ODC Presents Cori Olinghouse in West Coast Premiere of GRANDMA

ODC Theater is proud to present Cori Olinghouse in the West Coast premiere of GRANDMA, February 15 - 17. Best known for her practice of "Clown Therapy," which she defines as "shape-shifting and a queering of the clown form," Olinghouse in Grandma excavates the effects of television, the media and her own family lineage as portals to parody American consumerism. Sharing the bill with Grandma is Olinghouse's short film Ghost line. Performances run Thursday to Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30, and may be purchased online at odc.dance/tickets or by phone at 415-863-9834.

Set in an American landscape of Twinkies and Wonderbread, Grandma is a live televisual starring Grandma and Bad Signal, her staticky ghost. In a three dimensional, split-screen room, Grandma loops through her various consumption practices: hoarding, discarding, coveting and display. Featured characters include "Cheez Doodles, cans of Spam, Cheese Whiz, Hostess Cupcakes and a guest appearance by the famous Orange Soda, Fizzy Fizzy."

Joining Olinghouse as performers in Grandma are Martita Abril, a dancer and choreographer originally from Tijuana, Mexico, and Hope Mohr, whose San Francisco-based dance company recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. All three artists owe part of their formative training to the pioneering Trisha Brown Dance Company. Olinghouse danced for the company from 2002 to 2006, and has served as archive director since 2009. Abril served as the company's New York City Education Operations Associate from 2013 to 2015. And Mohr danced with the company from 2001 to 2005.

Over the past ten years, in critical examination of the postmodern aesthetic of her training, Olinghouse has studied closely with theatrical clown and actor Bill Irwin, and legendary voguers Archie Burnett, Benny Ninja and Javier Ninja. "My research examines the body as a site for the slippery construction of identity," said Olinghouse, adding that part of her interest in clowning is "the exploration of parody as socio-political critique."

Grandma premiered at Gibney Dance in New York in December 2017. In an earlier work from 2013, Ghost line, created in collaboration with filmmaker Shona Masarin, Olinghouse created a different ghost character "that acted as a conduit to a ghost town in Nevada called Olinghouse. Masarin manipulated the character materially on film, playing with tactile interventions on the 16mm film celluloid."

ODC Theater's presentation of Olinghouse is part of Limited Edition: Forward Looking Lineages, a partnership initiated by Open Space, SFMOMA's contemporary arts and culture platform, along with CounterPulse, The Lab, Performance at SFMOMA and Z Space. Limited Edition organizes a series of interdisciplinary events throughout the winter exploring questions of ownership, legacy, the authentic and the appropriated in contemporary performance.

To amplify this partnership, on Wednesday, February 14 at 6:30 p.m., ODC Theater will host a public conversation with Olinghouse joined by Open Space Editor-in-Chief Claudia La Rocco, ODC Theater Director Julie Potter, as well as artist-academics Anne Walsh, Tammy Rae Carland and Sandra Ibarra. Topics to be addressed include "humor in performance, tactility and the haptic."

Finally, on Sunday, February 18 at 11 a.m., ODC Theater will host a workshop by Olinghouse focused on disseminating her current studio practice methodology, Clown Therapy. This workshop is free and open to movers of all kinds. For more information, visit odc.dance/grandma.

Grandma was commissioned by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and developed as part of LMCC's Extended Life Dance Development program made possible in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Grandma was additionally created with commissioning support from Gibney Dance with funds provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation, and by the ODC Theater in San Francisco. Cori Olinghouse acknowledges Park Avenue Armory for residency in association with the development of this work.

ABOUT CORI OLINGHOUSE

Cori Olinghouse is an interdisciplinary artist, archivist, and curator. Her work has been commissioned by Danspace Project, New York Live Arts, BRIC Arts Media, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Movement Research, and Brooklyn Museum of Art. Recently, she was the recipient of The Award (2015-2016), and a participant in Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Extended Life Dance Development program made possible in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2016-2017). Olinghouse danced for the Trisha Brown Dance Company (2002-2006), and has served as the Archive Director since 2009. Over the past ten years, in critical examination of the postmodern aesthetic of her training, she has studied closely with theatrical clown and actor Bill Irwin, and legendary voguers Archie Burnett, Benny Ninja, and Javier Ninja. As founding director of The Portal Project, she is currently developing a series of artist archivist projects that explore the transmission of improvisational performance practices in a space between documentation and embodiment. She serves as guest faculty at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, and has lectured at the Museum of Modern Art, Duke University, Lincoln Center, among other institutions. She holds an MA in Performance Curation as part of the inaugural class at the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance at Wesleyan University.

ABOUT ODC THEATER

ODC Theater participates in the creation of new works through commissioning, presenting, mentorship and space access; it develops informed, engaged and committed audiences; and it advocates for the performing arts as an essential component to the region's economic and cultural development. The Theater is the site of over 120 performances a year involving nearly 1,000 local, regional, national and International Artists.

Since 1976, ODC Theater has been the mobilizing force behind countless San Francisco artists and the foothold for national and international touring artists seeking debut in the Bay Area. The Theater, founded by Brenda Way and currently under the direction of Julie Potter, has earned its place as a cultural incubator by dedicating itself to creative change-makers, those leaders who give the Bay Area its unmistakable definition and flare. Nationally known artists Spaulding Gray, Diamanda Galas, Bill T. Jones, Eiko & Koma, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, Karole Armitage, Sarah Michelson, Brian Brooks and John Heginbotham are among those whose first San Francisco appearance occurred at ODC Theater. For more information about ODC Theater and all its programs visit www.odc.dance.

Photo credit: Scott Shaw

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