FACT/SF’s 2025 Summer Dance Lab is August 12-22, 2025, at ODC Theater in san francisco
Scholarships and Work-Study opportunities for the Summer Dance Lab were available as part of our 2025 Fieldwork Applications, which are now closed.
NEW THIS YEAR
In addition to working together in-person in August 2025, Dance Lab participants will collaborate with Charlie Slender-White on the creation of a new work. This work will premiere August 22-24, 2025 as part of the FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival. A portion of this creative process will happen 2x per week, online, via Zoom, between July 8 - August 9, 2025.
Participants in the 2025 Lab will receive 1-1 professional development coaching and mentorship from Slender-White and other Lab faculty
The 2025 Lab will be limited to 15 participants so that each dancer can receive as much individual attention as possible.
Additional details for the 2025 Summer Dance Lab are not yet confirmed. The information below is from Summer 2024, and is included here for your reference as to what a typical Lab curriculum contains.
2024 FACT/SF Summer Dance Lab
ODC Theater, San Francisco
August 15-24, 2024
Countertechnique Practice, Tools, & Theory with Rosanna Tavarez, Charlie Slender-White, and Sophie Allen
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Repertory with Jenna Riegel
FACT/SF Creative Process & Choreography with FACT/SF Company Members
Contemporary Floor Work Master Class with Erin Yen
Beyond Technique discussion and Q&A with Charlie Slender-White
Attend 9 premieres in the FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival
Lab participants will also be given complimentary tickets to attend both weekends of the FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival, including works by FACT/SF, Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş, Zoe Huey, Erin Yen, Jenna Riegel (Amherst, MA), Summation Dance / LA (Los Angeles, CA), and Sophie Allen (Chicago, IL).
details
Slender-White teaching Countertechnique
Photo by Alina Fejzo
OVERVIEW
The 2024 FACT/SF Summer Dance Lab is designed for dancers new to Countertechnique and for those who have already had some experience with the practice. Within an open, investigative environment, participants will spend 9 days learning and experimenting with Countertechnique, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Repertory, and FACT/SF Repertory to heighten awareness, distill intention, have fun, get sweaty, and explore unknown terrain. Like all of FACT/SF’s workshops, the Lab is intentionally inclusive and non-competitive. A main theme of this year’s Lab is applying Countertechnique tools to non-Countertechnique choreography and movement styles.
The Lab will accept a maximum of 30 participants. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until the Lab has reached capacity. All Lab participants will also receive complimentary tickets to attend performances in the 2024 FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival.
DAILY SCHEDULE & DETAILS
August 15-24, 2024 (with August 19 as a day off)
August 15 & 22, 10am-4pm
August 16, 17, 21, 23, & 24,10am-5pm
August 18, 10am-1pm
August 20, 10am-3pm
All days except August 18 will include a 45-minute lunch break.
Though the schedule varies from day to day, a typical day might look like this:
10am-12:30pm – Countertechnique Class & Toolbox w/Rosanna Tavarez
12:30pm-1:15pm – Lunch
1:15pm-3:15pm - Floor Work with Erin Yen
3:15pm-5pm – FACT/SF Repertory with Company Members Keanu Brady & Katherine Neumann
LOCATION
ODC Theater
3153 17th Street (at Shotwell)
San Francisco, CA 94110
ODC Theater has all-gender bathrooms.
TO APPLY
The FACT/SF Summer Dance Lab is designed for curious advanced and professional dancers. We are warm and open to you as a participant, and we want to learn more!
Interested dancers should send their application, as one compiled PDF, to workshop@factsf.org
Applications should include:
A brief bio
Current CV
1 page Letter of Motivation
In your letter of motivation, please address the following:
Why are you interested in the Lab?
What role does dance currently play in your life?
What past experiences have you had that inform your current dance practice?
If applicable, please also share with us your past experiences of Countertechnique and information about how Countertechnique informs your current dance practice.
(Note: Please do not include headshots or other images in your application)
Within two weeks of applying, applicants will be contacted by FACT/SF regarding their participation in the Lab.
accessibility & covid protocol
The FACT/SF Summer Dance Lab is intentionally inclusive, and FACT/SF continues to evolve and develop our accessibility practices. For 2024, that includes providing ASL Interpretation for the entire Lab should any participate need/want it, being in conversation with participants re: covid safety and risk, and any other access needs or accommodations participants might have. Our goal is to create a space that removes as many barriers as possible, and that acknowledges each dancer as a whole person.
