Liss Fain Dance Presents 'I Don't Know and Never Will: A Recomposition'

Following the success of I Don't Know and Never Will in March, Liss Fain Dance returns this fall with a "recomposition" featuring a new installation design by Matthew Antaky, costumes by Mary Domenico and original music performed live by composer and percussionist Jordan Glenn alongside Nava Dunkelman and Jacob Felix Heule. I DON'T KNOW AND NEVER WILL: A RECOMPOSITION asks, What are the anchor points in our past that define us? The performance installation runs for three nights at 8 p.m., October 19 - 21, at Z Space in San Francisco. Tickets are $25 - $35 and may be purchased online at zspace.org.

"I Don't Know and Never Will was based on old letters of mine that were read out loud," said choreographer Liss Fain. "I found that the vulnerability in sharing my own history moved people. I invited audience members to write their own letter about something they wish they had done and did not do. One letter was read out loud at each performance."

"A Recomposition builds on the original piece by illuminating the pivotal choices and chance occurrences underlying one's life. My letters from decades ago are one element of this twisting thread. Again, the audience's participation will be central as they write their responses to the question, What is one anchor point in your life that has made you who you are today? In looking back on our lives, I'm interested to know what really matters?"

In A Recomposition, mounds of soil provide texture, smell, dampness. The theater stage becomes the metaphorical ground upon which our individual memories are unearthed. Fain opens and closes the work with spoken text and movement. Excerpts from her letters are spoken by an actor, still to be cast. Dancers Sonja Dale, Megan Kurashige, Shannon Kurashige and Sarah Dionne Woods-LaDue perform set choreography as well as improvise to audience letters that are chosen at random and read aloud.

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.

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. FACT SHEET WHAT: ?Liss Fain Dance presents I DON'T KNOW AND NEVER WILL: A RECOMPOSITION, an immersive performance installation based on letters choreographer Liss Fain received decades ago. This is Liss Fain Dance's 30th anniversary season.

Choreographer: Liss Fain Dancers: Sonja Dale, Megan Kurashige, Shannon Kurashige, Sarah Dionne Woods-LaDue Musicians: Nava Dunkelman, Jordan Glenn, Jacob Felix Heule Composer: Jordan Glenn Installation Designer: Matthew Antaky Costume Designer: Mary Domenico

To post a comment, you must register and login.