Spring 2012 FREE EVENTS

Choreographers, dancers, dance-makers and enthusiasts are invited to attend this series of intimate conversations with local, national and international choreographers. Discover and discuss the innovative models and career choices that some of today's leading artists have developed to endure and flourish in the ever-changing climate of dance-making in our culture.

All events are held at the Margaret Jenkins Dance Lab 301 8th Street, (at Folsom) #200, San Francisco, CA 94103.

All events are free and will be followed by a reception.

For more information on this event, please visit www.mjdc.org or e-mail info@mjdc.org or call (415) 861-3940.

Tuesday, March 13 – 7:00 pm

A Conversation with Elizabeth Streb

Sunday, March 18 – 4:00 pm

A Conversation with Eiko Otake

Monday, April 9 – 7:00 pm
SPECIAL BAY AREA EVENT:

A Conversation with Anna Halprin and Brenda Way

ARTIST PROFILES

Margaret Jenkins is a choreographer, teacher and mentor, as well as a designer of unique community-based dance programs, such as Leaders at the Lab and CHIME (Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange). Ms. Jenkins has created an impressive body of work, with over 75 works created on her Company as well as resident companies in the United States and Europe. In addition, she has received numerous commissions from renowned national and international arts presenters and cultural institutions, including a commission for the San Francisco Ballet's 75th anniversary home season. Her Company tours regularly in this country and abroad, and her recent cross-cultural collaborations with the Tanusree Shankar Dance Company of Kolkata, India and the Guangdong Modern Dance Company of Guangzhou, China have been a highlight of her choreographic attention since 2003. Ms. Jenkins' newest work, Light Moves, a multi-media collaboration with media artist Naomie Kremer, composer Paul Dresher and poet Michael Palmer, premiered in November 2011 at the Yerba Buena Center for Arts in San Francisco, and recently completed an East Coast tour. In 2013, the MJDC will celebrate its 40th anniversary. For more information on Margaret Jenkins and the activities of the MJDC, please visit www.mjdc.org.

Elizabeth Streb is the 2012 Chair of CHIME Across Borders, an innovative cross-national mentorship program administered by the MJDC. Streb was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Award in 1997. She is the recipient of numerous other awards and fellowships including the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987 and two New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessie Awards), in 1988 and 1999, for her "sustained investigation of movement." Once called the Evel Knievel of dance, Streb creates choreography, which she calls "PopAction," that intertwines the disciplines of dance, athletics, boxing, rodeo, the circus, and Hollywood stunt work. The result is a bristling, muscle-and-motion vocabulary that combines daring with strict precision in pursuit of the public display of "pure movement." In 2003 Streb established S.L.A.M. (STREB Lab for Action Mechanics) in Brooklyn. S.L.A.M.'s door is literally open for the community to come in and watch rehearsals, take classes, and learn to fly. Streb believes that true movement invention (the rubric of her investigations) happens accidentally with the milling together of strangers and out of the diverse movement voices that accidentally cross paths. S.L.A.M. is the Petri dish that feeds the possibility for these new forms to emerge. For more information on Elizabeth Streb and S.L.A.M. please visit www.streb.org. For more information of CHIME Across Borders, please visit www.mjdc.org/chime.

Eiko Otake, of Eiko & Koma, is a Japanese-born choreographer/ dancer. Since 1972, Eiko & Koma have created a unique and riveting theater of movement out of stillness, shape, light and sound. They collaborate designing and hand-crafting every aspects of their work from a set/costume making to performing. They studied with Kazuo Ohno in Japan and Manja Chmiel in Germany before moving to New York in 1976. Since then, they have presented their works in theaters, universities, museums, galleries, and festivals world-wide, including numerous appearances at BAM's Next Wave Festival and the American Dance Festival. Eiko & Koma have created and presented site works as free-admission events at dozens of sites for over 40,000 audience members. Eiko & Koma have received MacArthur and United States Artists Fellowships, the Dance Magazine award, and the 2004 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts are presenting a two program, two-week retrospective from March 15 – 23, 2012, including Fragile, a collaboration with Kronos Quartet. www.eikoandkoma.org.

Anna Halprin's diverse career has spanned the field of dance since the late 1930s, creating revolutionary directions for the art form. James Roose – Evans author of "Experimental Theatre" called Anna one of the most important theatre artists of the 20th century. Halprin has created 150 full-length dance theater works, which are extensively documented in photographs, books and on film. She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including a lifetime achievement in choreography from the American Dance Festival. She has received numerous honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Dance Guild, and many others. In 1997, Anna received the Samuel H. Scripps Award for Lifetime Achievement in Modern Dance from the American Dance Festival. At the age of 91, she continues to perform and teach with fervor. Anna gets the most out of her life, living by her adage "Aging is like enlightenment at gunpoint". For more information on Anna Halprin and the Tamalpa Institute, please visit www.annahalprin.org or www.tamalpa.org.

Brenda Way received her early training at The School of American Ballet and Ballet Arts in New York City. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of ODC Dance and creator of the ODC Theater and ODC Dance Commons, community performance and training venues in San Francisco's Mission District. Way launched ODC and an inter-arts department at Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music in the late 60's before relocating to the Bay Area in 1976. She has choreographed some 80 pieces over the last 40 years, some 18 of which were commissions. Way is a national spokesperson for dance, has published widely, and has received numerous awards as well as 35 years of support from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a 2000 recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and in 2009 was the first choreographer to be a Resident of the Arts at the American Academy in Rome. Way holds a PhD in Aesthetics and is the mother of four children. For more information on ODC and their numerous programs and activities, please visit www.odcdance.org.

Leaders at the Lab is a project of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company (MJDC.) The activities of the MJDC are funded by the Center for Cultural Innovation, The Fleishhacker Foundation, The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The Hellman Family Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, The Bernard Osher Foundation, Lisa and John Pritzker Family Fund, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, The San Francisco Arts Commission, The San Francisco Foundation, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation and generous individuals.

Photo Credits (left to right, top to bottom): Elizabeth Streb by Jack Mitchell Hires, Eiko Otake by Gregory Georges, Anna Halprin by Kent Reno, Brenda Way by Margo Moritz, and Margaret Jenkins by Paul Trapani; Margaret Jenkins, Elizabeth Streb by Scott Suchman, Eiko and Koma by Marcus Leatherdale, Anna Halprin in Intensive Care 2 (2004) by Rick Chapman, and Brenda Way.

Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
507 Polk Street, Suite 320
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 861-3940