When
Where
PRACTICES – WEEK 2
ALTERNATIVA > GUT Motives
Monday-Friday
January 13-17, 2020
10:00am- 12:00pm
GUT Motives is an alternative dance class and ongoing research by ALTERNATIVA investigating corporeality from internal impulse to external expression. Exploring states and acts of motion through a hybrid of traditional, contemporary and alternative forms in order to utilize embodiment and motion as means of perception, intuition and action. Deepening awareness and understanding of the body by working with energy, touch, somatic improvisation, technical modalities and three-dimensional choreography. The class is an intimate, animated arena for physical and creative exploration, deeply informed by live, original music, and encouraging sensate virtuosity, kinetic efficiency, interactive intelligence and performance-level dancing.
ALTERNATIVA, directed by dancer Kathleen Hermesdorf with musician Albert Mathias, is an apparatus for deeply integrated contemporary dance and music via collaboration, creation, improvisation, performance, production, curation and education. Active in San Francisco since 1998, the organization supports the creative work of the directors, known for radical dance classes, performance projects and musical endeavors delving into the corporeality and ineffability of human conditions, behaviors and other curiosities. Activities, including an annual FRESH Festival, ongoing classes and workshops in the Bay Area, residencies at universities, festivals and studios worldwide engage an extensive population of artists, audiences and participants. ALTERNATIVA is fiscally sponsored by Dancers’ Group and has received support from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the William + Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Fleishhacker Foundation, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Dancers’ Group’s Matching Grant and CA$H Grant, CHIME/MJDC, the San Francisco Arts Commission, The Suitcase Fund and individual donations. www.la-alternativa.us | www.freshfestival.org
Kathleen Hermesdorf is an international dance artist, educator and producer based in San Francisco. She directs ALTERNATIVA, with musician Albert Mathias. Hermesdorf has been dancing in the Bay Area since 1991 and teaches, performs, improvises, creates and curates around the world. Her work has been presented in the Bay Area, New York, Seattle, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Dakar, amongst other locations, in commission for universities, companies and independent dancers, and in collaboration with art partners worldwide. She was a member of Bebe Miller Company, Contraband/Sara Shelton Mann and Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, and co-director of Hermesdorf & Wells Dance Company with Scott Wells and Collusion with Stephanie Maher. She is the co-director, with Maher, of PORCH summer school at Ponderosa in Stolzenhagen, Germany, and of WILD [West Cork Contemporary Dance Festival] with Tara Brandel, in Ballydehob, Ireland. Hermesdorf brings over 20 years of experience from the field, studio and stage to her work and holds a BFA and an MFA in Dance Performance + Pedagogy.
Albert Mathias is a multi-disciplinary musician based in San Francisco since 1991. He creates and performs composition and sound design for dance, theater, film, video and audio mediums, and is the music director of ALTERNATIVA, with director/dancer Kathleen Hermesdorf. He was a member of Bebe Miller Company and Contraband/Sara Shelton Mann, and has created original sound scores for myriad dance companies. In 2000, he was nominated for an IZZIE Award with ALTERNATIVA and received a BESSIE Award in 2006 with Bebe Miller Company. Mathias has produced 15 records of original music and collaborated in numerous bands, most notably LiveHuman, an internationally acclaimed trio with DJ Quest and bassist Andrew Kushin. Mathias attended California Institute of the Arts, training in tabla, voice and accompaniment, and has had the honor of private study with Pandit Swapan Chauduri, Sri Ravi Bellare and Tony Williams. His eclectic sounds can be found on I-Tunes, Bandcamp and CD Baby. Relocated to Mazatlán, Mexico in October 2019, Mathias now works with Delfos Danza Contemporanéa and their school, EPDM, as well as continuing with ALTERNATIVA.
