BAHU-BETI-BIWI, LAYLA MEANS NIGHT and More Highlight ODC Theater's 2013 Season

ODC Theater announces its program for 2013, featuring artists committed to expanding the experience of contemporary performance.

The 2013 season opens in April with the Bay Area premiere of Sheetal Gandhi's solo tour de force, Bahu-Beti-Biwi, a work of dance theater located at the intersection of traditional Indian and contemporary Western cultures. Gandhi mines her own life to tell powerful stories about what it means to be a young Indian American woman today.

In late spring ODC Theater's fringe-style festival of dance, the Walking Distance Dance Festival-SF, returns to offer audiences a taste of the work of seven different dance artists from around the U.S. Brian Brooks and Scott Wells both share an enthusiasm for competitive sports and parkour, yet each interprets and integrates the disparate movements into a theatrical display in ways which are unique to his own choreographic vision. In KT Nelson's Cut-Out Guy ODC/Dance also takes on the topics of competition and masculinity but from a female choreographer's perspective.

Street dance is another source of inspiration for many artists working today, and Nicole Klaymoon's Embodiment Project, based in the Bay Area,has earned praise for its high-energy and heartfelt brand of urban storytelling, marrying movement, music, and spoken word. Los Angeles-based artists, Casebolt & Smith employ a performance vocabulary that draws on spoken word and song, as well. For the Festival they put these tools in the service of a meta-theatrical goal, parodying many well-worn conventions of contemporary performance.

Rachael Lincoln & Leslie Seiters are another duo participating in the Festival. Their performance style is most indebted to a shared background in contemporary as well as aerial dance. ODC Theater will present the world premiere of their newest work, People Like You. Rounding out the Festival is Kate Weare & Company from New York. ODC Theater will present the West Coast premiere of Garden, Weare's acclaimed piece for four dancers inspired by the story of Adam and Eve.

In the fall, ODC Theater will present two additional companies. BodyTraffic is a repertory dance company based in Los Angeles. They will perform three Bay Area premieres: a work by hip hop-infused, modern dance classicist Kyle Abraham; Israeli dance maker Barak Marshall's And at midnight, the green bride floated through the village square...; and Richard Siegel's exuberant homage to American jazz standards, o2Joy.

The year concludes with the world premiere of Rosanna Gamson/World Wide's Layla Means Night inspired by the story of Scheherazade. This larger-than-life performance will spill out of the B'Way Theater to occupy all three floors at ODC Theater. Layla Means Night aspires to immerse the audience in a new kind of experience, one which is at once dance, theater, art installation, and cultural exchange.

"At the end of my first curatorial season at ODC," says Theater Director Christy Bolingbroke, "I want to have given audiences a range of experiences in dance and theater that illuminate not only the entertaining, but the transformative power of live performance. These contemporary artists were selected for their clear and compelling authorship, and because in creating their work they use what they know to trigger the imagination of audiences."

Apr. 19 - 21, 2013 | Sheetal Gandhi, Bahu-Beti-Biwi
Bahu-Beti-Biwi -- the title translates as Daughter-in-law, Daughter, Wife -- is a dance-theater solo that wraps North Indian music and female archetypes into a contemporary performance that glides between humorous portraiture and active resistance. Sheetal Gandhi's career has taken her from Cirque du Soleil's Dralion to a leading role in the Broadway production of Bombay Dreams. In Bahu-Beti-Biwi she demonstrates her talent as a director and choreographer. Using a hybrid movement vocabulary influenced by Kathak, Modern, and West African dance, in addition to singing and theatrical staging, Gandhi presents a powerful commentary on the social world in which we live. "There was not a single wasted gesture or sound. Gandhi's portrayal of these two worlds -- traditional Indian culture and contemporary Western culture -- illustrates both their differences and similarities" (Exploredance.com).

May 31 - June 1, 2013 | WALKING DISTANCE DANCE FESTIVAL-SF
The Walking Distance Dance Festival-SF is ODC Theater's annual fringe-style festival designed to offer audiences a sampling of the variety within today's national dance scene. This year's superb roster of artists includes Brian Brooks; Casebolt & Smith; Nicole Klaymoon'sEmbodiment Project; ODC/Dance; Rachael Lincoln & Leslie Seiters; Kate Weare & Company; and Scott Wells & Dancers.

New York-based artist Brian Brooks performs the West Coast premiere of an athletic solo titled I'm Going to Explode exploring the tension of working within confined spaces and the relief of breaking out of them. Blending formal dance techniques, competitive sport maneuvers, parkour, and street dance, Brooks presents a controlled, yet powerful male presence on stage.

Casebolt & Smith is the duo of Liz Casebolt and Joel Smith, based in Los Angeles since 2006. For WDDF-SF they will perform excerpts of O(h), a fast-paced, irreverent, and intricately layered exploration of their own limitations as artists. They speak directly to the audience, sing while dancing, and layer their performance with pop culture references, creating a theatrical work that demonstrates what they can, can't -- and won't -- do as dancers. Casebolt & Smith "gently serve up...our most cherished and problematic ideas about contemporary performance, male-female relationships and creative collaboration, then graciously and hilariously debunk them" (MinnPost).

