presents
September 9 - October 30, 2021
CounterPulse, 80 Turk Street, San Francisco, CA
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 & technical Direction
Del Medoff
Technicians
Del Medoff, Katherine Neumann, Gabriel Nunez de Arco, Charles Slender-White
dramaturgy
Seth Eisen
original score
Dan Cantrell
set design
Jax Blaska, Robert McCole, Del Medoff, Maryam Rostami, Charles Slender-White
styling
Monique Jenkinson
Cinematography & Video editing
Charles Slender-White
Portrait Photgraphy
Robbie Sweeny
production management
Jax Blaska
set construction
Robert McCole
community interviews with
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
Split is a series of 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’ve created 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.”
Split has been made possible by generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, FACT/SF Individual Donors, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and CounterPulse.
FACT/SF is a San Francisco-based contemporary dance company, founded in 2008 by Charles Slender-White as a platform for organizing collaborators, building community, and creating choreography. FACT/SF regularly performs in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has performed throughout California, Russia, and the Balkans, and in Oregon, Washington, and North Carolina. FACT/SF also offers Countertechnique classes and workshops throughout North America, and supports the health of the local dance field by offering fiscal sponsorship, distributing production support grants, and producing the annual FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival. In addition to core support from our individual donors, FACT/SF's programming has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission, Trust for Mutual Understanding, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Phyllis C Wattis Foundation, and numerous others.
Charles Slender-White, Director & Performer
Charles Slender-White (he/him) is a dancer, teacher, 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 has worked in more than fifty cities across twelve countries on four continents. Slender-White has choreographed more than 30 original works, with commissions by ODC Theater, CounterPulse, the US Department of State, and numerous others. Slender-White is one of 36 Countertechnique Teachers worldwide, and he graduated with honors from UC Berkeley with degrees in Dance & Performance Studies and English Literature.
LizAnne Roman Roberts, Performer
LizAnne (she/her) fell in love with dance at age four after seeing Giselle on TV in her hometown Tulsa, Oklahoma. Honored and humbled to have been working in the field of her dreams for over two decades, LizAnne has been collaborating with FACT/SF for the past nine years. She is profoundly thankful to share Split, and the performance space with you.
Samuel Melecio-Zambrano, Performer
Samuel Melecio-Zambrano (he/any) was first exposed to dance in the womb, as his mother and father salsa-ed their way about the living room. In 2018, he received a BFA in Dance from the University of South Florida (USF). He then moved to Melbourne, Australia to continue training, and following a fruitful stint as an avocado picker in Queensland, Australia, Samuel moved back to the United States with a farmer's tan and a bit of perspective. Now a certified Countertechnique teacher and freelance dancer in San Francisco, he has performed with FACT/SF, Robert Moses' Kin, Kinetech Arts, Kristin Damrow & Company, and Mark Foehringer Dance Projects.
Katherine Neumann, Performer
Katherine Neumann (she/her) is a dancer and choreographer based in San Francisco. She holds a BFA in contemporary dance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA). Katherine has worked professionally with FACT/SF, Robert Moses’ Kin, the Mari Meade Dance Collective, ka·nei·see | collective, Stephanie Unger & Artists, Alyssa Mitchel, Alex Law, Hannah Ayasse, and Hannah Young.
Jax Blaska, Production Manager
Jax Blaska (they/she) is a San Francisco-bred, East Coast-baked theatremaker now living in Oakland. As a director, writer, and performer, they make work that is founded in collaboration and curiosity, and which centers queer & feminist stories, with a healthy balance of ritual, spectacle, and irreverence. Since graduating mid-pandemic from Yale University, where they studied the intersections of performance and sexuality, they have farmed, barista'ed, conducted original research for Eye Zen Presents: Out of Site - Haight St, written & performed an original ghost tour, summited Half Dome, taught high school students, and raised their cat's surprise litter of kittens.
Del Medoff, Lighting Designer and Technical Director
Delayne Medoff (he/him) has been a lighting artist in the Bay Area for over 10 years. He has lit work at many Bay Area stages for theater and dance. Del was super excited to work on this project, specifically because it gave him a chance to create a world to be experienced, as opposed to a show to be witnessed. He has found this experience to be amazingly fulfilling and a great way to reenter the world after so many months of COVID isolation, and is extremely gratified to be with a company he has collaborated with for almost a decade.
Seth Eisen, Dramaturg
Seth Eisen (he/him) is a San Francisco-based artist, writer, director, dramaturg and educator. He is Artistic Director of Eye Zen Presents, an ensemble theater company that creates performance and community-building events throughout San Francisco, illuminating under-recognized queer ancestors and engaging LGBTQ+ history as a living, breathing dialogue by researching lost legacies. Blurring the edge between art, research and activism, he creates a hybrid of visual art and live performance. For 24 years Eisen has staged performance pieces, street spectacles and installations and has curated and appeared in numerous collaborative projects. His solo performances and installation projects have been featured locally at spaces from Oakland Museum of California to CounterPulse and in numerous art spaces on both coasts for over 20 years.
