Make (It) Work: ((A) Work In Process) (Working Title) (World Premiere)

Created and Performed by The Davis Sisters (Joy and Alexander Davis)

Artistic Associate: Maggie Costales

Sound Design by Eric Mullis featuring music by Eric Mullis, Rob Flax, Arvo Pärt, Andrew Hamilton, Björn Ulvaeus, Henry Purcell, James Murphy, Cole Porter, and Kids TV 123

Lighting Design by Del Medoff

Costume Design by The Davis Sisters with Diane Davis

Development Support: Southern Illinois University Edwardsville University XFest, September 2024

Two bodies, one relentless rhythm. work is an electrifying contemporary duet that dives into the beauty and brutality of labour—physical, emotional, and unseen. Through sharp precision and aching fluidity, the dancers push, pull, and persist, capturing the grind that shapes us and the intimacy that emerges in the struggle. Urgent, tender, and unflinchingly human. This description was written by Artificial Intelligence. 

About the Artists

The Davis Sisters, Alexander Davis and Joy Davis, were mistaken for a married couple in 2015, and have been spending the last 6 years unsuccessfully trying to convince people that they are not married, but are kind of related… At the threshold of dance, theater, comedy, and installation, TDS create experiences in which performers and audiences are invited to contemplate humanity, enjoy absurdity, and delight in physical and verbal articulation. Drawing from pop culture and the pedestrian, TDS develop work that displays the theatricality of everyday life and imagery from less logical dreamscapes of the imagination. By illuminating underrepresented queer narratives, they delve into topics about love, hope, and memory which transcend boundaries and make space for individual connection. Through rigorous imagination, movement improvisation and the ridiculous, they courageously and insightfully dare to create scenarios in which they perform magnified versions of themselves. 

Alexander Davis (he/him; Concept and Performance) is a Boston-based performer, fiber artist, choreographer and homosexual. He received an MFA in dance from Smith College, where he was also a Teaching Fellow. Davis was named City of Boston Artist Fellow in 2019. His performance work includes collaborations with Ryan Landry's Gold Dust Orphans, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Children's Chorus, Global Arts Live, Improv Asylum/Laugh Boston, and Urbanity Dance. He assisted choreographer Monica Bill Barnes on Greta Gerwig's film Little Women (2019), and has worked as an assistant to choreographer Shura Baryshnikov. Davis has received grants and residency support from The American Dance Festival, The Studios at Mass MoCA, The Boston Foundation, NEFA, The City of Boston, The Theatre Offensive, and others. Davis is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Dean College in Franklin, Massachusetts. IG: @SayAnythingAlex

Joy Davis (she/her; Concept and Performance) is a dance artist, educator, and mother. She is a Senior Countertechnique® Teacher and holds an MFA in Choreography & Performance from Smith College. Joy has been on faculty at Boston Conservatory at Berklee since 2016; is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Davidson College. Joy has taught at Harvard University, Smith College, Wesleyan University, and UNC Charlotte, the Juilliard School, American Dance Festival (ADF), FACT/SF Dance Lab, and One Body One Career Countertechnique® Intensive. joyproject is a platform for creation, collaboration and production, having created numerous independent works, commissions for colleges and dance companies in North America. Together with Alexander Davis, Joy co-founded The Davis Sisters (TDS), creating absurdist dance theater in which they play magnified versions of themselves. Joy is a collective member of Goodyear Arts, a recipient of NC Choreographers Residency Project and ASC Creative Mecklenburg grant, and is featured in the Sovereign Body gallery show at The McColl Center in Charlotte. She regularly collaborates with husband, Eric Mullis, and cherishes the integration of artistic and family life. 