In order to make the Lab as safe as possible, FACT/SF will continue to evaluate and revise covid protocol as the Lab nears. Our priority is to accommodate the needs of as many dancers as possible. This might mean required on-site covid testing daily (which FACT/SF would provide), required masking while indoors, etc. Any dancers interested in attending the Lab who have specific needs regarding covid safety should contact us ASAP to discuss possible accommodations. We will publish a draft of our covid policy by the first week of August 2024.
Please email workshop@factsf.org with any questions about accessibility and/or to share access needs. We can also be reached via phone at 415 349 0878.
TUITION
$585 (applications received by July 19)
$885 (applications received after July 19)
Applicants are accepted on a rolling basis until the Lab has reached capacity (30 dancers max).
Once applicants have been accepted into the Lab, they will need to pay a $150 security deposit to reserve their spot. Security deposits are non-refundable.
Remaining tuitions are due by Thursday, August 1, 2024.
FACT/SF has already selected four dancers to receive scholarships to the 2024 Lab. We are unfortunately unable to provide additional discounts or funding.
SELECTED PARTICIPANTS
Once notified of acceptance and successful processing of full tuition, participants will receive a Welcome Packet. Information will include: area attractions, directions, public transportation, parking, Lab Detailed Schedule, and supplemental information on Countertechnique, FACT/SF Creative Process, and more.
QUESTIONS
If you have any questions or would like like to inform FACT/SF of any access needs, please email us at workshop@factsf.org. Or, call 415.349.0878.
SCHOLARSHIPS
Artists interested in applying for a scholarship to the 2025 Summer Dance Lab should apply via our Fieldwork Open Application Process, which will open in fall 2024. More information about this process can be found here.
ABOUT COUNTERTECHNIQUE
By continuously and sequentially directing and counter directing parts of the body through space, Countertechnique allows the moving dancer to work with an ever-changing dynamic balance. This dynamic balance reduces the pressure on the overall body structure and can be changed at any given moment. The consistent use of the counter direction in all movements is key to the technique; both the awareness and application of this principle is trained throughout the Countertechnique class. The Countertechnique theory is organized around two principal notions: the ‘toolbox’ and ‘scanning’. The toolbox is the systematically organized collection of tools for body and mind with which Countertechnique works, often visualized as a virtual map that dancers carry with them. Scanning defines the process of dancers continuously and actively observing their mindset and body in order to choose the most appropriate tool(s) from the toolbox for the situation they find themselves in. Scanning allows dancers to make active use of the toolbox in their daily practice of training, rehearsing and performing. Countertechnique was developed by Anouk van Dijk throughout her twenty-five year career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher. Over the last fifteen years, the knowledge and experience she gained – in constant dialogue with her dancers – was gradually transformed into a detailed theoretical system and a teaching method, which now together form the Countertechnique system.
In the 2024 FACT/SF Summer Dance Lab, Countertechnique will be taught by Rosanna Tavarez, Charlie Slender-White, and Sophie Allen.
bill t. jones/arnie zane repertory
In this class, dancers will have the opportunity to apply Countertechnique tools and principles while learning advanced and complex phrase material from the renowned repertory of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company (BTJAZ), taught by former company member Jenna Riegel. The BTJAZ Company describes its repertory as "widely varied in its subject matter, visual imagery and stylistic approach to movement, voice and stagecraft and includes musically-driven works as well as works using a variety of texts. The Company has been acknowledged for its intensely collaborative method of creation that has included artists as diverse as Keith Haring, Cassandra Wilson, The Orion String Quartet, the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center, Fred Hersch, Jenny Holzer, Robert Longo, Julius Hemphill and Daniel Bernard Roumain, among others." Bill T. Jones and Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong, have worked together to develop a technique that draws on movement aesthetics from an eclectic array of dance styles and other artistic forms including postmodern dance experimentation, classical modern forms, Africanist dance, ballet, Contact Improvisation, avant garde cinema and others. The result is a movement approach that frequently changes modalities and requires both physical and mental virtuoso. The hope is that by employing Countertechnique tools while performing the BTJAZ repertory, a dancer can find anatomical space and efficiency inside highly rigorous and detailed movement vocabulary.