Dan Cantrell, Composer
Dan Cantrell (he/him) is an Emmy award winning composer known for his innovative and evocative film and theatre scoring approach, as well as his virtuosic playing abilities on the accordion, piano and musical saw. He holds a BFA degree from CalArts where he majored in Composition and Piano performance. Dan is a self taught master of the accordion, excelling at Balkan, Romani, Eastern European, and Klezmer styles. In recent years, Dan has performed and recorded with Tom Waits, Joanna Newsom, Beats Antique, Bono, Danny Elfman, members of the Klezmatics and Fishbone. Dan’s broad ranging musical portfolio, including compositions for video games, cartoons, film, television, web broadcast, and self produced albums can be heard at www.bellowhead.com
Robert McCole, Set Designer & Constructor
Robert McCole (he/him) is a San Francisco-based carpenter and artist. He has owned and operated Pyramid Records since 2012.
Monique Jenkinson, Stylist
Monique Jenkinson (she/her) is an artist, choreographer, performer and writer. Her work dwells at the intersection of contemporary performance, choreography and cabaret and considers the performance of femininity as a powerful, vulnerable and subversive act. Her alter-ego Fauxnique made herstory as the first cis-woman to win a major drag queen pageant and subsequently her solo performance works have toured nationally and internationally in wide-ranging contexts from nightclubs to theaters to museums. She has also worked as a stylist for FACT/SF and Catherine Galasso, and as a dramaturgical eye for many others. Her memoir, Faux Queen, will be published by Amble Press in 2022.
Gabriel Nuñez de Arco, Technician
Gabriel (they/them) is a visual artist, composer, and lighting/sound engineer from Oakland, CA (Chochenyo Ohlone land) with roots in La Paz, Bolivia (Aymara territory). They have performed and provided technical support at events across Australia, Bolivia and the United States with a focus on queer DIY dance spaces. Their work seeks decolonial and reclamatory re-formations of history as generative space for diasporic queer futurity.
FACT/SF would like to thank our individual donors for their support of our season.
Visionaries ($1,000+)
Oliver Bacon & Greg Barnell
Jesse Dill & Patrick Metz
John Engstrom & Matthew Fidanque
Abel O'Connell
Thomas Pack & Matthew Mansh
John Perkins
Maryam Rostami & Jackson Bowman
Verna Slender
Rune Stromsness
Glenda & David White
Champions ($500+)
Sherisse Burns & Mary Grunthaner
Melissa & Dan Joseph
Catherine Newman
Jeanne Pfeffer & Paul Young
Blaze Stancampiano
Ellis Wood
Leaders ($200+)
Michael Todd Cohen & Adrian Frandle
Zoe Fyfe
Jessica Granderson
Robert Guter
Krista & Eric Hanson
Timothy Hildebrandt & Sam Bennett
Risa Jaroslow
Lauren & Adam Jennings
Beth Lim
Lauren Mazareeb
Mark Schaeffer
Shelley & George Slender
Dimitri Smirnoff
Tonia & Dan Stadler
Patricia Svilik
Emily Woo Zeller
Joe Yang
Supporters ($50+)
Liz Baqir
Sarah Barnes
Pamela Berelson
Susan & John Bunch
Rob Connolly
Erin Coyne
Sylvia de Trinidad and Andrew Young
Cara DeFabio
Sherry & John Engstrom
Melinda Furch
Nina Haft
Lisa Hsai
Ben Jehoshua & Andrew Pearson
Denise & Eric Jennings
Beth Kuenstler & Shawn Reifsteck
Joyce Kushner
Amy Lewis
Karen and Ryan Little
Eduardo Lucio-Villalon & Chad Spitler
Andrew Lund
Jennifer Maness
Clifton Meek
Erica Mikesh
Angela Mousseau
Carol Murota & Neil Zelin
Liz Nagle
Antoaneta Petkova
Julie Phelps
Eric Prendergast
Jill Randall
Isabel Rosenstock
Richard Royse
Lily Taylor & Sean Miller
Connie & Bill Van Horn
Catherine Volzke & Robyn Miller
Amanda Whitehead
Faye Wylder
Carolynn & Dan Zocchi
CounterPulse is building a movement of risk-taking art that shatters assumptions and builds community. We provide space and resources for emerging artists and cultural innovators, serving as an incubator for the creation of socially relevant, community-based art and culture. CounterPulse acts as a catalyst for art and action; creating a forum for the open exchange of art and ideas, sparking transformation in our communities and our society. We work towards a world that celebrates diversity of race, class, cultural heritage, artistic expression, ability, gender identity, and sexual orientation. We strive to create an environment that is physically and economically accessible to everyone.
Images by Robbie Sweeny