split

(30 minutes)
Premiere: September 9, 2021
CounterPulse, San Francisco, CA
Available for touring

Press
San Francisco Chronicle
Life as a Modern Dancer
Heather Dance
7x7
SF Classical Voice
Bay Area Reporter

Split, co-produced by CounterPulse, is a series of 248 1-on-1 contemporary dances, performed for one audience member by one dancer at a time.

The work examines whether dissociative episodes serve a productive or exploratory role in identity formation, and is informed by the performers’ personal histories, interviews conducted with members of the Bay Area’s vast and diverse queer community, and literature such as Angels in America, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Wittgenstein’s Mistress.

Each of the 8 nightly shows are designed, according to artistic director Charles Slender-White, “to slide one’s brain into a more expansive and heightened state."

“We’re creating a multi-sensory environment to envelop the audience — something they can settle into and be surrounded by. We want the audience to feel that they are an engaged part of the experience itself, but not in a way that's actively participatory.” The one-on-one format is “intimate, but not confrontational.”

Concept & Direction
Charles Slender-White

Choreography & Performance
Samuel Melecio-Zambrano, Katherine Neumann, LizAnne Roman Roberts, Charles Slender-White

Text
Jax Blaska, Samuel Melecio-Zambrano, Katherine Neumann, LizAnne Roman Roberts, Charles Slender-White

Lighting Design and Technical Direction
Del Medoff

Dramaturgy
Seth Eisen

Score
Dan Cantrell

Set Design
Jax Blaska, Robert McCole, Del Medoff, Maryam Rostami, Charles Slender-White

Styling
Monique Jenkinson

Production Management
Jax Blaska 

Set Construction
Robert McCole

Community Interviews
Jackson Bowman, Keanu Brady, Troy Brunet, Dia Dear, Jessica Granderson, Bob Guter, Mary Hones, Stephanie Hewett, Rose Huey, Beth MacLeod, Nguyen Pham, Andrew Sass, Morgan True

Additional Source Material
Tony Kushner, David Markson, Edvard Munch, Oscar Wilde

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Images by Robbie Sweeny