FACT/SF creative process & choreography
Dancers will experience FACT/SF’s creative process and learn a small section from our newest work, Half Time, Full Out. This piece is part of our larger project, Queer Athletic Futurity.
FACT/SF Company Members and Artistic Director will lead these sessions, providing dancers in the Lab with an opportunity to explore our choreography while applying Countertechnique tools in real time.
Master Classes within the lab
FACT/SF produces an annual Summer Dance Festival that happens the same weeks of the Lab. The 2024 SDF includes 7 different choreographers from the Bay Area, Los Angeles, CA, Amherst, MA, and Chicago, IL.
Master class with ERIN YEN
Contemporary Floorwork with Erin Yen is all about exploring pathways that move in-and-out of the floor efficiently and safely. We will break down mechanics of the body, ride currents of momentum, and work to find a balance between softness and strength all while building trust with the floor. This class will consist of a full-body warm up, across-the-floor pathways, learning choreography, and dancing it out to music. Erin aims to allow all movers to find joy in working up a sweat, trying new pathways, and sharing space together.
Beyond Technique
This conversation and Q&A focuses on the components of having a professional dance career that extend beyond the actual dancing. At the beginning of the Lab, participants will offer topics and questions they would like to be addressed. Then, later in the Lab Charlie Slender-White will lead a group discussion that addresses these topics and questions. In the past, topics have included: contracts, networking, grant writing, marketing, community building, creating an equitable work space, when to persevere and when to give up, etc.
Slender-White has been working in arts administration for 20 years. He runs FACT/SF, served as the Resident Strategist at ODC Theater from 2021-2022, and has received funding from many family foundations and government agencies. With FACT/SF, Slender-White developed Fieldwork as a set of programs that strategically increase opportunity in the field while strengthening the connections between artists.
ABOUT THE TEACHERS
Sophie Minouche Allen. Photo by Michelle Reid.
SOPHIE MINOUCHE ALLEN is a dance artist who imbues playfulness and nuance in all her endeavors. She enjoys honing her sense of musicality and humor to connect with deeper subtexts… and loves to make people smile. Sophie performs, choreographs, and teaches throughout Chicago and nationally. Notably, she performs with Fever Dream Dance Collective; was selected as a Midwest RAD Fest 2024 Alternative Spaces Choreographer/Performer, DanceWorks Chicago/Thodos Dance Chicago’s New Dances 2024 Choreographer, and FACT/SF 2024 Summer Dance Festival Artist; teaches at The Joffrey Academy of Dance, The Rooted Space and co-facilitates the Chicago Countertechnique® Community class-series. Her work is shaped by cycles of care between her Oma, Mom and herself, grounding her artistry in shades of love, womanhood and vulnerability. Sophie holds a B.F.A. in Dance and B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Michigan, and is a certified Countertechnique® Teacher.
Keanu Brady. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.
KEANU BRADY (he/they) is a San Francisco-based dance artist working at the intersection of contemporary improvisation, hip-hop, and post-modern movement forms. In 2020, Keanu received his Bachelors of Fine Arts in Modern Dance at the University of Utah. He has been a company member of FACT/SF since 2018, and began serving on the Board of Directors as a Dancer Liaison in 2022. Over the years, he has worked closely as a performer and creative collaborator with various San Francisco-based companies and arts nonprofits, such as LEVYdance (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.
Katherine Neumann. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.
KATHERINE NEUMANN is a San Francisco-based dance artist. Born and raised in the Bay Area, Katherine received her early dance training at Danspace in Oakland, under the guidance of Beth Hoge. She holds a BFA in contemporary dance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Katherine has worked with Robert Moses’ Kin, the Mari Meade Dance Collective, ka·nei·see | collective, and Stephanie Unger & Artists. She is currently a company member of both FACT/SF and Liss Fain Dance. In addition to her work as a dancer, Katherine is a certified classical Pilates instructor.
Jenna Riegel. Photo by Jeffery Kaphan.
JENNA RIEGEL, 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.
Charles Slender-White. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.
