Spinning Yarns Dance Collective
SYDC was founded by Susan Donham and Apryl Seech to create pieces that tell stories through movement, using a vocabulary of modern and contemporary dance. The choreographers create dances that portray a sense of history, an individual's ongoing development in time, and parallels between people and nature. Since 1998, Spinning Yarns has been presenting its work and developing audiences by participating in showcases throughout the Bay Area, including performances in the Speak Up and Dance Series at Shotwell Studio, the Choreographer's Showcase at Brady Street Dance Center, Link at ODC Theater, the Women's Work Series at Venue 9, Dance Repertory/San Francisco's VISION Series, the Exploring the Space Program at the Marsh, and Dance Mission's Choreographers' Showcase. In addition, the company has self-produced two home seasons since 1999 at various dance venues in San Francisco.
Right Brain Performancelab
RBP emerged from the collaborative work of John Baumann and Jennifer Gwirtz in 1999. It is a blend of mime, vaudeville, contemporary dance, music, puppetry and the study of internal geography. Their work explores the balletic aspirations of animate and inanimate bodies in imaginary landscapes, using action and reaction to play chutes and ladders with story, song and concept. Their work has been seen in the Marsh's Exploring the Space...dance/text...text/dance series, Have You Seen Us, a group show with choreographers Christy Funsch and Megan Nicely at the Santa Cruz Dance Gallery, Venue 9, and at numerous workshop performances sponsored by the San Francisco Field, an artist support and service organization.
Right Brain Performancelab has recently returned from a month-long tour of New Zealand where they performed their full length show, Not A Step, in Auckland, and Gwirtz's critically acclaimed Electroencephalograph: Mental Notes at Christchurch's Physics Room Trust as part of the group art show, Neural Notations
Susan Donham has been active as a choreographer in the Bay Area since moving here in 1995 after receiving her Master's degree in Dance at American University in Washington, D.C. She has performed with Eclipse Dance Theater, a modern dance/theater company directed by Samantha Blanchard and Deborah Ben-Eliezer, for the last six years. Donham is also a member of Stagebridge, telling stories to Oakland and Berkeley schoolchildren as an Òhonorary senior citizen.Ó Her performing experience also includes dancing for Khadra International Dance Theater from 1997 to 1999, as well as for choreographers Jennifer Minore, Joe Landini, Jenna Cameron, and Charles Moulton.
Apryl Seech relocated to San Francisco in 1994 after receiving her Bachelor's degree in dance from Eastern Michigan University. Her work has been performed at Brady Street Dance Theater, Venue 9, ODC Theater, Dancers' Group/Footwork, and Luna Sea Women's Performance Project. Ms. Seech has performed for Intersect Dance Theater, Susan Donham, and Jen Gwirtz. In the fall of 2000, the Eastern Michigan University Dance Department invited Apryl Seech as an alumna and artist in residence to reconstruct her work Picture Book, with their students.
Jennifer Gwirtz began dancing in 1974, performing as a classical dancer from 1988-1992 with the Atlanta Ballet and other companies. She began to explore concepts behind performance and the theater space in 1990, earning a Masters degree in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1997. She won the McMillan Award the same year for the performance/installation, E.E.G.: a chant in the key of alpha, the first of a series which has since been critically acclaimed in San Francisco (2000), Santa Cruz (2000) and Christchurch, New Zealand (2001) as part of the Neural Notations show. She has performed in Santa Cruz, Boston, Chicago, the Czech Republic, Mexico City and locally for at Venue 9, ODC, and the Brady Street Theater.
John Baumann has been writing and performing solo theater in San Francisco since 1994. He has shown his work at Bay Area venues including The Marsh, The Mock Cafe, Climate Theater, Venue 9, Studio For, Speakeasy Theatre Co., Cable Car Theater, and Shelton Theater. John has also appeared as an actor in various plays, including 1999 Goldie Award-winner Dan Carbone's There Be Monsters. He is a workshop moderator and a member of the Board of Advisors for the San Francisco Field.
Other folks involved: Laura Marsh (collaborator, RBP), Jerre Dye (danceturg, RBP)