HERE.TAKE IT. From Liss Fain Dance Comes To Z Space In San Francisco

In her first work since 2019, choreographer Liss Fain brings Here.Take It. to Z Space in San Francisco. The evening-length dance installation features an original score from noted composer Dan Wool, film, projected images, text as voiceover, and a cast of six dancers and an actor, all incorporated into a gallery-like set and environment designed with free-standing, tall barn-like ribs arcing over the entire stage bisected by translucent panels.

For Fain, the lure of Pierce Point Ranch was not only the early morning solitude and isolation, but very importantly, watching the pre-dawn fog vanishing with the sunrise. "The stillness, the energy, the feeling of life in the abandoned buildings and the surrounding land are the impetus for this piece. What a glorious view, high up between the ocean and the bay. In the dawn fog, the old, well-built structures feel at one with the natural environment. There is something life-affirming in that place, watching the dark disappear."

Fain began her process of creating movement there, high up between the ocean and the bay, in solitude. In the studio, the company further developed the ideas and movement with energetic cohesion. "At the time I was dealing with a series of medical related decisions regarding a loved one that were very difficult to make. My early morning visits to Pierce Point Ranch were the inspiration behind Here.Take It."

Thematically, Here.Take It. is about crossing our self-made internal boundaries, introspection, and the momentum to move forwards. "I'm working with the idea of crossing internal boundaries and making course corrections in order to move forward. How do we see what is past, yet also see what is here now?"

Matthew Antaky's installation environment, with its translucent panels dividing the space and barn-like beams, incorporates the concepts of boundaries and ongoingness. "His installation environments merge abstract concepts and concrete images; they create a magical world the audience and performers share ," says Fain, "I want the audience to feel the spaciousness of a barn and the boundaries we navigate in our lives."