Maggie Costales (she/her; Artistic Associate) is a New York City based dance artist, teacher, and dramaturg and earned her B.F.A. from The Boston Conservatory in 2018. She became a certified Countertechnique® Teacher after successfully completing her teacher training in August of 2023. Maggie currently teaches Countertechnique® at Gibney Dance Center, Peridance Center, and Mark Morris Dance Center and will be joining the dance department at Rutgers University this fall as an adjunct professor. She has guest taught at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Adelphi University, and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and led workshops at Groundworks.Space in upstate New York. Additionally, Maggie is a co-founder and dramaturg for PVMNT alongside her creative partner Christopher Kinsey. She is the administrative and production assistant to Joy and Alex Davis (The Davis Sisters) and has collaborated with them since 2019, both in their duet collaborative as well as individual artists. As a freelance dancer Maggie is currently dancing for Thryn Saxon of SAXYN Dance Works and Takehiro Ueyama of TAKE Dance. www.maggiecostales.com. IG: @magscostales

Eric Mullis (he/him; Sound Design) is a dance artist and scholar whose work centers on the possibilities of interdisciplinary performance. His choreography has been featured in the North Carolina Dance Festival, The Fact/SF Summer Dance Festival, Breaking Ground Festival, UrBANGUILD Kyoto, and at Performance Philosophy, Amsterdam. He is a Fulbright Scholar who, in 2021, conducted research on dance and the philosophy of technology at Taipei National University of the Arts in Taipei, Taiwan. Eric has authored of two books, "Pragmatist Philosophy and Dance: Interdisciplinary Research in the American South" (Palgrave MacMillan: 2019) and "Instruments of Embodiment: Costuming in Contemporary Dance" (Routledge: 2022). He is the Director of Goodyear Arts (an artist-run gallery and performance space in Charlotte, North Carolina) and is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Queens University of Charlotte.

to the marrow (World Premiere)

Choreography by Jenna Riegel, in collaboration with the dancers

Performances by LizAnne Roman Roberts and Charlie Slender-White

Music: For Wanda by Silver Mt. Zion, The Dress Looks Nice on You by Sufjan Stevens and a cover of Kurt Cobain’s Come As You Are by Sam Crawford

Text excerpts from On Being with Krista Tippett: Clint Smith, What We Know in the “Marrow of Our Bones”

Sound and Costume Design by Jenna Riegel

Lighting Design and Technical Direction by Del Medoff

Technicians: Taylor Rivers and Mary Clare Blake-Booth

to the marrow draws inspiration from an episode of On Being with Krista Tippett, in which Tippett and author/poet Clint Smith explore the deep connections between language and the intelligence of the body. In the closing moments of the episode, their conversation turns to how parenthood has more recently begun influencing Smith’s work and poetry. This new duet, choreographed for FACT/SF company members Charlie Slender-White and LizAnne Roman Roberts, is an homage to their enduring friendship. Their bodies become sounding boards for one another, resonating with empathetic echoes of the challenges and joys they’ve faced—as artists, and now, as new parents. The piece reflects on the precarity and wonder of parenthood, ultimately asking: What kind of world do we want to leave for our children—and for the generations to come?

For my parents, Arthur and Christine Riegel.

About the Artists

Sam Crawford (Musician, Come as You Are) has compositions and sound designs included in works for the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company (Venice Biennale, 2010), A.I.M by Kyle Abraham (Untitled Love, 2022), Camille A. Brown and Dancers (BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, 2016), and David Dorfman Dance (A(Way) Out of My Body, 2022). Recent film works include 32 Sounds, directed by Sam Green, for which Crawford acted as the headphone experience designer; the film was Oscar short-listed for Best Documentary Feature in 2024. La Medea, a live film collaboration with director Yara Travieso for which Crawford composed the music and wrote the libretto, premiered at P.S.122’s Coil Festival in 2017. Since 2020, Crawford has taught sound design at the University of Maryland's School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. He became Co-Director of UMD’s Maya Brin Institute for New Performance in 2023.

Del Medoff (he/him; Lighting Designer) loves lighting dance. Really loves it. Like, really, really really, didn't realize how much it enriched his life but now does because he was completely cut off from for 2 years, loves it. He dislikes writing bios. Like really, really really, waits till the last second then frantically pieces together parts of old bios with scissors and glue like some sort of villain in an 1990's abduction thriller, dislikes it. I hope you enjoy the show!