CHARLES SLENDER-WHITE has been a Countertechnique practitioner for 19 years, and became a Certified Teacher in 2012; there are 52 Teachers worldwide. Charles has taught Countertechnique at the American Dance Festival, Velocity Dance Center, University of Calgary, Loyola Marymount University, the University of San Francisco, CSU East Bay, L’Artere (Quebec City), Circuit-Est (Montreal), Love-In (Toronto), Chunky Move (Melbourne), and at numerous dance centers throughout the SF Bay Area. He began his dance career in 2006 with Tatiana Baganova’s Provincial Dances Theatre in Yekaterinburg, Russia. In 2008, he returned to his native California to start FACT/SF in order to make his own contributions to innovation and excellence in contemporary dance. Over the past 15 years, Charles has created 42 works, with commissions by the US Department of State, ODC Theater, CounterPulse, Acid Rain (Chelyabinsk), Dialogue Dance (Kostroma), the Yekaterinburg University of the Humanities (Yekaterinburg), and others. Described as ‘utterly absorbing’ and ‘mesmerizing’ (SF Bay Guardian), Charles’ work with FACT/SF has been performed throughout California, in Portland (Oregon), Seattle (Washington), Durham (North Carolina), Sofia (Bulgaria), Belgrade (Serbia), Zagreb (Croatia), Skopje (Macedonia), and in 7 cities across Russia, working with the US Department of State to share contemporary American culture with local Russian communities as part of their ‘American Seasons’ Program. From 2021-2022, Charles served as ODC Theater’s Resident Strategist for Curation and Creative Partnerships, and he co-curated the 2022 ODC Theater Season with amara tabor-smith. Throughout 2012, he was a mentee of Elizabeth Streb as part of CHIME Across Borders at the Margaret Jenkins Dance Lab. Charles graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley, with degrees in Dance & Performance Studies and English Literature.
Rosanna Tavarez. Photo by Kim Doeleman.
ROSANNA TAVAREZ received an MFA in Choreography from The Ohio State University as a University Fellow and a Teaching Fellow and a BFA in Choreography from University of Michigan. She has a diverse background as a performer/entertainer and has had the honor of working with Marina Ambramovic, Ryan Heffington, Travis Payne, Tony Michaels and Rosanna Gamson/Worldwide. She also toured with N’SYNC and Jessica Simpson as one-fifth of the girl group Eden’s Crush and covered the Emmys, Grammys and Oscars in addition to hosting her own shows as a television personality for FOX, E!, TVGuide Network, and Telemundo/NBC.
Tavarez has been studying Countertechnique since 2011 and in 2016 she was selected to attend the Countertechnique Teacher Training program. She is now one of eleven certified American Countertechnique teachers. In 2023, after co-leading her first One Body One Career Intensive with Founder Anouk Van Dijk at Gibney in New York City, she became a Senior Teacher. Tavarez has had the pleasure of teaching Countertechnique nationally and internationally.
Tavarez’s work has been presented at The Broad Museum, ODC Theater, REDCAT, Dance Camera West, The Odyssey, Breaking Ground Dance Festival, LA Department of Cultural Affairs' LA Dance Platform, Sarasota Contemporary Dance and Highways Performance Space, and has been supported by CalState LA’s Research, Scholarship and Creativity Awards, CalArts, ARC grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, UCLA Hothouse Residency and Show Box LA.
As a dance educator, Tavarez has taught as faculty and guest artist at numerous institutions including USC Kaufman School of Dance, University of Michigan, Loyola Marymount University, Scripps College, CalState Long Beach, Studio School, University of Southern Mississippi, Texas State University and Cal State LA. Currently she serves as the BFA Program Director at CalArts Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance.
Erin Yen. Photo by Tiffany McCoy.
ERIN YEN is a mixed-race professional dancer and choreographer currently residing in San Mateo, CA. Since moving to the Bay Area to be closer to extended family, Erin has had the privilege of performing at Bay Area events such as Margaret Jenkin’s 50th Anniversary Show and Trolley Dances SF, and at venues including Dance Mission Theater, Oakland Theater Project, CounterPulse, the Green Room, and Glen Park. Most recently, Erin has begun to teach Contemporary, Contemporary Fusion, Contemporary Floor Work and other movement workshops for adult dancers in the Bay Area. Erin’s choreography has been featured at SAFEhouse, Levy Salon, Performance Primers, RAWdance’s Concept Series, ODC's State of Play, ODC’s Pilot Program 73, and ODC Theater. Erin is the founder of contemporary dance company Dragons Dance, 501c3.
Banner Image Alina Fejzo