ODC Presents Emily Johnson's SHORE This Month

This month, Emily Johnson/Catalyst returns to ODC Theater in the Bay Area premiere of SHORE, the final work in a trilogy that began with Bessie Award-winning The Thank-You Bar, presented at ODC in 2011.

A multipart, multicity project, SHORE explores the complex connotations of the place we call home, taking on questions of memory, ancestry, nature and community. SHORE lands in San Francisco the week of August 2 with a variety of events at multiple locations, culminating in three performances Thursday to Saturday, tonight, August 6, through August 8 at ODC.

"How can performance uniquely connect us to our land, our lives and to each other?" asks Johnson, a native Alaskan of Yup'ik descent, now based in Minneapolis. This is, she adds, the central question that binds together the trilogy that SHORE completes. While The Thank-You Bar was an intimate piece limited to individual audiences of 35 members, SHORE employs an expansive structure that forms in constellations along shorelines, buried creek beds, parkways and playgrounds, coffeehouses, galleries, meeting rooms and theaters. The trilogy traces an arc from the personal to the public.

SHORE's presentation at ODC is the fourth stop on a five-city tour that began in Minneapolis in June 2014. Subsequent engagements were held in New York this past April, and in Homer, Alaska earlier this month. The tour will conclude in Seattle this October in collaboration with On the Boards.

SHORE's performances begin in a procession that gradually makes its way indoors. Alongside performers Aretha Aoki, Krista Langberg and Julia Bither, Johnson is joined by vocalist and composer Nona Marie Invie (of Dark Dark Dark), a choir of singers and a cast of local dancers. Composer James Everest and musician Fletcher Barnhill contribute additional music. Other collaborators include Heidi Eckwall (lighting design)and Angie Vo (costume design). Ain Gordon directs.

Combining dance, live music and storytelling, SHORE "dwells in the liminal space between memoir and dream, intimate and mythical, dance and installation, continually working away at the boundaries between performers and audience," writes SHORE essayist Eleanor Savage.

"ODC is delighted to share Emily Johnson/Catalyst with audiences again," says ODC Theater Deputy Director Christy Bolingbroke. "Emily Johnson is an important American artist, and with SHORE's incisive view of 'home' as the overlap and interaction between place, community and the individual, she's offered a rich contribution to that ongoing conversation which so often returns to words like 'rent,' 'gentrification' and 'dislocation.'"

The other major elements of SHORE include opportunities for community service, a curated reading and a potluck feast. Specific dates, times and additional details about these unticketed, daytime events will become available over the course of the next several weeks. For the most up-to-date information visit odcdance.org/shore. In the meantime, $30 general admission tickets for the three performances may be purchased online at odcdance.org/buytickets.php or by phone at 415-863-9834, Monday through Friday from 12-3pm.

ABOUT EMILY JOHNSON/CATALYST Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. Originally from Alaska, she is currently based in Minneapolis. Since 1998 Johnson has been creating richly layered works that blur distinctions between performance and daily life. Her dances function as installations, engaging audiences within and through a space and environment-interacting with a place's architecture, history and its role in community.
Johnson is a recipient of a 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award. Her work is currently supported by Creative Capital, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, MAP Fund, a Joyce Award, the McKnight Foundation and the Doris Duke Residency to Build Demand for the Arts. Johnson is a current Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota, a 2014 Fellow at the Robert Rauschenberg Residency, a 2012 Headlands Center for the Arts and MacDowell Artist in Residence, a Native Arts and Cultures Fellow for 2011, a MANCC Choreographer Fellow (2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016), a MAP Fund grant recipient (2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013) and a 2009 McKnight Fellow. She received a 2012 New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" Award for Outstanding Performance for her work The Thank-You Bar at New York Live Arts. For more information about SHORE, visit catalystdance.com.

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 Christy Bolingbroke, 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, Molissa Fenley, Bill T. Jones, Eiko & Koma, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, Ban Rarra and Karole Armitage are among those whose first San Francisco appearance occurred at ODC Theater. For more information about ODC Theater and all its programs visit odcdance.org.

Pictured: Emily Johnson in SHORE. Photo by Erin Westover.

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