Ka·nei·see | Collective Announces New Dance About Harassment

Ka·nei·see | collective, a contemporary dance company under the direction of Tanya Chianese, is pleased to announce the world premiere of NEVERTHELESS, a collaboration with the Bay Area's all-women Cat Call Choir. Drawing inspiration from the feminist battle cry, "Nevertheless, she persisted," Nevertheless surveys the field of gender-based harassment from the subtle to the violent, in a marriage of song and dance, comedy and horror. Nevertheless runs April 19 - 22 at CounterPulse, with shows at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and at 5 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $20 - $35, and may be purchased online via a direct link at kaneisee.org.

Nevertheless marks ka·nei·see | collective's first collaboration with Cat Call Choir, a group founded by Heather Arnett in 2016. "We are a chorus of irreverent but hopeful women who sing about gender-based harassment to the tune of nursery rhymes and other widely recognizable songs," said Arnett. "Our goal is to use humor and storytelling to challenge widely held misperceptions about women - about all genders, really - and about consent."

"Heather's songs are powerful and poignant - and knee slapping hilarious!" added Chianese. "Together we believe humor is a wonderful way to address difficult subject matter as it can serve as a coping mechanism for victims, and for allies it can serve to educate and unify." Responding to a work-in-progress showing last year, Heather Desaulniers wrote for Critical Dance:

"While indeed a heavy work, Chianese also cleverly injected moments of humor, like the Dance Theater-inspired smiling sequences. And moments of hope. The most significant observation for me...was the eye towards sisterhood and shared understanding."

Work on Nevertheless began in 2016 before Elizabeth Warren's brusque silencing on the Senate floor, and well before the #MeToo movement gathered steam over the last four months. "Needless to say, the issues we're addressing aren't new in the least, but we were especially galvanized during the last presidential election to do something," said Chianese.

"This is a personal project for us because each and every one of the artists involved - and we're all of us women - has experienced one or more of the kinds of harassment represented in Nevertheless."

Organized in a series of 16 vignettes of varying length, Nevertheless interweaves the companies of Cat Call Choir and ka·nei·see | collective in an exploration of forms of harassment that will feel familiar to some and frightening to others. To complete the work, Chianese commissioned six new, original songs from Arnett and her singers, with titles such as "Lick You Lullaby," "The Thank You Song," "Itty Bitty Titties" and "She Had It Coming."

The dancers in Nevertheless include Clarissa Dyas, Mallory Markham, Madeline Matuska, Rebecca Morris, Emma Salmon and Vera Schwegler. The vocalists of Cat Call Choir include Heather Arnett, Mika Banks, Blair Bodie, Chelsea Brown, Rosanna Chiu, Mercilee Jenkins, Celine Alwyn Parker, Molly Shapiro and Ali Toia. The creative team includes lighting designer Linda Baumgardner and costume designer Carol Salmon.
Nevertheless is made possible by the generous support from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the 2018 Frank Shawl Artist-in-Residence program of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center and many individual donors. For more information visit kaneisee.org.

ABOUT KA·NEI·SEE | COLLECTIVEHailed as an "important player in the emerging contemporary dance scene" (Critical Dance), ka·nei·see | collective was founded in 2014 by Tanya Chianese. The company has performed at ODC Theater, Z Space, Joe Goode Annex, Fort Mason Center, Dance Mission Theater, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center and Yerba Buena Gardens, among others. Outside the Bay Area, ka·nei·see | collective has toured to Los Angeles and Seattle, and later this year the company will travel to Aspen and Denver. Ka·nei·see | collective is proud to have held residencies at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, SAFEhouse Arts and the Ellen Webb Dance Foundation. The company is supported in part by the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, a Lighting Artists in Dance Grant (a program of Dancers' Group), the Zellerbach Family Foundation and many generous individual donors.

ABOUT CAT CALL CHOIRFounded in 2016 by Heather Arnett, Cat Call Choir is a group of irreverent but hopeful women who sing about gender-based harassment to the tune of nursery rhymes and other widely recognizable songs. Performing in alleyways, at farmers' markets, as well as theaters - and most recently at the 2018 Women's March in San Francisco - Cat Call Choir draws its material from real life, aiming to provide a space for women to process their thoughts and feelings about harassment in a productive and creative way. Cat Call Choir also produces HarassMe, a festival of short films about harassment. This year's event will take place in San Francisco and Oakland June 18 - 19. For more information, visit catcallchoir.com. F