Pictured: Jörg Müller and Jess Curtis
Photo: Sven Hagolani

Jess Curtis/Gravity with Jörg Müller

MAY 24-26, FRI-SUN at 8PM

Gravity presents Jess Curtis and Jörg Müller // What can a performance make you feel (and how)? Performance Research Experiment #2, aims to answer just that question. Live performance events crash into a scientific experiment. Jess Curtis, French/German performer Jörg Müller and Iranian neuroscientist Ida Mommenejad, investigate the workings of live art on your human body.

Class: 6:30-8:00PM (Beginning-Intermediate Level)
Instructor for May: Rajendra Serber

Jam: 8:00-11:30PM
$15 Single Class, $5 Single Jam, $18 for both
Passes: $15 for 4-Week Jam, $55 for 4-Week Class, $65 for 4-Week Class and Jam

The San Francisco Contact Improvisation Series takes place EVERY TUESDAY year-round at CounterPULSE. SF CI Series Class is sequential, but drop-ins are encouraged. The best learning experience comes from trying out the styles of at least 3 of our monthly teachers. CI deepens your flexibility, kinesthetic awareness, and choices for contemporary partnering. Explore the discipline and play of this dance form with both class study and jam practice. SF CI Series Jam is a no-music (quiet) jam. We recommend taking class before attending your first jam.

Rajendra Serber’s May class: Art-Sport

Back in the days before Contact improvisation was a well know social dance, Simone Forti called it an “Art-Sport.” In this class we will explore the balance between art and sport. Sharing momentum traveling through space into and out of lifts works when you have full commitment to a goal beyond the point of contact. We are going to get outerspacial striving to attain that goal. The artistry comes in the choice of which goal to strive for and how to communicate that with your partner. How can we find strength in ourselves and our partners? How can we let changing states guide us in finding the balance between expression and athleticism? We will play between the gravitational pulls of the earth and the own changing states.

For more information about classes and the jam, click here.

Pictured: Christy Funsch
Photo: Ryan Borque

Christy Funsch

MAY 31-JUN 2, FRI-SAT @ 8PM, SUN @ 2PM

Christy Funsch’s latest full-length work, State: not anywhere near to now, draws from Fritz Lang’s seminal film M and features costume and set design by visual artist Tamara Albaitis. Funsch is joined by guest choreographer Katherine Longstreth from Portland.

Class: 6:30-8:00PM (Beginning-Intermediate Level)
Instructor for June: Cathie Caraker

Jam: 8:00-11:30PM
$15 Single Class, $5 Single Jam, $18 for both
Passes: $15 for 4-Week Jam, $55 for 4-Week Class, $65 for 4-Week Class and Jam

The Contact Improvisation Class and Jam takes place EVERY TUESDAY year-round at CounterPULSE. The class is sequential, but drop-ins are encouraged. The best learning experience comes from trying out the styles of at least 3 of our monthly teachers. CI deepens your flexibility, kinesthetic awareness, and choices for contemporary partnering. Explore the discipline and play of this dance form with both class study and jam practice. The jam is a no-music (quiet) jam. We recommend taking class before attending your first jam.

Cathie Caraker’s June Class: C and I

C is for Contact. I is for Improvisation. I is also for Imagination, I is for Intuition and I is for Sense of Self. This series will cultivate all of these I’s and more. We will warm up and ground our dancing in Contact skills such as integrating center and periphery, moving in spherical space, falling and fluid weight-sharing…

While inside of these kinetic investigations, immersed in the place where movement is its own language and sensation informs design, we’ll cultivate the I’s of imagination, improvisation and the solo mind inside the duet. Replacing ambition with curiosity, we’ll practice investigative art-making, deep play and serious fun as we celebrate the I in CI.

To read Cathie’s bio, click here.
For more information about classes and the jam, click here.

Pictured: Elizabeth McSurdy, Rebecca Siegel and Esmeralda Kundanis-Grow
Photo: Katherine McKinley

Liz Tenuto, Justin Morrison

JUN 7-9, FRI-SUN at 8pm

Pageantry is an evening of dance split by Liz Tenuto and Justin Morrison. Cinematic in style and fastidious in form, both choreographers present original work with spiritual undertones. Liz presents an operatic dance saga in two scenes. Justin premiers a solo titled “WEAPON.” Pageantry is an evening about what lies beneath the bravado.