Jenna Riegel (she/her; Choreographer), originally from Fairfield, Iowa, is a dance artist and movement educator. Jenna holds an M.F.A. in Dance Performance from the University of Iowa and a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Maharishi International University. During her eleven-year performing career in New York City, Jenna toured and performed nationally and internationally as a company member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, David Dorfman Dance, Alexandra Beller/ Dances and Bill Young/ Colleen Thomas & Company. She also danced with Daara Dance (choreographer Michel Kouakou), Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, Shaneeka Harrell, Tania Isaac Dance and johannes weiland. She has been on faculty in the dance departments of Barnard College, The Juilliard School, and Virginia Commonwealth University, and at the American Dance Festival and the Bates Dance Festival. Jenna is currently an Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at Amherst College.

LizAnne Roman Roberts (she/her; Performer), fell in love with dance at age four after seeing Giselle on TV in her hometown Tulsa, Oklahoma. Honored to have been working in the profession of her dreams for over twenty years, LizAnne began her career with Tulsa Ballet while finishing high school and earning a BFA at the University of Oklahoma. She has worked with various artists throughout the Bay Area, including collaborating with FACT/SF since 2012. LizAnne has appeared internationally in Avignon and Claremont-Ferrand, France; Belgrade, Serbia; and Sofia, Bulgaria as well as across the United States. LizAnne is the mother of two, and lives in Oakland, CA. She is also a certified Pilates instructor.

Charlie Slender-White (he/him, Performer), is a choreographer, teacher, performer, and organizer, and the Artistic Director of FACT/SF. He began his career in 2006 as a dancer with Provincial Dances Theatre in Yekaterinburg, Russia, and has since created more than 35 original works. His choreography has been commissioned by ODC Theater, CounterPulse, the US Department of State, and numerous others. Slender-White is one of 56 Countertechnique Teachers worldwide, and he completed his undergraduate degrees in Dance & Performance Studies and English Literature at UC Berkeley.

Clint Smith (Author/Poet, What We Know in the “Marrow of Our Bones”) is a staff writer at The Atlantic. His narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and many other honors. His poetry collections are Counting Descent and Above Ground.

Maelstrom (World Premiere)

Concept & Direction: Charlie Slender-White

Choreography: Charlie Slender-White, with significant contributions from the performers

Performers: Keanu Forrest Brady, Erin Coyne, Jon Kim, LizAnne Roman Roberts

Lighting Design & Technical Direction: Del Medoff

Music: Röyksopp, Fever Ray, trentmøller, Aphex Twin, Ryoji Ikeda, Sigur Ros

Sound Design: Charlie Slender-White

Costume Design: Sporadic Assembly

Technicians: Taylor Rivers and Mary Clare Blake-Booth

Maelstrom is about tides, cycles, and dislocation. The piece explores the stability and calm that can be found within chaos and volatility, and is inspired by the vivid swirls of color in Edvard Munch’s mid-career paintings along with the violent turmoil of whirlpools found off the coast of Norway, Scotland, and Japan.

Maelstrom is the first part of a diptych around the concept of intersubjectivity - the dynamic negotiation of two or more people’s subjective experiences of the same objective phenomena. The second part of this diptych, The Waves, considers brain waves, sound waves, and light waves through the lens of intersubjectivity, and pulls heavily from Virginia Woolf’s novel of the same name. The Waves will premiere in April 2026.

FACT/SF is a San Francisco-based contemporary dance company, founded in 2008 by Charlie Slender-White as a platform for organizing collaborators, building community, and creating choreography. FACT/SF is a Home Company at ODC Theater, regularly performs in the San Francisco Bay Area, maintains a core group of local collaborators, and has developed an extensive international network of partners. FACT/SF has premiered 42 works, with tours throughout the US, across Russia, and to Serbia, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Macedonia. FACT/SF’s Fieldwork programs provide support and material resources to contemporary dance artists outside FACT/SF.

About the Artists

Keanu Forrest Brady (he/they) is a San Francisco-based dance artist working at the intersection of contemporary improvisation, hip-hop and post-modern movement forms. Keanu received his Bachelors of Fine Arts in Modern Dance at the University of Utah. Over the years, he has worked closely as a performer and creative collaborator with various San Francisco based companies and arts nonprofits such as LEVYdancy (2017-2021), AXIS dance company, ODC, Kinetech, and Sarah Shelton-Mann, alongside other local choreographers and drag performers. Within the United States, he has worked on stage and screen with Carl Flink, Eric Handman, Satu Hummasti and Scotty Hardwig, among others. His performance work has allowed him to tour within the United States and Internationally. He is currently a company member of FACT/SF since 2018, as well as serving on the board of directors as Dancer Liaison from 2022-2024. If you are unable to find him dancing in the studios, stages and streets of San Francisco, you can find him on instagram, @keanu.dance.

