CHIME in the San Francisco Bay Area is funded by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation and generous individuals. Funding for CHIME in Southern California is provided by the James Irvine Foundation, with additional support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
CHIME in the San Francisco Bay Area 2011 Artist Profiles
Kim Epifano has a 25-year history as an award winning choreographer, director, performer, vocalist, educator and collaborator. She is the Artistic/Executive Director of her company Epiphany Productions, which she founded in 1997. Ms. Epifano curates and produces the popular San Francisco Trolley Dances, which is now entering its eighth year and was awarded by the San Francisco Weekly "Best Public Transit Ballet" 2010. In the 1980's and 1990's, Epifano was a key member of two of San Francisco's most collaborative and influential dance companies, the Dance Brigade and Contraband. Her work has been nominated for and awarded several Bay Area Isadora Duncan Dance Awards (IZZIES), won the SF Weekly's Black Box Award in 1998 for Best Dance Ensemble, and placed first in Mexico's Bi-National Competition. Epifano's work has been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Dance: Creation to Performance program (funded by the James Irvine Foundation and administered by Dance/USA), SF Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, The Creative Work Fund, and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, among others. She received her MFA in Choreography from U.C. Davis and has more than 15 years of experience teaching dance at the collegiate level. She has taught at and or been commissioned to set work at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University, Arizona State, Skidmore College, University of San Francisco, U.C. Davis, UCLA, among others. Her work has been performed internationally, in Mexico, China, India, Ethiopia among others, as well as all over the United Sates. Most recently, Epifano toured to Tunisia, North Africa to present an evening of work for the international festival Mad'Art Carthage and perform outreach with local Tunisian youth. The trip was co-sponsored by the Tunisian government and the U.S. State Department. In April 2010, Epifano traveled to Vietnam with Mudd Butt International to bridge artistic alliances and create a performance piece with young adults from the city of Hue and America. For the last 24 years, Ms. Epifano has been the Co-Director with Sally Davis of the Mudd Butt Mystery Theater Troupe in Telluride, CO. In June 2011, Ms. Epifano's home season will be part of the curated performances at ODC Theater in San Francisco. Her work has been presented at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Theatre Artaud, Cowell Theater, ODC Theatre in San Francisco, Mondavi Center at UC Davis, Sushi Performance and Art Galleries in San Diego, New York MELT Festival, Colorado Dance Festival, Aerial Dance Festival in Boulder, CO, among others. For more information go to www.epiphanydance.org.
Antoine Hunter is an Oakland-born African American deaf and hard of hearing choreographer, dancer, dance instructor, actor, speaker and poet. He has performed with Savage Jazz Dance Company, as a dance artist/performer/jazz instructor; he has also performed with Nuba Dance Theater, Sins Invalid, Sonic Dance Theater of Epiphany Productions, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Alayo Dance Company, Cat Willis, Push Dance Company, Robert Moses' Kin Dance Company and many more. Mr. Hunter has attended the California Institute of the Arts and is studying toward a B.A at St. Mary's College of California L.E.A.P. He is Founder/Director of Urban Jazz Dance Company, and a faculty member at the East Bay Center of the Performing Arts, Dance-A-Vision, Youth In Arts, Ross Dance Company and more. Mr. Hunter dances with companies from various parts of the world and is traveling around the world performing/teaching, proving that even those with a hearing disability or any kind of disability can reach for their dreams. www.antoinehunter.com and www.UrbanJazzDance.com.
Sara Shelton Mann has directed Contraband in Canada and the U.S. She has received four Isadora Duncan Awards. She was a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow in Choreography in 2000. Her 2006 presentation ofTe'lios/Teli'os was awarded one of the top ten dance performances in SFCA. She taught intensives in Berlin, Budapest, Stolzenhagen, as well as Freiburg in the summer of 2007. The "Inspirare" Trilogy was presented by ODC Theater in the spring of 2008. She directed Kalpa 1/my life as a turtle in San Diego, created Tribes/zeropoint for the Potsdam International Festival of Dance & Theater, presented at the Schinkehalle Theater, and was a Granada Artist at UC Davis, CA. In 2009, she received the Gerbode Choreographers in Collaboration Award fortribes/dominion with collaborator David Szlasa at YBCA for 2010. Sara's work has been supported by Djerassi Artist in Residence Programs, Commissions, NEA, SFAC, SFF, Zellerbach and Gerbode Foundation.
