Alyssandra Katherine Dance Project Premieres UNRAVELED At ODC Theater

Alyssandra Katherine Dance Project (AKDP), a four-year-old London-born, San Francisco-based contemporary dance company, is proud to announce the world premiere of UNRAVELED, April 11 13 at ODC Theater. Featuring an ensemble of five performers, and film projection design by Clare Schweitzer, Unraveled explores the all too common experience of dependency, addiction and isolation. Performances run Thursday to Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 - $40, and may be purchased online at odc.dance/tickets or by phone at 415-863-9834.

Alyssandra Katherine Wu launched her self-named company in 2015 while completing an M.A. from the prestigious London Contemporary Dance School. While performing on the festival circuit in the United Kingdom, Wu's choreography earned resounding praise. LondonDance.com named Wu one of the most promising young choreographers of her generation. Since relocating to the Bay Area where Wu was born and raised, AKDP has continued to turn heads, earning an audience choice award at PUSHfest 2016, in addition to several competitive grants and awards. Following Brace Forward which premiered in 2017, Unraveled is AKDP's second evening-length work to date.

In Unraveled, each of the five performers Kelsey Gerber, Tayler Kinner, Jan-Matthew Sevilla, James Washington and Erin Yen blends movement with spoken word, drawing on a mix of personal stories of dependency and addiction, in addition to stories gathered through interviews with members of an East Bay chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Center for Open Recovery in San Francisco.

For Wu, this is a very intimate project, and her performers will also draw on her own personal struggles with dependency and addiction. My grandfather was a gambling addict, and he lost everything before he died, said Wu. The trauma of that experience is something my family still carries. But I have also had my own struggles with dependency and substance abuse, and I believe that in sharing our own stories we can short-circuit the vicious cycle of shame and relapse.

What does your 'shame monster' look like? asked Wu of her dancers in the first rehearsal.

I cast this piece for diversity to stress that dependency and addiction strike all of us, directly or indirectly, and that we're all sharing this experience regardless of gender, class, race, sexuality and so on.

Additional collaborators on Unraveled include lighting designer Del Medoff and technical director Keagan Chipp.

Following the performance on April 12, a representative from the Center for Open Recovery will join Wu in a talkback with the audience. The Center for Open Recovery is a nonprofit organization working to end the stigma of addiction. AKDP is proud to donate $2 from the sale of each ticket to Open Recovery.

Performances of Unraveled are made possible in part by the Opportunity Fund at ODC Theater supported by the Fleishhacker Foundation. For more information, visit odc.dance/Unraveled.

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