Spring 2010 Calendar

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Upcoming Events at CounterPULSE

TALKS!: Paper Politics: Socially-engaged Printmaking Today

Wednesday, Mar. 10
7:30pm
Free

A dozen political print and poster makers gather to discuss Josh MacPhee’s new book Paper Politics, as well as the current state of political graphics making: What are we doing? Why? And is it working? Short presentations by a couple of the artists will be followed by a large roundtable discussion. Audience participation is encouraged. Co-sponsored by PM Press.

No Reservations Necessary

Dance Discourse Project 8: Dance in Pop Culture

How Do YouTube & “So You Think You Can Dance” Both Help and Hinder?

Thursday, March 11
7:30pm
Free

Join us for Dance Discourse Project #8 as we delve into the popping of contemporary dance – the effects of YouTube, “So You Think You Can Dance” and other mass media stratagems on making dance today. We will create a hybrid discussion, part panel talk with Eric Kupers, Monique Jenkinson and other special guests, part world cafe with YOU, as we investigate how these new tools and opportunities are influencing how we make dances in today’s world.

No Reservations Necessary

Party Forward:

New Friends and New Beginnings Fundraiser

Friday, Mar. 12

More information about the event how to get tickets coming soon!

Perverts Put Out

Saturday, Mar. 13
7:30pm
$10-15 Sliding Scale

Bending over to show its holy side, San Francisco’s famed erotic reading-and-performance series returns for the He Is Risen Edition, celebrating resurrections, erections, and other springtime stuff. A splendid sex-and-spirituality time is guaranteed for all…except maybe the Pope. Performers will include Jane Cassell, Sherilyn Connelly, Gina de Vries, Thomas Roche, horehound stillpoint, and more, all presided over by Dr. Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard.

2nd Sundays

A Dance Salon presented by Dancers’ Group and CounterPULSE

Sunday, March 14
2pm
Free

Dancers’ Group and CounterPULSE team up to present 2nd Sundays, a series of free salons where artists share work and dialogue with audience members and fellow artists. We see this as an exciting opportunity to advance discussion of the craft and hope you’ll join us for the conversation.

This month’s salon includes work from:

Brianna Taylor

The piece is an excerpt from a longer work titled, “Nothing is Ever Lost…” which explores decisions around child bearing and motherhood in contemporary American society. The women recall memories of the past and dreams for the future, as they investigate questions about contemporary issues such as abortion vs. the desire to have children, along with the desire to move forward with careers as independent women of our time. The piece explores ways in which women support each other around these decisions, and ways they turn to nature and spirit for guidance. The work combines modern and West African dance as movement inspirations, along with spoken word and song, serving as a ritual performance experience for women grappling with the decision of whether or not to have children.

Stephen Pelton Dance Theater

“Rooms”

Presenting a work-in-progress excerpt from “Rooms” an upcoming full-length collaboration with playwright Brian Thorstenson.

Tawnya Kuzia Director/Choreographer RUGGED Dance Company

Tawnya is in the process of creating movement that ignites the imagination through showcasing kinetic dance theater works. She has been creating phrases where the dancers feel comfortable exploring a sense of risk by allowing their own voice to be heard through abandoning their pre- conception of what is correct shape and form. For the 2nd Sundays performance the Company will present a piece from their upcoming concert in May. The work features the aspects of underground Steampunk culture. Steampunk is a subculture which incorporates the Victorian Era style and ideals fused with futuristic technology. Because the work involves themes from the future set in the past, the movement has to be developed with an idea of evolving from the classic and embracing the beauty of deconstruction. The repertoire will feature work that is dynamic, sensual, and highly physical.

No Reservations Necessary

TALKS!: Crime in the City: Crime/noir writers

Wednesday, March 17
7:30pm
Free

“Crime fiction is almost like a product of capitalism. It’s about social inequality” –Ian Rankin
Join four of the finest exponents of crime and noir as they discuss how fiction is not just a mirror to the seamier sides of life, but the proverbial hammer with which to shape it. Speakers include:
Owen Hill is the author of two novels and many books of poetry. Of his latest, The Incredible Double, David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times said,”…here we have the essence of noir, a life lived at the edges”. He lives in Berkeley, where he works as a bookseller and curates a reading series.
Jim Nisbet, long regarded as one of fiction’s best kept secrets, is about to claim 2010 as his own, with the publication of two new novels, and the reissuing of ten of his previous classics!
Summer Brenner’s novel of sex-trafficking, I-5 made numerous book of the year lists for 2009, and is an underground best-seller.
Peter Maravelis is the best-selling editor of San Francisco Noir and San Francisco Noir 2. He has worked at City Lights bookstore for many years as the readings co-ordinator.

Co-sponsored by PM Press.

No Reservations Necessary

CounterPULSE, YBCA, & Z Space Present

Sara Kraft / Kraftywork
HyperReal

Thurs-Sat., March 18-20
8pm
$25
At YBCA Forum

“Sara Kraft’s low-key brilliance by now merits a neologism: krafty (with a k!). Krafty = shrewd, inventive, technically savvy, wry, playful, tuneful, eerie, unsettling, and generally speaking, not to be missed.” — SF Bay Guardian

Bay Area artist Sara Kraft returns to YBCA with the world premiere of “HyperReal”, blending text, song, sound, movement and live video to examine the complex and conflicted ways we inhabit our minds, our bodies and our world in the digital age. How do we determine what is “real” in a world where our experiences and perceptions are mediated through technology—a world where even our “actual” physical experience can be questioned? With a knack for illuminating large themes through very personal and intimate lenses, Kraft transports audiences with hilarious, heartbreaking, disturbing, provocative and transcendent meditations on the human condition that linger long after leaving the theater.

