westbrook’s, Entangled in the Tall Grass is a solo dance project tracing the artifacts of loss between personal and collective grief across a changing life and landscape. In this work, the artist moves in collaboration with texts and objects, exploring the loss of agency, nostalgia, joy, and emotional entrapment associated with living, grieving, and growing. Through a series of state based movement scores, she navigates her own experiences while simultaneously tending to the wild pools of bereavement on a poetic embodied journey back to herself and a reflection into the depths of recomposition.
Hannah Westbrook (she/her) is a queer dance artist, maker, educator, and arts administrator. She creates work for stage, site, & screen, with state-based movement vocabulary expressing affective subtleties through rigorous physicality. Her practice is based in devised dance-theater, improvisational movement scores, and site-specific somatic explorations.
Barb Lankamp presents UN. French for the number one, “Un” is also the prefix for un-doing and at the root of the word unity. Through a series of short solos, UN examines emotional states of solitude ranging from destructive abandonment to courage. With a fusion of psychological study and hyperphysical movement style, UN embodies the experience of unhooking from traditional patriarchal narratives and uniting with oneself.
Barb Lankamp is a Bay Area based Dancer, Visual Artist and Psychotherapist. She was born and raised in Ottawa, Canada and began her dance career in the Toronto Area. Her work explores the profundity and subtlety of human psychological experiences. She hopes to provoke each viewer to inquire into their own unique experience and interpretation of the subject matter.
Program D with Olivia Bratko Jan 18-19 and Voice Loud Workshop Jan 18
Olivia Bratko is a trans/queer live artist whose work explores participative rituals in a theatrical setting. It is equally a formal exploration of dramaturgical honesty through the use of collective action within live performance, and an evocation of communal ritual ecstasy. They currently live mainly in San Francisco, and make much of their theatrical work in Dublin, Ireland, which can be quite the commute.
Nothing, Matter – a show about the vastness of nothing, the smallness of life and the absence of death. Hopefully, for a moment, it will make your soul stand still (don’t worry it has songs and jokes). Written, Directed, and somehow Performed by Olivia Bratko (née Matthew), the disturbing new voice behind Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle Kyle Has A Complicated Relationship With Reality And With Himself, Abundance, and Initiation.
WORKSHOP – Sat Jan 18 @ 12-1pm – Voice Loud with Olivia Bratko. This workshop utilizes elements of Lessac vocal technique to lead participants through a series of exercises to find the elements of their physicality that are blocking their ability to let their voice explode. It focuses on resonance, shamelessness, and release, while staying healthy and sustainable. This is NOT a singing class.