Nicole Klaymoon's Embodiment Project is a multi-disciplinary performance company that weaves together various street dance styles, modern dance, theater, spoken word, and live music.For WDDF-SFthe company will perform an abridged version of House of Matter, a work which explores the metaphor of the house as a place of belonging: the house of the body, family, community and -- finally uniting all people -- the house of the Earth itself.

ODC's celebrated flagship dance company, ODC/Dance, will perform KT Nelson's Cut-Out Guy, a work for five dancers exploring the fierceness and fragility of men. Nominated for two Isadora Duncan awards when it premiered in 2012, Cut-Out Guy is set to original music by Ben Frost, an Australian musician and composer now based in Reykjavik, Iceland, perhaps best known for his "building-shaking" experiments in electronic music.

With over a decade of creating and performing together, Rachael Lincoln & Leslie Seiters mine the format of the duet to reveal the fluidity of identity as it morphs in relation to different people and experiences. Their examination of the artifice of personality culminates in the Festival's world premiere of People Like You.

Kate Weare is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. For WDDF-SF her New York-based company will perform the West Coast premiere of Garden, showcasing intricate partnering sequences while creating a private world within the tight group of four dancers, two men and two women. The title's allusion to the story of Adam and Eve conjures a natural world suffused with sensuality, innocence, and hints of encroaching danger. "Kate Weare creates terrifically satisfying dance phrases. And her fine company of four...brings these steps to full, luscious life" (The New York Times).

Finally, in Parkour Deux San Francisco-based artist Scott Wells translates the parkour milieu into a theatrical display with his full company's trademark humor and high-flying acrobatics. Wells is a current artist in residence at ODC Theater, and with over thirty years of experience, a leader in the field of contact improvisation. Boxing, skateboarding, not to mention the "urban ninjary" known as parkour, are all fodder for his inspiration. "Wells and his dancers expose a surprising array of what is possible for the range of human movement" (Flavorpill).

Sept. 27 - 29, 2013 | BODYTRAFFIC
Known for its polished physicality, BodyTraffic is a Los Angeles-based repertory dance company which commissions new chamber works from two to three choreographers a year. For ODC Theater the company will perform three Bay Area premieres by three choreographers in three distinctly different styles. The bill includes a work by hip hop-infused, modern dance classicist Kyle Abraham; Israeli dance maker Barak Marshall's winningly original dance-theater piece, And at midnight, the green bride floated through the village square...; and Richard Siegel's exuberant homage to American jazz standards, o2Joy. Since its founding in 2007 by Lillian Barbeito and Tina Finkelman Berkett, BodyTraffic has performed extensively throughout southern California. The company also performed at the Gotham Dance and Contemporary Dance Festivals in New York, and in 2010 they performed in the West Wave Dance Festival in San Francisco.

Oct. 30 - Nov. 3, 2013 | ROSANNA GAMSON/WORLD WIDE, Layla Means Night
ODC Theater presented dance-theater maker Rosanna Gamson's last performance in San Francisco in 2008. In the world premiere of her newest work, Layla Means Night, Gamson takes on the story of Scheherazade, the cunning bride from One Thousand and One Nights whose skills as a storyteller saved her from a murderous husband. Layla Means Night activates the whole of ODC Theater as audiences are invited to take in performances on all three floors. Scored by master Persian musicians Houman Pourmehdi and Pirayeh Pourafar, Layla Means Night offers audiences an immersive tour through a world of brutal violence and exquisite pleasure. "Gamson has a purpose beyond herself, a choreographic design that supports her humanistic worldview" (LA Weekly).

ODC Theater exists to empower and develop innovative artists. It participates in the creation of new works through commissioning, presenting, mentorship and space access; it develops informed, engaged and committed audiences; and advocates for the performing arts as an essential component to the economic and cultural development of our community. The Theater is the site of over 120 performances a year involving nearly 1,000 local, regional, national and International Artists.

Since 1976, ODC Theater has been the mobilizing force behind countless San Francisco artists and the foothold for national and international touring artists seeking debut in the Bay Area. The Theater, founded by Brenda Way, then under the leadership of Rob Bailis for nearly a decade, and currently under the direction of Christy Bolingbroke, has earned its place as a cultural incubator by dedicating itself to creative change-makers, those leaders who give our region its unmistakable definition and flare. Nationally known artists Spaulding Gray, Diamanda Galas, Molissa Fenley, Bill T. Jones, Eiko & Koma, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, Ban Rarra and Karole Armitage are among those whose first San Francisco appearance occurred at ODC Theater.

ODC Theater is part of a two-building creative campus dedicated to supporting every stage of the artistic lifecycle -- conceptualization, creation, and performance. This includes a flagship company -- ODC/Dance -- and a School, in partnership with Rhythm and Motion Dance Workout in San Francisco's Mission District. For more information about ODC Theater and all its programs, visit odctheater.org.

ODC Theater is located at 3153 17th Street, San Francisco, Calif. Tickets are on sale now, except for the Walking Distance Dance Festival-SF for which tickets go on sale April 1, 2013. To purchase call 415-863-9834, Monday through Friday from 12-3pm. Or online visit: odctheater.org/buytickets.php.