Erin Coyne is a San Francisco-based dancer, choreographer, and educator. Originally from the Chicago area, Erin received dual degrees in Dance & Education, as well as, a Masters in Education from the University of Minnesota. Since then, she has had the pleasure of working with Paufve Dance, Lizz Roman & Dancers, Kinetech Arts, and FACT/SF, among others. She has also presented her own work at various venues around the Bay Area, including her most recent production, the dance + social event, Flight.

Jonathan Kim (he/him) is a dance artist from Southern California. He performed with Repertory Dance Theatre for five seasons and previously worked with SALT Contemporary Dance, SJDanceCo, and Lineage Dance Company, among others. His choreographic and teaching philosophy examines choice-making, community, softness, listening, and the queer experience.

Del Medoff (he/him) loves lighting dance. Really loves it. Like, really, really really, didn't realize how much it enriched his life but now does because he was completely cut off from for 2 years, loves it. He dislikes writing bios. Like really, really really, waits till the last second then frantically pieces together parts of old bios with scissors and glue like some sort of villain in an 1990's abduction thriller, dislikes it. I hope you enjoy the show!

LizAnne Roman Roberts fell in love with dance at age four after seeing Giselle on TV in her hometown Tulsa, Oklahoma. Honored to have been working in the profession of her dreams for over twenty years, LizAnne began her career with Tulsa Ballet while finishing high school and earning a BFA at the University of Oklahoma. She has worked with various artists throughout the Bay Area, including collaborating with FACT/SF since 2012. LizAnne has appeared internationally in Avignon and Claremont-Ferrand, France; Belgrade, Serbia; and Sofia, Bulgaria as well as across the United States. LizAnne is the mother of two, and lives in Oakland, CA. She is also a certified Pilates instructor.

Charlie Slender-White (he/him, Performer), is a choreographer, teacher, performer, and organizer, and the Artistic Director of FACT/SF. He began his career in 2006 as a dancer with Provincial Dances Theatre in Yekaterinburg, Russia, and has since created more than 35 original works. His choreography has been commissioned by ODC Theater, CounterPulse, the US Department of State, and numerous others. Slender-White is one of 56 Countertechnique Teachers worldwide, and he completed his undergraduate degrees in Dance & Performance Studies and English Literature at UC Berkeley.

River Bermudez Sanders (they/them; Production Manager) River is a multi-disciplinary theatre artist and arts administrator with credits from around the Bay Area including work with San Francisco Playhouse, Golden Thread Productions, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company, Hillbarn Theatre, and more. Recent acting work includes SF Playhouse’s TheCurious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (u/s Voice 3 and 5), andBerkeley Playhouse’s Jesus Christ Superstar (King Herod). Recent directing work includes The Laramie Projectat Theatre Rhinoceros (co-director w/Elio Amador). They’ll next be onstage in limp wrist on the lever with Crowded Fire Theatre. When not at FACT/SF or in rehearsal, they can be found tending to their tomato garden and their bonsais. IG: @_riverberate_; www.riverberate.com

Jess Brown (Production Assistant)is a thoughtful, curious creative. She grew up moving in the hills of the Santa Ynez Valley, and is a recent graduate of George Mason University. With a BFA in dance and minor in well-being, she is passionate about interdisciplinary arts research, mindfulness based teaching practices, and dancing outside. She is continuously inspired by her time spent with Christina Robson, Lewis Cooke, Kendra Portier, Joy Davis, David Dorfman, Doug Varone, David Zambrano and Shannon Gillen. Her work is earnest yet slightly tongue in cheek as she believes everything deserves to be questioned. 

