YES SWEET CAN Plays 12/18-1/3 At Dance Mission Theater

Savor this holiday season with something a little sweet (but oh so good for you) with YES SWEET CAN, the latest intimate theatrical circus from Sweet Can Productions. This astonishing 60-minute production features the innovative acrobatics of some of the Bay Area's most talented theatrical circus artists (Beth Clarke, Natasha Kaluza, Kerri Kresinski, and Matt White) in an unforgettable evening that will amaze, delight, and inspire the entire family. With live music performed by local contemporary music maestro Eric "EO" Oberthaler, and direction by Joanna Haigood, YES SWEET CAN plays for a limited engagement December 18 through January 3 at Dance Mission Theater (3316 24th St. in San Francisco). For tickets ($15-20) and information, the public may call 415 273-4633 or visit sweetcanproductions.com.

In YES SWEET CAN, playing with found objects is the only way to stay entertained. Everyone walks on their hands as easily as on their feet, and new possibilities spring out of old trash cans. The most complicated way you can imagine to make chocolate milk is revealed and reading newspapers is the only way to keep in touch with the outside. Featuring stunning performances on aerial silks and slack rope, acrobatics, and hula hoops, YES SWEET CAN combines traditional circus with physical theater, dance, and live music to create a topsy-turvy world in which anything can happen. Called "simply beautiful to behold" by SF Weekly, Sweet Can presents the world in a way that you have never seen it before.

Joanna Haigood directs YES SWEET CAN. Co-founding artistic director of ZACCHO Dance Theatre, Haigood's work focuses on creating dances that use natural, architectural, and cultural environments as a point of departure for movement exploration and narrative, often integrating aerial flight and suspension.
Her work has been commissioned by Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Dancing in the Streets, Walker Arts Center, the Exploratorium Museum, the National Black Arts Festival, Lines Contemporary Ballet, Boston Dance Umbrella, Axis Dance Company, Festival d'Avignon, and Festival d'Arles in France; her work is also in the repertory of the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. Haigood was awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wallace A. Gerbode Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the James M. Irvine Foundation, and is the recipient of a Bay Guardian Local Discovery (GOLDIE) Award and three Isadora Duncan Dance Awards. She taught at the National des Arts du Cirque in France, the Laban Centre in England, Spelman College, the Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford University, and the University of California at Davis, and currently teaches at the San Francisco Clown Conservatory.

Equally at home with digital and traditional composition, composer and performer Eric "EO" Oberthaler has produced a diverse body of work that includes Flowering Anomalies (recently premiered at TED2009), commissions for the New York-based Jamie Bishton Dance Company, music for the interactive web-based comic strips of YiMagination Studios, operatic rituals for the Burning Man festival, the techno-rock opera Joe Messiah, and dozens of songs and new works for the dynamic Bay Area-based world music ensemble Gamelan X, including their recent CD release, SATU. Specializing in trumpet, keyboards, and voice, EO is a featured trumpeter with Brass Menazeri, the Bay Area's premiere balkan brass band, and has appeared on numerous recordings, including The Residents' recent Animal Lover. Additionally, EO's chamber orchestra compositions have been performed by the Atlantic Brass Quintet, CalArts New Century Players, Indiana University New Music Ensemble, and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble.

The mission of Sweet Can Productions is to create performances in which circus artists and musicians collaborate in the presentation of artistically innovative theatrical circus. Formed in 2006 at the San Francisco Circus Center by founding members Beth Clarke, Kerri Kresinski, and Daniela Steiner, Sweet Can was established with the artistic goal to bridge the gap between traditional circus and theater. Where most Bay Area circus performers were resigned to performing in night clubs, at corporate events, as incidental performers for major theatrical productions, or at non-professional community events, Sweet Can Productions wanted to allow for complete artistic expression, and embarked upon creating a production rooted in traditional circus, theater techniques, and improvisation, creating an intimate theatrical circus experience in which circus artists provide stage substance and not merely stage decoration.

WHEN:
December 18, 2009 - January 3, 2010

WHERE:
Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St. (at Mission)

TICKETS:
For tickets ($15-20) and information, the public may call 415-273-4633 or visit sweetcanproductions.com.

 

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