Liss Fain Dance Premieres I DON'T KNOW AND NEVER WILL

On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, Liss Fain Dance is proud to announce the world premiere of I DON'T KNOW AND NEVER WILL, an immersive performance installation inspired by letters from an "extraordinarily articulate and expressive" young man to his then-girlfriend, choreographer Liss Fain. I Don't Know, co-presented by ODC Theater, runs Thursday through Sunday, March 1 - 3, 2018. Tickets are $20 - $30, and may be purchased online at odc.dance/tickets.

"This is the most intimate work I have ever made," said Fain. "I Don't Know and Never Will draws on the verbatim text of letters from my college boyfriend from decades ago. Handwritten without editing or premeditation, with immediacy and forthrightness, his letters juxtapose descriptions, observations and feelings so acutely that I can see, feel, hear and smell it all."

"I've lost touch with him, and recently wrote to him. I want to know who he is now, but he hasn't replied. This piece captures the piercing sensations from a year frozen in time through letters and re-experienced decades later."

Liss Fain founded her company in Boston in 1988, and moved to San Francisco in 1990, premiering more than 50 evening-length works over the past three decades. Since 2010, Fain has been making performance installations in which the audience is free to move about the same space as the dancers. The company's work is continually interested in the play of relationships between text, movement, music, physical environment and perspective.

One new element this season is improvisation. Attendees of ODC Theater and Liss Fain Dance will be invited to participate in a letter-writing campaign, and excerpts from the anonymized letters will be read during performances of I Don't Know, and used as prompts for improvisation by the company.

Fain's dancers this season include Jeremiah Crank, Sonja Dale, Megan Kurashige, Shannon Kurashige and Sarah Woods-LaDue. Joining the dancers inside the installation will be actor Val Sinckler performing excerpts from Fain's letters and interacting with the dancers.

I Don't Know and Never Will includes a commissioned score by Oakland-based percussionist Jordan Glenn, performed live by Glenn alongside Nava Dunkelman and Jacob Felix Heule. Additional members of the creative team include longtime collaborators Matthew Antaky (installation design) and Mary Domenico (costume design).

ABOUT LISS FAIN DANCE

Liss Fain Dance (LFD) is a San Francisco-based dance company whose work expresses the unpredictable course of events that comprise one's life. Liss Fain's highly physical, emotionally resonant choreography fuses modern dance's forceful energy with the kinetic precision of ballet. Since 2010, LFD has focused on the creation of evening-length installation works that bring together dance, music and literature inside unique visual environments.

LFD's performance installations integrate dance with spoken text and immersive set and sound environments in theaters, non-proscenium venues, unusual architectural structures, public spaces and libraries. The architecture of the installation and the variety of perspectives this creates for the audience is pivotal to the experience of these works, which are created in an intensely collaborative process with designers, composers, actors and dancers.

LFD tours nationally and internationally and presents annual home seasons in San Francisco. The artistic vision of the company is shaped by ongoing partnerships with designer Matthew Antaky, costume designer Mary Domenico and projection designer Frédéric O. Boulay.

Founded in Boston in 1988, LFD has premiered more than 50 evening-length works by Fain. The company's innovative performances and collaborations began with projects at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies and, after moving to San Francisco in 1990, continued with collaborations with set and lighting designers, composers, filmmakers, videographers and technologists.

LFD performs annual home seasons at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Z Space, and ODC Theater in San Francisco. The company's presence beyond the Bay Area extends to the East Coast through performances at 3LD Art & Technology Center, Powerhouse Arena, and Downtown Dance Festival in New York; the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Dance Umbrella, Harvard University, Clark University, and MIT in Massachusetts; and Colby College in Maine. LFD has performed at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles and has toured to Poland, Germany, Belarus, Russia and the United Kingdom.

Photo: Jeremiah Crank photographed by RJ Muna.

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