Del Medoff (Lighting Designer) designed the lights. He loves designing lights. He also loves the redwood forests of California, playing board games, craft beer, and short walks on the beach. His dislikes include... Well, let's not get into all that. A fun fact about Del is that during the tech for weekend one, he wore earbuds and listened to music while walking down the street for the FIRST time in his whole life. It's so “right there in your head”... I don't know how y'all do it.

Quinn Todd (Stage Manager) has been in the Bay Area for 5 years. Quinn has worked in the queer drag night life scene since the beginning of the pandemic with dozens of drag artists like Mary Vice and Mocha Falalatte as a resident show stage manager for shows such as Pillows, Folsom, and Polly’s Follies. The logistics and wrangling the performers together as well as setting stage for each person struck a burning passion for stage management and production logistics. They’ve been in theatre production for the last 2 years working at Cutting Ball and now Stage Manage the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot which has helped fine tune their craft.

Mary Clare Blake-Booth (she/hers) - Lighting Technician

Taylor Rivers (he/him) - Sound Technician

MISSION AND IMPACT:

ODC is dedicated to the lifecycle of the artistic process. Through our company, school and theater, we aim to inspire audiences, cultivate artists, engage community, and foster diversity and inclusion through dance.

ODC Theater exists to empower and develop innovative artists. It participates in the creation of new works through commissioning, presenting, mentorship and space access; it develops informed, engaged and committed audiences; and advocates for the performing arts as an essential component to the economic and cultural development of our community. This 170-seat venue is the site of over 150 performances a year involving nearly 1,000 local, regional, national and international artists.

Since 1976, ODC Theater has been the mobilizing force behind countless San Francisco artists and the foothold for national and international touring artists seeking debut in the Bay Area. The Theater, founded by Brenda Way has earned its place as a cultural incubator by dedicating itself to creative change-makers, those leaders who give the Bay Area its unmistakable definition and flair. Nationally known artists Spaulding Gray, Diamanda Galas, Bill T. Jones, Eiko & Koma, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, Karole Armitage, Sarah Michelson, Brian Brooks and John Heginbotham are among those whose first San Francisco appearance occurred at ODC Theater. 

ODC Theater is currently under the Creative Direction of Chloë L. Zimberg, and is a proud member of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Western Arts Alliance, and Dance/USA. 

For more information on ODC Theater and all its programs please visit: odc.dance/theater

ODC Theater relies on the generous support of donors like you. 

To give to ODC Theater, visit odc.dance/support-theater

ODC is on the ancestral lands of the Ramaytush People in Yelamu. We pay respects to elders past and present, who are still here and part of our community. We recognize that regenerative land management is not new, but is a continuation of practices from Native cultures and from our own ancestors. It is our responsibility to steward the land with care, as our elders did before us.

ODC is donating $.50 for each in-person ticket (seat) sold to all performances in the Theater. ODC will donate these funds to the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone land tax fund.

ODC THEATER STAFF:

ODC Founder and Artistic Director
Brenda Way

Executive Director
Carma Zisman

ODC Theater Creative Director
Chloë L. Zimberg

ODC School Director & Associate Choreographer
Kimi Okada

ODC Theater Resident Curator
Maurya Kerr

ODC Theater Resident Curator
Zaquia Mahler Salinas

ODC Fellow
KT Nelson

ODC Chief of Staff
Garth Grimball

Director of Production
Thomas Bowersox

Production Coordinator
Chris Chamberlin-Miner

Audience Services Manager
Katya Oleinikov

Theater Associate, Outreach Coordinator
Shayna Ann Howlett

Director of Marketing & Communications
Sophie Leininger

Publicist
John B. Hill

FRONT OF HOUSE STAFF:

AJ Ong Cortez, Senior Associate

Faith Alexis Dalton, Senior Associate

Callie Norberg, Senior Associate

Hannah Cohen

Johnny Cox

Sophia Grimani

Price Little

Leilana Majri

Valerie Mendez

Annika Mikk

Azriel Perez

Sydney Katheryne Scott

brooke terry

Hannah Woolfenden

ODC TECHNICIANS:

Taylor Rivers

Mary Clare Blake-Booth

Colin Johnson

Heather Romanowski

Shy Baniani

June Whitehorse

Crystal Liu

Angelina Costa