SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts Presents RAW: Resident Artists Workshop

SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts presents RAW: Resident Artists Workshop live performances for in-person audiences one night only, Saturday, September 11, 2021.

Rafi Barrow, Francesca Cipponeri, Hannah Young, Kat Lin, Sawako Gannon and Bruna Gill are ready to begin anew with live performances! Larissa Archer will screen one of her award-winning dance films made during the pandemic. They all share a passion for dance and were chosen for their talents to get to the heart of what makes us human. They all bring a spark of creative energy to RAW, which in turn provides the venue for rehearsals, videotaping and performances, plus mentorship, marketing and production support!

It turns out that two of the RAW artists merge art and advocacy. Francesca Cipponeri has been involved in human trafficking-relief work since 2016. Her RAW performance is dedicated to a beautiful, spunky young woman who has survived the horrors of trafficking. Rafi Barrow exemplies the young artist who balks at being labeled disabled. Rafi is a queer, trans, multiply-disabled, white Jewish femme. They are ardent about making the arts accessible and facilitating solidarity between all of the chronically ill, neurodivergent, and mobility- and sensory-disabled communities they are a part of. Rafi Barrow points out: "As dance has mainly been constructed as the purview of the nondisabled, white, thin, and cisgender dancer, our marginalized bodies are often originally misread as illegible due to their dissonance with the mainstream vernaculars of movement. However, I argue that through this inability to have meaning made out of our bodies succinctly, our movement can demand a different level of engagement from the audience with possibility for transformation to a site of love, the "I-Thou" utterance."

I and Thou by Rafi Darrow is a solo performance piece that traverses the it/thou boundary, claiming and reframing our relationship with being seen toward an act of love, both to ourselves and between performer and viewer.

Untitled by Francesca Cipponeri is a solo dance piece dedicated to Lae, a beautiful, spunky young woman who has survived the horrors of trafficking. May the truth of exploitation, trampling, and kidnap be understood by everyone.

kinda lit by Kat Lin. Dancers are equipped with flashlights to spotlight where their attention is. And it's only "kinda lit."

The Isolation Dances by Larissa Archer, who started making films during the pandemic, are short dance and character studies made in public areas. As the city reopens, Larissa continues her shy excursions outside to San Francisco landmarks, a nature retreat and her neighborhood. Two of the films from this series won Outstanding Achievement awards at the Tagore International Film Festival. Larissa will screen one of the films for RAW live.

666 by Sawako Gannon and Bruna Gill is a modern dance duet about the connection between human beings and how we feel the connection, and how we stay connected.

Back to Back by Hannah Young is a dance solo where she rediscovers movement after two spine surgeries.

There is limited general seating so advance ticket purchase highly encouraged. Ticketholders should check website for safety protocol updates.

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