- Tickets can be purchased through BrownPaperTickets
- CounterPULSE has a No One Turned Away for lack of funds policy
- No pets are allowed at CounterPULSE

Indicates member discount on admission- Be a volunteer usher for any performance to see it for free.
Upcoming Events at CounterPULSE

TALKS!: Paper Politics: Socially-engaged Printmaking Today
Wednesday, Mar. 10
7:30pm
FreeA 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
FreeJoin 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 ScaleBending 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
FreeDancers’ 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 CompanyTawnya 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
HyperRealThurs-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 GuardianBay 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
NoonCovering 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 ShakesSaturday 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 SinghFriday, March 26
8pm
$15Giving 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
FreeNo 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
Sponsored by Stephen Pelton Dance Theater

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
NoonThis 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
2nd Sundays
A Dance Salon presented by Dancers’ Group and CounterPULSE
Sunday, April 11
2pm
FreeDancers’ 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:
Gretchen Garnett & Dancers“Intermediate Levels of Disturbance”
Gretchen Garnett & Dancers will be showing an excerpt from their newest work in progress, Intermediate Levels of Disturbance. The piece looks into the growing homogenization of the American landscape and the long-term effects it has on our lives and our communities. The movements of the three dancers create connections that explore and juxtapose diversity and uniformity while comparing interconnectedness with segmentation. Both photos are by Matt Haber. The solo shot is of Leah Katz and the duet image is of Kiki Cheng and Leah Samson.

Jenny McAllister/HMD
“Lighting Strikes Anonymous”
Excerpts from a new dance/theater work, “Lighting Strikes Anonymous”, about a mysterious group of strangers addicted to being struck by lighting.
jypsypays productions
“Avara, La Vagabonda”
jypsyjays productions presents a ten minute excerpt from a work in progress for 2nd Sundays at Counterpulse on 11 Apr 09. “Avara, La Vagabonda” explores the heart of a woman in an age when to choose to cultivate her self is to choose to abdicate love and passionate romance. A text-based dance piece drawing upon the life and classic works of controversial French author Collete, who wrote in a time when the courtesans of Paris were flourishing, is performed through Kathak dance and Hindustani music, reflecting a time when women were a presence in the courts of India as artists and intellectuals. An intercultural multilingual blend of forms and eras construct an intimate collage of a woman’s life and transpose it into a multidimensional prose poem in dance. This sensitive, probing expression of a modern woman’s loss, and victory, voices the complexities of longing, relationship, and independence in our time. A lyrical solidarity with nature, the universe, and its rhythms emerges with a sense of immense freedom and extravagant joy. www.jypsyjays.netNo Reservations Necessary
Crafty Crafty
Monday, April 12
6-9pm
FreeCome make stuff.
Bring whatever project you may be working on or meaning to start/learn and hopefully someone can help you out at our monthly craft night.
Tonight will be a night to hang out and make whatever you want to without that pesky TV or roommate to get in your way. There will be ample lighting, short movies/ music videos projected on walls, outlets for sewing machines and hot glue guns, cool peeps to get to know and a creative atmosphere to make, rather than show what you’ve made.
Bring your own materials, i.e. fabric, yarn, needles, pins, scissors, sewing machines, ski masks, etc.
No Reservations Necessary
TALKS!: U.S. Social Forum: Detroit, June 2010

Wednesday, Apr. 14
7:30pm
FreeJoin us for an information and strategies session on the subject of the upcoming US Social Forum, to be held in Detroit in June. Discussion will include a brief history of the Social Forums and a discussion of the role and uses of the US Social Forum in particular by members of groups from the Bay Area planning to participate. Please check back for list of participants. Co-sponsored by The Global Commons Foundation.
No Reservations Necessary
TALKS!: Ten Years That Shook the City: 1968-78
Wednesday, Apr. 21
7:30pm
FreeNo Reservations Necessary
Flow Show 2Friday & Saturday, April 16 & 17
8pm
$10Flow artists will dance, spin and create dazzling shapes and patterns with hoops, poi, staves, balls and juggling clubs in the second annual Flow Show. Advance tickets highly recommended as the first edition attracted turn-away crowds.

Asian Improv aRts, Oakland Asian Cultural Center, and Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center present:

Diaspora Tales #2: 1969
Friday, April 23, 8pm
Saturday, April 24, 8pmA collaborative work reflecting on the Third World Strikes featuring sound, word, movement and video collageby the Francis Wong Unit with rapper/martial artist A.K. Black, dancer/choreographer Lenora Lee and media designer Olivia Ting.

