Aerial Dance Shows High Above Oakland Celebrate BANDALOOP's 30th Anniversary This April

Oakland-based innovator of vertical dance BANDALOOP, activator of international public spaces with awe-inspiring, perspective-changing mid-air performances, will celebrate its 30th anniversary by unveiling a new large-scale outdoor work titled LOOM:FIELD.

Performed high above uptown Oakland on the side of the art deco Breuner Building, LOOM:FIELD is the centerpiece of the LOOM trilogy, a multi-year initiative bringing together a collective of performing artists, climate scientists, regenerative textile artists, a visual technologist, and creative riggers to create performances that deepen and challenge perspectives on the art and industry of textiles.

Transforming the building's façade into a giant loom where stories and dances interlace, LOOM:FIELD is directed by Melecio Estrella and marks the first major work by the company since Estrella assumed the position following Founding Artistic Director Amelia Rudolph's shift to Director of Special Projects.

"LOOM lifts up the social, the environmental, and the ancestral aspects of fabric and fashion," says Estrella.

BANDALOOP's performances of LOOM:FIELD will be presented FREE, 8pm, Friday, April 15, and 5pm & 8pm, Saturday April 16, 2022 on the side of the Breuner Building, Grand and Broadway in Uptown Oakland. The 5pm family-friendly performance of LOOM:FIELD on Saturday features an opening set by the mega-popular Alphabet Rockers, the Grammy-nominated hip-hop group. On the street below the performances, Grand Avenue will be closed to traffic, offering seated and picnic viewing areas with food and drink available from Oakland's favorite food trucks in a festive atmosphere.

Guests are invited to bring blankets and camping chairs to enjoy the aerial performance. These performances will also celebrate the expansion of the company's 2022 West Oakland Studio, where it incubates new dance, works with community youth, and offers classes, camps, and intensives for youth and adults, as well as team building programs for executives and leaders.

For more information, the public may visit bandaloop.org/loom.

LOOM:FIELD offers audiences a 45-minute vertical dance performance set to original live music, that fuses intricate choreography and climbing technology to offer a narrative of ancestral weaving mythologies, traditional techniques of fabric creation, expressions of the ecological and social impacts of a globalized textile industry, and the influence of technological fibers that connect and divide. Although one of the largest polluting industries in the world, the impact of clothing and fashion is often overlooked in modern consumer lifestyles. Fraught with devastating globalized labor and farming practices, the fallout of textile consumption will be dealt with for generations to come. LOOM:FIELD juxtaposes this large-scale ecological crisis with the timeless cross-cultural power of fabric to hold, comfort, adorn, and sanctify the human experience. Fabric stories are drawn from the swaddling blanket, the altar cloth, the death shroud, and the fishing net. LOOM:FIELD also weaves in the community building and therapeutic aspects of handmaking techniques; the focused rhythms of stitching, knitting, spinning, and weaving of fiber into cloth.

Choreography for LOOM:FIELD was developed by Melecio Estrella and the BANDALOOP dancers. Collaborators for the production include ninth-generation Nigerian weaver and costume designer IB Bayo, theater artist Chibueze Crouch, composer Ben Juodvalkis, and lighting designer Jim French. The result of this multi-layered collaboration is an evening of dance theater featuring spoken word, vertical dance, fabric manipulation, film segments, and original music. As vertical dance is a form that relies on state-of-the-science woven nylon climbing ropes, LOOM:FIELD locates BANDALOOP's core technical framework in a textile lineage. The first installment of the LOOM trilogy, titled FLOOD, premiered in February 2020 at the grand opening of The Momentary, a contemporary visual, performing, and culinary arts space in Northwest Arkansas. The second installment, FIELD, premiered in Atlanta, Georgia, in October 2021. LOOM:FIELD, after its hometown premiere in Oakland, California, will tour nationally through spring of 2023 before work on the third installment, FLOCK, begins.

BANDALOOP celebrates the human spirit, nature, and communities through dance that uses climbing technology to expand and challenge what is possible. An innovator of vertical performance, BANDALOOP seamlessly weaves dynamic physicality and intricate choreography to turn the dance floor on its side. Founded by Amelia Rudolph and under the artistic direction of Melecio Estrella, the work re-imagines dance, activates public spaces, and inspires wonder and imagination in audiences around the world. BANDALOOP trains dancers and youth at home and on tour, and has performed live for millions of people.

Based in Oakland, the company incubates and produces work for its local audiences and for touring performances presented around the globe. Education and outreach are an intrinsic part of the company's mission, and BANDALOOP offers open level and intermediate/advanced classes, youth and adult camps, weekend intensive, and team building programs. BANDALOOP's adult and young adult classes give students ages 15+ a chance to ascend into BANDALOOP's signature style of harness assisted dance. From a foundation of safety, care, and equipment training, students can activate the dance walls, trampoline wall, and low flying floor space of BANDALOOP's home studio with fun and rigorous dancing. Youth classes introduce students ages 9-14 to safety awareness, athletic creative expression, coordination, core strength, confidence, and collaborative skills. Dancers throughout the Bay Area will be able to learn the basics of harness assisted dancing with a growing roster of classes coming in the fall of 2022, as BANDALOOP's 8,000 square foot facility in West Oakland continues to expand.

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