Artist in Residence
Performances THU-SUN, NOV 15-18, 2012 at 8PM
Food Symposium SUN, NOV 18
Inspired by a family gumbo tradition, Our Daily Bread is a performance experience that honors individual food legacies and engages all of the senses. This collaboration between Amara Tabor-Smith’s Deep Waters Dance Theater, director Ellen Sebastian Chang and visual artist Laura Diamondstone delves into the folklore and stories surrounding our food traditions to examine how these traditions are impacted by industrialized agriculture, fast food culture and our global food crisis.
Cast and Collaborators of Our Daily Bread: Amara Tabor-Smith, Ellen Sebastian Chang, Lauren Elder, Ajayi Jackson, Guy de Chalus, Dana Kawano, Chichi Okonmah, Laura Diamondstone, Eyla Moore, Stephanie Bastos, Melanie Cutchon, Alicia Walters, Pippa Flemming, Tossie Long, Fe Bongolan, and Zakiya Harris.
Engagement Partner:
Sponsors:
Outreach Partners:
Farms to Grow, 18 Reasons, Locaphonic, Starchild Entertainment, Women’s Earth Alliance, CUESA, Banteay Srei, City Slicker Farms
Amara Tabor-Smith San Francisco born, Oakland based, Tabor-Smith has performed in the work of choreographers such as, Ed Mock, Anne Bluethenthal, Priscilla Regalado, Pearl Ubungen, Ronald K. Brown and Joanna Haigood. Amara is the former Associate Artistic Director and dancer with The Urban Bush Women Dance Company of New York City. She has a background in theater which includes work with Anna Deveare Smith, Herbert Siquenza, Aya de Leon, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, The SF Mime Troupe and Make-A-Circus. She choreographed and appeared as a dancer in Shakti Butler’s documentary film, “Making Whiteness Visible”. She has studied dance with Ed Mock, Cecilia Marta, Ronald K. Brown, Katiti King, Jose Barroso, Anne Bluethenthal, Alonzo King, Aaron Osborne, Rosangela Silvestre and Malonga Casquelord to name a few. She has taught dance, Capoeira and entering community workshops at Naropa University in Boulder, CO., University of Omaha, NE., Columbia College in Chicago, The Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM and is currently on faculty at UC Berkeley teaching modern dance. In 2006 she formed her company Deep Waters Dance Theater (DWDT) and is co founder of Headmistress, an ongoing collaboration with movement artist Sherwood Chen. Amara is a 2010 awardee of the Headlands Center for the Arts Artist in Residence grant and has received grants from Theater Bay Area CA$H, Zellerbach Family Fund, CounterPULSE winter Artist in Residency (2008) and CHIME mentorship Exchange (2007).
We are winding our way towards opening night this week. What started out as a conversation with my mother about our gumbo tradition many years ago, has become this little monster of a dance theater piece that has forever changed my life and how I think about food. With this incarnation of Our Daily Bread […]
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We are in full effect with the food parties and gatherings that will lead up to the remount of Our Daily Bread at CounterPULSE coming up this November 15-18. Though I love the performance work, I have to say these parties are what really FEED me! (yes, pun fully INTENDED!) Coming together with folks in […]
Happy New Year of the Dragon! We are mid way through the first month of 2012 and have arrived in this New year of the Water Dragon… The Dragon year is special as it represents prosperity and abundance. Typically in our society the idea of prosperity leads us to think about money. But ultimately Prosperity […]