I started yoga after dancing professionally. I needed something to fulfill the passion I had experienced with dancing. Yoga gave me that and much MOR. In fact, it was with one of my dance colleagues that I first practiced yoga. Turns out many of my yoga peeps and senior teachers also came to yoga this way– after dancing with choreographers and companies like, Twyla Tharp, Martha Graham, Lucinda Childs, and others. Years later I was asked to review a dance concert and then suddenly found myself writing about many of the companies and choreographers who had always been my inspiration.
Below you will find my reviews and interviews of companies, choreographers, and dancers such as; Wendy Whelan, Batsheva, Nederlands Dans Theater, Sankai Juku, Alvin Ailey, Mark Morris, Lucinda Childs, Bill T. Jones, Paul Taylor, Pilobolus, Mark Abraham, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and, MOR. There are also music reviews of Philip Glass and Meredith Monk, as well as critiques on dance documentaries such as “Bobbi Gene“.
“…You have a way of letting us “know” the object of your review (film or solo) both from your perspective but also as it stands on its own. Your prose gives us a narrative and a physical feeling ….. I love the feeling of physicality and the physical presence you offer the reader. You see both the whole, the arch and the momentary. Very lovely.”
- KT Nelson ODC San Francisco
I won my first dance contest on a Los Angeles TV program called “Boss City” when I was 16 and in my early 20s began dancing in musicals, operas, liturgical and, experimental dance troupes. I also studied with dance pioneers Steve Paxton (Contact), Emily Conrad (Continuum) and, Anna Halprin (Postmodern Dance.) Their influences — along with my yoga gurus — greatly impact how I move and teach. I am currently intrigued by the Gaga method of Ohad Naharin which seems to reinterpret the works of Conrad and Halprin into a fresh new format. In San Francisco I dance with one of the few certified Gaga instructors, James Graham.
“…BIG Thanks! This is a review to treasure–even more for the writing than the glowing comments… Your descriptive writing captures the spirit of the work–“bubblegum!”…I love that you caught that I both want to brush aside and honor the whole “25th” thing with “pervasively instinctual tongue-and-cheek sensibility."
- Scott Wells Choreographer & Artistic Director – Scott Wells & Dancers, San Francisco
Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
Skies Calling Skies Falling (World Premiere)
Site Series (Inside Outside) (Reimagined)
A Study On Effort: Bobbi Jene & Keir GoGwilt
Created by Bobbi Jene Smith in collaboration with Keir GoGwilt
Joe Goode Performance Group: 30th Anniversary Season
An anniversary is a landmark to a memory, to previous work gone by, and descent into the unknown abyss of what will come.
Going Gaga: Q&A with James Graham
James Graham is a dancer/performer/choreographer/teacher and a consistently rising star in the Bay Area’s dance community.
