Krissy Keefer’s Dance Brigade kicks off its 50th Anniversary Season with a seven-city West Coast Tour January 9-19 of A Woman’s Song for Peace, a new dance theater work featuring original live music and performances by iconic musician and activist Holly Near, influential queer feminist singer-songwriter Ferron, and groundbreaking Afro-Caribbean jazz artist Christelle Durandy, intertwined with Dance Brigade’s fierce, nuanced choreography. The tour kicks off on January 9 at Hult Center in Eugene. For tickets and information, go to https://hultcenter.org/events/dance-brigade-womans-song-for-peace/
Dance Brigade is sponsoring this seven-city tour to make an indelible mark on the upcoming inauguration. This is a cry for peace to end all wars so that peace and justice can prevail, not only in the Middle East, but also in Sudan, Ukraine, and at our borders and inner cities of the United States. “As we move through an intense and divisive Presidential election cycle in which these issues are front and center, Dance Brigade offers A Woman’s Song for Peace with the aim of reorienting audiences to our shared humanity and desire for peace. We believe that this collaboration can unify and activate people. We offer it as a gift to our communities for healing, transformation, and a vision for a way forward,” says Keefer.
Eugene, OR was the place and1975 was the beginning of the Wallflower Order Dance Collective, a ground-breaking dance company in the 1970’s called an “American Treasure” by the Kansas City Star and included in dance critic, author, and choreographer Deborah Jowitt’s book,Time and the Dancing Image. Original member Krissy Keefer has carried on the legacy of provocative, feminist dance producing cutting-edge productions that explore the intersection between art and social justice with Dance Brigade, a performing dance company, which formed in the Bay Area in 1984; Grrrl Brigade, a youth empowerment dance program; and Dance Mission, a dance center in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission district supporting underrepresented, emerging, and established artists in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Dance Brigade members are Lena Gatchalian, Bianca S. Mendoza-Prado, Deb’e Taylor, dominique hargrove, Frances Sedayao, Fredrika Keefer, Johanna Gormley, Kimberly B Valmore, KJ Dahlaw, Megan Lowe, Sarah Bush, Sierra Tiatia, Vivian Dai.
SPECIAL FUNDRAISING EVENT AT WOW HALL ON JANUARY 11
In Eugene, OR, Dance Brigade will partner with WOW Hall on WOW’s 50th anniversary fundraising event on Saturday, January 11 with a tribute to their shared history including songs and storytelling by Holly Near and Ferron, and performance of a signature dance theater piece with original members from the Wallflower Order Dance Collective, whose inception took place at the WOW Hall in 1975. “Defiance” was created in 1977 in sign language and written by Dorothy Miles and performed across the US and internationally; it remains a lasting and powerful work about finding one’s voice and speaking one’s truth to power. For tickets and information, https://wowhall.org/event/dance-brigade