Epiphany Dance Theater to Present Film About San Francisco Trolley Dances

Epiphany Dance Theater will hold a celebration in honor of two decades of producing San Francisco Trolley Dances. On October 19 at the YBCA Forum, the company will present the premiere screening of a feature-length film about SFTD bookended by several short live performances and a dance party. The evening will also honor Epiphany Founder and Artistic Director Kim Epifano, whose tenure at the helm of SFTD comes to an end this year. In keeping with SFTD’s history as an admission-free event, this celebration is offered to the public free with RSVP.

Titled DANCING WITH MUNI, and made in collaboration with Loren Robertson Productions, the film provides interviews with many of the more than 1,000 artists who have taken part in SFTD since its inception. Archival footage is paired with commentary from transit officials, tour guides and art-goers in addition to Epifano and Epiphany Managing Director Zoë Klein. Link to trailer.

“SFTD is the most delectable moveable dance feast of the season,” wrote Andrew Gilbert for the Bay Area News Group. “Using the city as both a backdrop and unpredictable character, the peripatetic event ushers many of the Bay Area’s top dance companies off the stage and onto the street.”

“SFTD reminds us that Muni is more than going from point A to point B,” said Jeanne Brophy, marketing manager for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. “It reminds us to take pride in our civic spaces and embrace the diversity that makes San Francisco such a special place.”

Dancing with Muni is a document not only of a beloved event that has taken place each October for the last 20 years. It’s also a record of a changing city, and the abiding power of public art in an age of increasing privatization.

Over two decades SFTD has traveled from the Bayview to the Haight; from the Upper Mission to the City College of San Francisco, Ocean campus; from Mission Bay to the Castro; from South of Market to Chinatown to Golden Gate Park – and many points in between. The large-scale, site-specific event sustained a public-private partnership with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, numerous professional Bay Area artists and ensembles, and the neighborhoods and community sites where the route is placed each year. 

“If my shoes could talk…” begins Epifano: “because I have taken Muni and then walked all over this city! It has been a tremendous honor to have worked alongside so many generous artists, volunteers, community organizations, small and large businesses, and city officials in service of this event. I have learned a ton, I’ve met so many amazing people, and I’m proud of all that we have accomplished taking more than 40,000 audience members – the ones we could count! – on journeys around the city.”

The celebration on October 19 will begin at 6:30 p.m. with pop-up performances by past participants in SFTD including Maica Folch, Natalie Greene, Gama Hsu, Hien Huynh, Zoë Klein, Dave Paris and Jennifer Perfilio. Live music will be provided by didgeridoo virtuoso Stephen Kent, “Cello Joe” and the men’s vocal ensemble Conspiracy of Beards.

The screening of Dancing with Muni will start at 7:30 p.m., followed at 8:45 p.m. by “Flea for Free,” a giveaway of old costumes, props and other sundries that Epiphany has collected over the years. A dance party will conclude the night.

Reservations will become available on August 26 at eventbrite.com/e/972093175857. For more information, visit epiphanydance.org.
 

Photo credit: Zoë Klein

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