Class: 6:30-8:00PM (Beginning-Intermediate Level)
Instructor for June: Cathie Caraker

Jam: 8:00-11:30PM
$15 Single Class, $5 Single Jam, $18 for both
Passes: $15 for 4-Week Jam, $55 for 4-Week Class, $65 for 4-Week Class and Jam

The Contact Improvisation Class and Jam takes place EVERY TUESDAY year-round at CounterPULSE. The class is sequential, but drop-ins are encouraged. The best learning experience comes from trying out the styles of at least 3 of our monthly teachers. CI deepens your flexibility, kinesthetic awareness, and choices for contemporary partnering. Explore the discipline and play of this dance form with both class study and jam practice. The jam is a no-music (quiet) jam. We recommend taking class before attending your first jam.

Cathie Caraker’s June Class: C and I

C is for Contact. I is for Improvisation. I is also for Imagination, I is for Intuition and I is for Sense of Self. This series will cultivate all of these I’s and more. We will warm up and ground our dancing in Contact skills such as integrating center and periphery, moving in spherical space, falling and fluid weight-sharing…

While inside of these kinetic investigations, immersed in the place where movement is its own language and sensation informs design, we’ll cultivate the I’s of imagination, improvisation and the solo mind inside the duet. Replacing ambition with curiosity, we’ll practice investigative art-making, deep play and serious fun as we celebrate the I in CI.

To read Cathie’s bio, click here.
For more information about classes and the jam, click here.

Pictured: Maria Victoria Mata Soledad
Photo: Stills from Video by Alejandra Higuera

Victoria Mata
JUNE 14-15, FRI-SAT at 8pm

My body is the home of my displaced identity. ImShift explores the shifting identity of “living in the in between” as a Latin American in the diaspora. Through the ritualistic practice of self affirmation, one can challenge systemic barriers and create art that transcends borders.

Class: 6:30-8:00PM (Beginning-Intermediate Level)
Instructor for June: Cathie Caraker

Jam: 8:00-11:30PM
$15 Single Class, $5 Single Jam, $18 for both
Passes: $15 for 4-Week Jam, $55 for 4-Week Class, $65 for 4-Week Class and Jam

The Contact Improvisation Class and Jam takes place EVERY TUESDAY year-round at CounterPULSE. The class is sequential, but drop-ins are encouraged. The best learning experience comes from trying out the styles of at least 3 of our monthly teachers. CI deepens your flexibility, kinesthetic awareness, and choices for contemporary partnering. Explore the discipline and play of this dance form with both class study and jam practice. The jam is a no-music (quiet) jam. We recommend taking class before attending your first jam.

Cathie Caraker’s June Class: C and I

C is for Contact. I is for Improvisation. I is also for Imagination, I is for Intuition and I is for Sense of Self. This series will cultivate all of these I’s and more. We will warm up and ground our dancing in Contact skills such as integrating center and periphery, moving in spherical space, falling and fluid weight-sharing…

While inside of these kinetic investigations, immersed in the place where movement is its own language and sensation informs design, we’ll cultivate the I’s of imagination, improvisation and the solo mind inside the duet. Replacing ambition with curiosity, we’ll practice investigative art-making, deep play and serious fun as we celebrate the I in CI.

To read Cathie’s bio, click here.
For more information about classes and the jam, click here.

Pictured: Michelle Kinny
Photo: Matt Lewis

Here and Now Dance Collective
JUNE 21-23, FRI – SAT at 8PM, SUN at 7PM

This is Dedicated… is Here Now Dance Collective’s new dance theater game with rules, a referee, a winner, and lots of losers, features a projected set design and a live DJ. Partner with other not-for-profit organizations in the community and find more purpose for dance in our society.

A Two-Week Workshop for Artists

A project of the University of Chichester Department of Performing Arts, UK, in association with Z Space and CounterPULSE

JUN 24 – JUL 6
At Z Space, 450 Florida, San Francisco

This is the first such intensive offered in the USA by the University of Chichester Department of Performing Arts, renowned in the UK for its unique specialization in Theatre Performance Making processes. The intensive is open to all interested emerging or established artists committed to generating new work. The program will culminate in a public sharing of work made during the intensive.

For additional information – including full schedule, fees, and enrollment procedures – or for any other questions, please visit the University of Chichester website.

Also, Theater Bay Area has posted an editorial by director/playwright Mark Jackson detailing his recent visit to the University of Chichester.