Bike Tour: Dissent

Saturday, March 20
Noon

Covering everything from literary dissenters to urban riots and protests, this tour examines sites of conflict and unrest, the social movements and upheavals, that have shaped San Francisco since its origins. It’s a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city’s contrarian past and present.

No Reservations Necessary

Bananaritis
Tim Rubel Human Shakes

Saturday March 20
8pm
$10 (Members $5

“Bananaritis” is a performance piece that combines contemporary dance styles with theatrical absurdity, to create a strange world where intimate queer relationships are being infiltrated and re-imagined by a strange unexpected presence; the banana!

Choreography by Tim Rubel, in collaboration with dancers: Adanna Jones, Ann Mazzocca, John Medina, Melissa Templeton.
Photo by Kathleen DeAtley.

TALKS!: Politics of Science Fiction

Wednesday, March 24
7:30pm
Free

From H.G. Wells to Octavia Butler, from New Wave to Cyberpunk to the Slipstream of today, SF has been a tool to agitate, organize speculate and explore utopian alternatives. Join a panel of working SF pros in a lively discussion of the perils and possibilities. Co-sponsored by PM Press.
Panelist include
John Shirley – Bram Stoker award winner, cyberpunk pioneer, author of Bleak History , Black Glass …
Richard Kadrey – Comix pro, celebrated Wired journalist, author of Sandman Slim, Metrophage …
Lisa Goldstein – American Book Award winner, charter member of SF’s “Shameless Hussies,” author of “The Red Magician,” “The Divided Crown”
Amelia Beamer – Locus magazine editor, critic, author of “The Loving Dead”.
Terry Bisson (moderator) Hugo-winning author of “They’re Made out of Meat,” “Fire on the Mountain,” biographer of Mumia Abu Jamal.

No Reservations Necessary

Theater Rasa Nova & Friends of South Asia Present

A Staged Reading of Bhopal

A play by Rahul Varma. Directed by Vidhu Singh

Friday, March 26
8pm
$15

Giving voice to the powerless, Bhopal exposes the corporate, economic and political interests that unleashed one of the worst industrial disasters in the world. This event is a tribute to the late Habib Tanvir, India’s legendary director, who translated the play into Hindi as Zahreeli Hawa. Image Credit: Rahul Varma, Teesri Duniya Theatre

Beyond the Veil

A Multimedia Experience Curated by Lily Taylor

Saturday, March 27
8pm
$20 (Members $15)

Musical Performance by Lily Taylor
Aerial Fabric Dance by Rain Wilson
Shadow Movement by Sasha Baskina
Dance Choreography by Jeanne Pfeffer
Drag Performance by Vivvianne Forevermore and Elijah Minnelli
Video by Sean Miller

TALKS!: U.S. Social Forum Info-Session & Mobilization

Co-presented by the Global Commons Foundation

Wednesday, March 31
7:30pm
Free

No Reservations Necessary

CounterPULSE Winter 2010 Artists in Residence:

Kendra Kimbrough Barnes, José Navarrete & Violeta Luna

Thursday-Sunday, April 1-4
8pm
$15-20 (Members $10-15)

CounterPULSE’s Winter 2010 artists in residence present their new work examining water privatization and the effects of incarceration on families in a double bill.

Kendra Kimbrough Barnes

“Home is That Way?”

Kendra Kimbrough Barnes creates an impassioned dance piece about a family dealing with incarceration. When a son/ a brother loses an idea of where home is (literally and fi guratively) after being in the prison system, this leads to retracing steps. Told in four chapters, “Home is That Way?” is a dance drama that that recalls the innocence, genius, tragedy, and rebirth of an imaginative boy.

José Navarrete and Violeta Luna

“New Rituals for a Desperate Era”

“New Rituals for a Desperate Era” reinterprets ancient Mexican mythology and iconography to address pressing ecological issues around water rights and shortages. Drawing from the poetry and didactic power of pre-Hispanic myths, it constructs a compelling discourse on the depletion of our natural resources, in a production that combines contemporary dance, performance art, new music composition, visual art installation, and video.

Words First

A monthly solo performance showcase

Wednesday, April 7
7:30pm
$15-20 (Members 10-15)

Words First is the premier solo performance event in San Francisco. The first Wednesday of every month, Words First invites the finest solo artist, comics, and storytellers to the CounterPULSE stage. Solo performance is a unique brand of theater — one person, one stage. It’s one part storytelling, one part comedy, one part drama, and 100% entertainment.

The Dance Hour

Thurs-Sat April 8, 9 & 10
8pm
$15-20, (Members $10-15)

For their annual home season, SPDT turns to the format of an old fashioned radio show. Each of the evening’s personalities gets a moment in the spotlight. In addition to new works by the artistic director, the show will feature works by core company members Christy Funsch, Nol Simonse, Erin Mei-Ling Stuart and Brian Thorstenson.

Bike Tour: Ecological History (south)

Sunday, April 11
Noon

This trip through San Francisco’s lost sand dunes, ponds, creeks and coastline will focus on the city south of downtown and SOMA, traversing the Mission, Mission Bay, Potrero Hill, Bayview, and the southeast coastline, including several new public parks. It’s a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city’s ecological past and present.

No Reservations Necessary