Bike Tour: Transit
Sat. April 24
Noon:Discover lost freeways, ghosts of train routes, and a vivid account of how San Franciscans moved around this peninsula through time. Hear about the violent strikes that shaped public transit, the graft and corruption that conquered the Outside Lands. It’s a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city’s transportation past and present.
TALKS!: Ecology Emerges #3: Nature in Cities
Wednesday, Apr. 28
7:30pm
FreeConsidering urbanization as a global crisis/an opportunity. Understanding the restorative, regenerative, and imaginative possibilities of a new integration of urban and rural through local agriculture, human-powered transport (e.g. walking, biking), etc.
No Reservations Necessary
CIRF: National Dance Week Free Workshops/JamThursday, Apr. 29
No Reservations Necessary
May Day
3 Nights of Performance to Benefit CounterPULSE
Fri., Apr 30 -Sun., May 2
8pmCounterPULSE celebrates its birthday with the Bay Area’s hottest performance makers in 3 memorable themed nights to benefit a space designed to support artists willing to take risks. Come celebrate with us!
$40– general admission
$25– artist/student/senior/low-income
$75– Top Banana, includes a free drink & $20 auction credit
$200– VIP Table for two with unlimited drinks (Friday & Sunday), private VIP lounge (Saturday) & $20 auction creditThe Agitprop Cabaret
The Happening
The Dance Extravaganza
Art with a Political Punch
Friday, April 30San Francisco Mime Troupe
Kirk Read
Killing My Lobster
W. Kamau Bell
Anna Conda
Anne Bluethenthal
Mangos with Chili
Annie Sprinkle & Elizabeth StephensInstallation Performance
Saturday, May 1Double Vision
David Szlasa & Sara Shelton Mann
Group A
Codhi Harrell
Philip Huang
FIlm with Frameline
Fauxnique
Jorge de Hoyos
Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts
Emily Leap
Vivyanne ForevermoreBay Area Dance Superstars
Sunday, May 3rdAXIS Dance Company
KUNST-STOFF
Robert Moses Kin
Scott Wells & Dancers
ODC Dance
Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
Katie Faulkner
Joe Goode Performance Group
Words First
A monthly solo performance showcase
Wednesday, May 5
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.
Tickets Available Soon!
Tender Stone
Artship Ensemble 2010 Home Season
Thursdays-Sundays May 6-16
8pm
$20 (Members, students, seniors $15)
Based on the nurturing wisdom of women storytellers of the Persian and Mogul empires, our performance tells a poetic story of passion, love, betrayal, and constancy in the turmoil of the politics of the day.“Tender Stone” attempts to call up the collective memory, evoking an ancient wisdom and bringing it into our contemporary world. Within the hidden depths of the molecular, cellular, and imaginative self of each one of us are the echoes of primordial myths and ways of knowing.
Conceived and Directed by Slobodan Dan Paich in collaboration with the ensemble

Bike Tour: Ecological History (north)
Sun., May 9
NoonThis trip through San Francisco’s lost sand dunes, ponds, creeks and coastline will focus on the city from downtown north, covering the heart of the city, the waterfront and Yerba Buena cove, Telegraph Hill, Black Point, and Crissy Field in the Presidio… It’s a social, historical and critical 4-hour tour through the city’s ecological past and present.
2nd Sundays
A Dance Salon presented by Dancers’ Group and CounterPULSE
Sunday, May 9
2pm
FreeDancers’ 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:
Farah Yasmeen Shaikh“Segments of the Solo”
Trained by world-renowned Kathak master, Pandit Chitresh Das, Farah will present “Segments of the Solo”, taking from the various components that exist in a traditional Kathak solo. In each of these components a soloist must incorporate the primary elements of Kathak dance: tayari (technical preparedness and ability), layakari (depth of rhythmic understanding and the ability to improvise with rhythm), khubsurti (beauty of movement) and nazaakat (subtlety of movement). Photo credit: Brooke Duthie
Iu-Hui Chua“Re-late”
“Re-late”, an experimental dance/theater piece illuminating ancestral stories, personal experiences in relating, and exploring who we are in relation to others using a process that investigates the relationship between life and art. Photo by Joel Guenther of Iu-Hui Chua
Rapid Descent physical performance company
8 actor/dancers, 3 musicians and the story from the banquet scene in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. New San Francisco physical performance company Rapid Descent, led by artistic director Megan Finlay, present material from their recent development/rehearsal process, which has focused on the creation of parts of their upcoming production, a dark and dynamic, visceral performance piece based on Macbeth.
Photographer Bryan Moses, performers clockwise from Annabel Blake (in red beret), Fayssal Bazzi, Lucas Connoly, Felicity Steel, Sheree da Costa, Jane E Seymour, Lawrence Carmichael.No Reservations Necessary
Crafty CraftyMonday, May 10
6pm-9pm
Free
Come make stuff.Bring whatever project you may be working on or meaning to start/learn and hopefully someone can help you out at our monthly craft night.
Tonight will be a night to hang out and make whatever you want to without that pesky TV or roommate to get in your way. There will be ample lighting, short movies/ music videos projected on walls, outlets for sewing machines and hot glue guns, cool peeps to get to know and a creative atmosphere to make, rather than show what you’ve made.
Bring your own materials, i.e. fabric, yarn, needles, pins, scissors, sewing machines, ski masks, etc.
No Reservations Necessary
TALKS!: Circle the Food Wagons: Local Food Economies
Wednesday, May 12
7:30pm
FreeThe politics of local food with gardeners, farmers, and you. Hayes Valley Farm, Alemany Farm, The Heart of the City Farmers’ Market, and others TBA.
No Reservations Necessary
TALKS!: History of the Mission’s Carnaval
Wednesday, May 19
7:30pm
FreeWilly Lizarraga gives an incredible one-man performance of the history of San Francisco’s Carnaval. Fast-changing hats and voices, accompanied by a slide show of historic images from Lou Dematteis and others of those early days.
No Reservations Necessary
TALKS!: San Miguel Bioregional Park/Transition City
Co-presented by Nature in the City
Wednesday, May 26
7:30pm
FreeNo Reservations Necessary
Scott Wells & Dancers
Fridays-Sundays, May 28-June 6
More details soon!
