Past And Present Collide When Funsch Dance Experience Marks 15th Anniversary

Choreographer Christy Funsch celebrates the women of two distinct eras of San Francisco dance history with Mother, Sister, Daughter, Marvel at ODC Theater this spring. The full-length work marks 15 years of the Christy Funsch Dance Experience making dance and performance in the city by the bay.

"Featuring a cast of dance-makers themselves, all over the age of 40, Mother, Sister, Daughter, Marvel is my tribute to my cast's contributions to the local dance fabric," says Funsch. "I feel that creating a new work with them, as they generously offer up their embodied wisdom, is a privileged way to mark my own history here."

Decidedly feminist in nature, Mother, Sister, Daughter, Marvel will explore what it means to take space as seasoned, veteran women performers in mid-life, in this part of our country and at this specific moment. Drawing from the personal movement histories of her cast and their mentors and ancestors, Funsch will pay tribute to those whom she sees as "collective local ancestors," to her cast, the California Dancing Girls.

Directed by dancer-choreographer Anita Peters Wright, the California Dancing Girls was one of the first all-women dance companies in San Francisco. Through photos housed at the San Francisco Museum of Design and Performance and interviews with Judy Job (Anita's niece, now 92 years old), Funsch will recreate tableaus from the original CDG and morph them with her cast's movement memories. "Although the inspiration for the work is grounded in history, my aim is to create an entirely original, contemporary piece" says Funsch.

Mother, Sister, Daughter, Marvel asks how women have led the charge in the dance ecology of the Bay Area throughout the past 100 years. Towards this end, Muriel Maffre-former principal dancer for the San Francisco Ballet and most recently executive director of the Museum of Performance and-will host a roundtable discussion at the San Francisco Museum of Performance and Design on March 15, 2018.

The original score for Mother, Sister, Daughter, Marvel will be performed live by its composer Gretchen Jude at each performance.

Cast includes: Christy Funsch; Chris Black; Laura Elaine Ellis; Aura Fischbeck; Nina Haft; Chinchin Hsu; Courtney Moreno

Tickets: $35 Patron/$25 General/$20 Students and seniors; ODCtheater.org

About Christy Funsch
Christy Funsch founded Funsch Dance Experience in 2002 and has since presented ten full-length concerts throughout the Bay Area. FDE has been presented in New York City, Amsterdam, Portland, OR; Chicago, Phoenix, Tempe, Toronto, and throughout California. Her choreographic trajectory has evolved over this time from emotionally-driven narrative pieces (Daisy, 2002), to genre-blending theatrical works (Boy Blue, 2004; To Mifune, 2007), to somatic improvisation (Box Elder, 2009), to an emergent premise process wherein questions drive the creative process (This is the Girl, 2014; Dissolver, 2015). FDE uses movement to distill the parts of living that befuddle, amuse, and intrigue Funsch: "In my dances, I remake the world the way I want it to be. I celebrate the body as an astonishing machine. Instead of technical, or conventional, virtuosity, I prefer the virtuosity of unguarded vulnerability. I value the questions that the moving body, grappling with time, generates. Duration, repetition, and sequencing fascinate me as structural elements and as mechanisms through which I research movement possibilities." More information at www.funschdance.org

About Gretchen Jude
Gretchen Jude (composer) was born and raised in the wild state of Idaho (USA), and she has also been heard in many other states and countries. Improvisatory interaction with the immediate environment forms the core of Gretchen's musical practice.

Ongoing collaborations include glou glou (voice, electronics & everything, with Arjun Mendiratta), Eat The Sun (koto, with Jason Hoopes and Noah Phillips) and Candy Acid(electronics, with Lona Kozik). Gretchen also works with choreographers such as Nina Haft, Anne Bluethenthal, Christine Germain, Becky Chaleff and Peiling Kao. Gretchen's work has been released on cassette and CD by Full Spectrum, Susuultrarock and Edgetone Records. She holds an M.F.A. in Electronic Music & Recording Media from Mills College, as well as koto certification from the Sawai Koto Institute in Tokyo.

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, 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.

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