Benjamin Levy is a choreographer, dancer, and director based in San Francisco who is recognized for his cutting-edge interdisciplinary works that explore the nuance and drama of human intimacy. After earning his BA in Dance and Marketing from U.C. Berkeley and performing with Joe Goode Performance Group, Levy founded LEVYdance in 2002. LEVYdance very quickly became known for its innovative works and collaborations and in 2004 was named one of the "Top 25 Companies to Watch" by Dance Magazine and awarded a San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement. Levy has also been awarded a Choreographic Fellowship from the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, an Emerging Choreographer Award from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, and creative residencies at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program and The Silo. As Artistic Director for LEVYdance, Levy has presented original works at prestigious venues across the nation and internationally, engaged distinguished collaborators including Kronos Quartet, Keeril Makan, Mason Batas, Colleen Quen and Rick Lee, and established a unique recognizable artistic aesthetic for LEVYdance. www.levydance.org.
Jill Togawa has worked as a dancer, choreographer, innovator and community builder in her native Hawai'i, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 30 years. She founded Purple Moon Dance Project, which explores the continuum of intimacy between women and illuminates less visible and unheard stories from our communities, through the integration of non-western and western dance forms and aesthetics and interdisciplinary collaboration. In her creative projects she creates circles of collaborators – multicultural, intergenerational and spanning different disciplines – to texture each work with their diverse experience. With Purple Moon she began producing The Community Healing Garden Festival at Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco (2003), which has become a biennial event bringing together artists, healers, community leaders and diverse communities to celebrate life and honor our ancestors.
Michelle Fletcher loves movement, story, and architecture. After graduating with her BFA in dance from North Carolina School of the Arts, Fletcher pursued a career in ballet. Deciding that ballet company life was not for her, Fletcher returned to school to study choreography at Florida State University. Highlights from Fletcher's FSU education include teaching undergraduate theater majors, working as a demonstrator and rehearsal assistant to Dan Wagoner, and performing an original work choreographed by Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet director Benoit-Swan Pouffer. Upon graduation, Fletcher packed her bags for the west and immediately founded Here Now Dance Collective with fellow FSU graduates. With Here Now and the help of amazing collaborators, Fletcher has produced 2 full-length evenings of dance and participated in over ten curated performances in the past two years. Fletcher is currently working on The Apology Project, which investigates the way we ask for forgiveness on a daily basis.www.herenowdancecollective.com.
CHIME in Southern California 2011 Artist Profiles
Lionel Popkin's dances are characterized by his blend of humor, subtle sensuality, precision, sly wit and raw physical power that The Village Voice says, "yields first to the senses" and then to "intimate adventures". His work comes from a deeply sensory and unabashed kinesthetic curiosity that places vibrant individuals within an imagistic or abstract landscape, propelling his audience to have a highly visceral and physical experience. Popkin has had his choreography presented nationally and internationally at numerous venues including Danspace Project and Dance Theater Workshop in New York City; The Getty Museum, REDCAT, and Highways in Los Angeles; the Jacob's Pillow Inside/Out Series, On the Boards in Seattle; the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia; Sushi Performance in San Diego; and The Place Theater in London. As a dancer, Lionel has performed throughout the US and Europe in the companies of Trisha Brown (2000-2003), Terry Creach (1996-2000) and Stephanie Skura (1993-1996). From 1999-2000 Lionel was a Choreographer-In-Residence at the Susan Hess Studio in Philadelphia, PA. He has received grants from the City of Los Angeles' Department of Cultural Affairs, Danspace Project's Commissioning Initiative, the Jerome Foundation, the Nonprofit Finance Fund, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the New York State Music Fund, The Puffin Foundation and the Durfee Foundation. He has created commissioned work for San Diego's Lower Left Performance Collective's Satellite in 2005, Nejla Yatkin in 2006, and Li Chiao-Ping Dance in 2009. Lionel is a certified teacher of Skinner Releasing Technique and has served on the faculty at Bates College, London's Laban Centre, Sarah Lawrence College, Temple University and the University of Maryland. Lionel is currently an Associate Professor of Choreography and Performance at UCLA. For more information see www.lionelpopkin.org.
