butoh ritual dance exploring the pulses from underneath
May, 2021 CounterPulse, San Francisco
[underground underneath the underground], prelude in collaboration with Estrellx Supernova, Ajani Brannum, Chani Bockwinkel, A. Carmina Márquez, April Axé Charmaine, Gray Depol, Day Eliott, Gabriel Bruno Eng Gonzalez, Zoe Huey, Nico Ortiz Maimon, Gabriel Nuńez De Arco, Ainsley Elizabeth Tharp, GG Torres, Tina Wang, Min Yoon, Xiaoyue Zhang
watch full show here: https://www.estrellx-supernova.com/underground
[u.u.u.], prelude is a performance offering, ritual, and choreographic project premiering virtually in the San Francisco Bay Area between May 27 - 30, 2021 that explores club spaces as sites of generative dissonance and asks, "Are we celebrating, mourning, or both? How do we prepare for that which has not yet arrived? What do quantum physics and entanglement have to do with love, accountability, and shame? What needs to be surrendered? What can we say NO to?"
[u.u.u] will use the framework of an excavation site in the form of a nomadic-quotidian-emergent-virtual club space that will be activated through a rigorous physicality that integrates durational club dancing, endurance-sustained art, eco-drag realness, systems of improvisation, ritual, and Qi Energetic principles.
We've been looking for the movements that come from underneath, questioning spaces of liberation between mourning and celebrating and safe spaces of communal resilience. I feel my love for SF in this piece. It's also been interesting to be contrasting the club culture and themes of liberation between Berlin and SF.