REGISTER TODAY AT FRESHFESTIVAL.ORG/PRACTICES
Jesse Zaritt > Drawing Lab
Monday-Friday
January 13-17, 2020
1:15pm-3:15pm
Drawing Lab will engage drawing as a visual and physical practice linked to dreaming, drafting, and materializing futures. Elements of drawing such as line, tone, texture, edge, fluidity, atmosphere, and spatial planning will be collectively explored and discussed. The act of drawing will create navigable terrains of study that will invite us to critically imagine what is possible, what we observe, and how we intervene within and beyond the present moment. This lab studies how drawing moves and how movement draws.
Jesse Zaritt is a Brooklyn-based dance artist. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, having previously been the inaugural 2014–2016 Research Fellow in the University’s School of Dance. He has also taught at Bard College, Hollins University, Pomona College and for ten summers at the American Dance Festival. Zaritt has performed his solo work in Taiwan, Uruguay, Russia, Korea, Germany, New York, Japan, Mexico, Israel and throughout the United States. Jesse worked collaboratively with Jumatatu Poe from 2012-2015; their duet work was presented by Gibney Dance Center (NYC), AUX Performance Space at Vox Populi (PA), Fringe Arts (PA), Triple Canopy (NYC), Dixon Place (NYC) and New York Live Arts (through the Studio Series Program). A duet created with Katie Swords premiered at the Museum of Art and Design (NYC) in October 2015. Jesse was commissioned by the American Dance Festival to create a duet alongside Mark Haim which premiered as part of the 2015 ADF performance season. He has performed with the Shen Wei Dance Arts Company (NYC, 2001–2006), the Inbal Pinto Dance Company (Tel Aviv, 2008), and in the work of Netta Yerushalmy (NYC, 2009–2016) and Faye Driscoll (NYC, 2010–2015); he works as an artistic adviser for her current projects. His solo Binding was the recipient of three 2010 New York Innovative Theater Awards—Outstanding Choreography, Outstanding Solo Performance, and Outstanding Performance Art Production. Zaritt currently works in creative dialogue with Sara Shelton Mann.
REGISTER TODAY AT FRESHFESTIVAL.ORG/PRACTICES
Ángel Arámbula > Piso Articular (Articulate Floorwork)
Monday-Friday
January 13-17, 2020
3:45pm-5:45pm
Piso Articular (Articulate Floorwork) is a contemporary dance training technique in which the biomechanics of floorwork are applied to find more effective spatial routes within the dancing body. Within this training technique, several themes are considered through its progressive work such as: Anchors and Leverage, Articulation and Weight Distribution, Body Efficiency, Relation of the Frontal, Axial and Sagittal planes, Ramps of Ascent and Descent, the Kinetic Perception of the Three-dimensional Body, Inhabitation of Personal Space and Group Consciousness. Applying the aforementioned themes, students expand their corporal movement vocabulary as well as increase their individual and collective awareness with the space and other dancing bodies.
Ángel Arámbula (Director, Choreographer, Dance Facilitator) is originally from Tijuana, Baja California. He began his classical dance studies within the Baja California Dance Company A.C.. From 1997 to 2000 he was part of the “Subterranean Art Project” directed by Gregorio Coral. He was distinguished as the best dancer in the XIX International Festival of Contemporary Dance of San Luis Potosí in 1999. In 2000 he entered the Professional School of Dance of Mazatlán (EPDM), directed by the company Delfos Danza Contemporánea where he studied his professional studies as a dancer and choreographer. He has been granted a FONCA scholarship in the 2004 edition in the category of interpreter, by the FOECA of Baja California in his 1999 broadcast in the category of Individual Artistic Development in Contemporary Dance and in the 2002 broadcast for continuing studies, as well as for the Professional School of Dance of Mazatlán from 2001 to 2003. Ángel obtained honorable mention as the Best Male Performer within the First Choreography Competition in Urban Spaces Monterrey, NL (2002) and prize as the best male performer in the regional contest of contemporary choreography in Hermosillo, Sonora (2016).
REGISTER TODAY AT FRESHFESTIVAL.ORG/PRACTICES