Arianne MacBean is the Artistic Director of The Big Show Co., a dance-theater group based in Los Angeles. The Big Show Co. has been presented in New York City at the DIA Center for the Arts and WOW, and in Los Angeles at the Skirball Cultural Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art, UCLA's Armand Hammer Museum, Unknown Theater, Highways Performance Space, and REDCAT as part of Studio and The A.W.A.R.D. Show! MacBean has been a Guest Artist at Scripps College and LA Valley College and is a seven-time grant recipient from the city of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, most recently, as an Artist-in-Residence. She holds a BA in Dance from UCLA and a double MFA in Dance & Critical Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. MacBean is currently the Chair of the Dance Department at Oakwood School in North Hollywood. www.dancemovingforward.com.
d. Sabela grimes is a multi-hyphenated artist, choreographer and educator whose work transforms speech and sound into a visual performance with movement that is electric on transmission. Sabela has conceived and presented a body of dance theater work that has consistently stretched beyond the boundaries surrounding contemporary notions of Hip Hop culture and aesthetics. Projects such as World War What?Ever?, 40 Acres & A Microchip: Salvation or Servitude, Sankofa and his evening length tour-de-force BULLETPROOF DELI exemplify his propensity to funktion as performer, choreographer, writer, composer and costume designer. His work continues to journey through the present future of Hip Hop's past and the corrugated spaces of its many incarnations. Sabela has been a principal dancer and artistic contributor with Rennie Harris Puremovement. He holds a MFA in choreography from UCLA's World Arts and Culture Department. His Funkamental and MediKinetix dance/movement workshops explore the physical/metaphysical efficacy and transformative qualities of Black dance practices. www.dsabelagrimes.com.
Emiko Sugiyama was born in Tokyo, Japan and began dancing classical ballet at the age of seven and moved to Davis, CA in 1999. She studied Physical Therapy at U.C. Davis and Sacramento College. Soon she met B-boys in Davis, Sacramento and the Bay Area, and attended various breakin' events as a competitor. She became a member of Flexible Flave. In 2001, Emiko moved to Los Angeles to pursue her dance career and she joined the hip hop dance company, One Step Ahead, performing in several venues. In 2004, she moved to New York City and became a member of Illstyle and Peace Production and has been performing with them nationally and internationally, including Russia, Poland, Liberia and Canada. While she lived in NYC, she taught at Broadway Dance Center, Peridance and other studios. She was invited to compete in breakin' battles in San Francisco, Paris and London. In 2008, Emiko produced all the elements of a Hip Hop youth summer camp called "Hiphop Island" in Philadephia. Currently, she lives in Los Angeles working with Illstyle and Peace Production and the Hiphop Island Los Angeles chapter, as well as working as a producer for the J.U.i.C.E. Hip Hop Festival. Her credits include: Sacramento Kings (NBA and WNBA) half-time show, Breakestra music video "Get Your Soul Together," Warp Tour in Las Vegas, Thalia feat. Fat Joe music video "I Want You," Lipton Tour 2003 on ABC Good Morning America, KRS One, Warren G and Lil Ai music video and a NIKE Town in-store commercial. Emiko aspires to share not only her skills and abilities but also her individuality and personality through dance.
Oguri, a native of Japan and a resident of Southern California since 1990 conducts Body Weather Laboratory a forum for investigating the body and environment. He works site-specifically in the California desert and urban landscapes – plazas, architectures, streets – as an improviser and with musicians. He develops multimedia works using literature, daily life imagery and simple materials to transform space and time with dance.www.lightningshadow.com.
Prumsodun Ok is an artist, critic, teacher, writer, and organizer actively engaging and connecting diverse communities through his practice. He has taught both Cambodian classical dance and filmmaking through out California and seeks to make the traditional arts relevant and accessible
in contemporary society. His original works contemplate and exemplify what Rene Daumal describes as "the avant-garde in antiquity" and have been supported by the Flourish Foundation, Arts Council for Long Beach, Durfee Foundation, Alliance for California Traditional Arts, and CounterPULSE's Performing Diaspora; they have been shown at venues such as REDCAT, CounterPULSE, Highways Performance Space, Red Poppy Art House, Pieter Performance Space and Dance, and KUNST STOFF arts fest. www.natyarasa.org.
Photos: Top to bottom; left to right: Emiko Sugiyama (photo by Ritchie Ramirez); Benjamin Levy (Ana Teresa Fernandez); Oguri (Eoin McLoughlin); Antoine Hunter (Matt Haber); d. Sabela grimes (Jorge Vismara); Prumsodun Ok (Navin Moul); Kim Epifano (Derrick C. Jones); Antoine Hunter (Matt Haber); Sarah Shelton Mann (LissaIvy Tiegel); Benjamin Levy (Ana Teresa Fernandez); Jill Togawa (Lucy Pemoni); Michelle Fletcher (Matthew Lewis); d. Sabel grimes (Hannan Saleh); Emiko Sugiyama (David Walden); Lionel Popkin (Steven Gunther); Arianne MacBean (Will Taylor); Oguri (Arturo Patten); and Prumsodun Ok (Phyras Men).
Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
149 – 9th Street, Suite 300
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 861-3940
