Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now to Celebrate 10th Year, 2/9-3/8

In anticipation of its 10-year anniversary in 2014, the Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now announces a wide-ranging program of performances and workshops from February 9 to March 8, 2014 at venues in San Francisco and Oakland, California. Highlights of next year's Festival include works by Nora Chipaumire,Gregory Dawson, Joanna Haigood, Portsha Jefferson and Robert Moses.

In partnership with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Festival opens on Sunday, February 9 with "The Black Choreographers Festival edition" of YBCA's 50 Cent Tabernacle, a series of open, mixed-level dance classes taught by masters of the craft. For just $0.50 participants receive an all-day pass, good for up to five different 60-minute movement classes taught by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Nora Chipaumire and Robert Moses among other artists participating in the 2014 Festival.

The Festival continues at YBCA the following weekend, February 13 - 15, with the Bay Area premiere of Nora Chipaumire's Miriam, a dance-theater installation inspired by the cultural and political milieu of Chipaumire's childhood in Zimbabwe, her self-exile to the U.S. and her self-discovery as an artist.

The weekend of February 21 - 23 the Festival moves to Dance Mission Theater in a presentation of the Next Wave Choreographers Showcase, a forum for emerging and mid-career choreographers to present new works. About a dozen choreographers from around the country are slated to participate. The showcase began as a one-day event in 2006 and has grown each year in popularity.

The following weekend, February 28 - March 1, the Festival crosses the Bay to Laney College Theater in Oakland. Three distinguished choreographers are on the bill: Joanna Haigood, Gregory Dawson and Portsha Jefferson.

The Festival concludes March 6 - 8 at ODC Theater in San Francisco. Robert Moses' Kin
presents special editions of its popular Draft and By Series featuring premieres by Robert Moses, guest choreographers Bliss Kohlmyer, Gregory Dawson as well as a host of choreographers who have participated in the Festival over the course if its first decade.

The Black Choreographers Festival is an annual event co-presented by Bay Area non-profits, AAAPAC and K*Star*Productions. Since 2005 the Festival has served local, national and International Artists, presenting over 150 public events, acknowledging the diverse artistic expression within the context of African and African American dance and culture. A comprehensive event that incorporates live performance, mentoring, master classes, workshops and special events, the Black Choreographers Festival is made possible through the generous support of the SF Arts Commission, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, City of Oakland's Cultural Arts Funding, and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.

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