Kunst-Stoff review and photos

The Kunst-Stoff show at Yerba Buena Forum was a big success - every night was different and the dancers made interpretive and improvisatory virtue out of some shocking necessities, for example legs spontaneously flying off the table that's a crucial prop throughout the second piece. The Chronicle review was positive; I feel immeasurably about it.

Here are some photos I took at the dress:




























































And after the show -

Yale classmate and Apparition of the Eternal Church star Manoel Felciano, now appearing in Albee's At Home at the Zoo at ACT (Chronicle review); Mano's French American International School classmate and my Lowell High School classmate Nat Stookey, who arranged the Schnittke choir concerto movement ("I, an expert in human passions") that I played on solo violin. Clothes and make-up by Suppositori Spelling.

With Kunst-Stoff jack-of-all-trades Keira Chang (a.k.a. Spatial K) and Justin Andrews.

With San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra fellow alumnus Rob Bailis, now director of ODC Theater, who in the past year has become my artistic fairy godmother, coproducing the big Messiaen night in Grace Cathedral and hooking me up with a three year ODC residency and this Yerba Buena gig. Also pictured: Rob's folks.

but wait - still more Kunst-Stoff pix!

Today was our last rehearsal at the Dance Center - after this operations shift to Yerba Buena. Very excited! Tonight I finally got around to listening to the original Schnittke choir concerto movement whose solo violin transcription by Nat Stookey I'm playing the world premiere of Friday, and I dissolved. Poof! No more violinist, just a puddle surrounded by a ring of soggy Kleenex. That Germano-Soviet crank really knew what he was doing, and he knew that he knew what he was doing. Title of the movement: "I, an Expert in Human Passions."

I took these pictures at rehearsal a couple of weeks ago and was so bummed out by how grainy and rotten they looked on the camera LCD that I didn't bother looking at them on the computer until now. They still look lousy, but they're kind of cool.

See information about this weekend's shows in the preceding post, below.

Kunst-Stoff rehearsal pix by Spatial K - show this weekend!

Some pictures from my recent rehearsal with Kunst-Stoff by Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang. a.k.a. Spatial K. These pictures are taken at the San Francisco Dance Center, housed on the fifth floor of the old Odd Fellows Building at 7th and Market.

Shows are Friday and Saturday at 8, Sunday at 7, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Tickets are on sale now!

Yannis Adoniou, our fearless leader.

With the luminous Suzanne Lappas...

and the preposterously graceful Spencer Dickhaus...

Me with my Lowell High School classmate Nat Stookey, who has arranged a movement of Alfred Schnittke's choir concerto for solo violin. The piece is famous for another transcription, by the Kronos Quartet, which is on a few of their albums. Both transcriptions take their title from the text, in this case "(Where) Every Verse is Filled with Grief." This will be the world premiere of Nat's beautifully violinistic rendering.

KUNST-STOFF party tonight (San Francisco)

Tonight the San Francisco modern dance group KUNST-STOFF is throwing a party to celebrate its 11th San Francisco season at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where I'm making my YBCA debut June 12 - 14 playing the world premiere of a Schnittke-Stookey piece for solo violin. Tickets for those three shows, which feature two world premieres by KUNST-STOFF founding choreographer Yannis Adoniou, are on sale now.

Tonight's party is from 5:30 to 7:30 at Triptych Restaurant (1155 Folsom Street between 7th and 8th). Admission is $15, ten of which is tax-deductible. Triptych hors d'oeuvres, cash bar. 

art and dance in SF this weekend

My friend Jombi Supastar is having an art opening tomorrow night in the heart of the Castro.

Magnet, 4122 18th Street
Opening reception, Friday, 6 July, 8-10 p.m.
Normal hours: Tue 11 - 6pm Wed 2 - 9pm Thu 2 - 9pm Fri 2 - 9pm Sat 11 - 6pm

I'll see the show but miss the opening party because it conflicts with the second night of the Stephen Pelton Dance Theater show at Dance Mission, in which I'm playing the snappy number from the Ravel sonata for violin and cello. But you can do both! Our show is tonight, Friday and Saturday at 8, and Sunday at 7. Remember that no one is turned away for lack of funds.


June 5-8
Thursday - Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7 p.m.
Dance Mission Theater
3316 24th St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 826-4441

Stephen Pelton Dance Theater June 5-8

I'm performing in the upcoming 15th anniversary show of the Stephen Pelton Dance Theater:

June 5-8
Thursday - Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 7 p.m.
Dance Mission Theater
3316 24th St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 826-4441
Tickets are $20 - $25 and no one is turned away for lack of funds.

I've seen much of the work that's going to be presented - including the title piece - and it's really gorgeous. (My contribution to the evening is brief - the program ends with a piece set to the fast movement of Ravel's sonata for violin and cello.)

Dance review: Donna Uchizono's Thin Air

Yesterday, since I wasn't going to a second showing of Appommatox, I was free to accept comps, from my old Youth Orchestra pal Rob Bailis, for a showing of Donna Uchizono's "Thin Air," which plays twice more at ODC Dance Theater (which Rob directs), tonight and Saturday.

"Thin Air" was the perfect antidote to my night at the opera, though at first I didn't recognize it as such. The piece started out with three dancers perched on ladders, bobbing their heads. They bobbed, then they kept bobbing, and when they were through with that they bobbed some more. I didn't think to check my watch but experientially it was about a quarter hour of bobbing. Then, very slowly, someone raised an arm. I thought Oh no. This.

Oh no quickly turned to oh my god. Somewhere early in the unfolding of her ideas (in my case, after the bobbing) Uchizono got our attention and she did not relinquish it until the house lights came up. She has a virtuoso sense of scale, zeroing in on riveting miniatures in one scene and zooming back out to big stark pictures in the next. Her use of video projection was actually poignant. I could try to describe some of her devices but choose not to, because there's so much pleasure in the surprise of watching them emerge.

That said, I'm going to go again Saturday and bring James. For the sheer concentration of interesting ideas, for the high success rate of its many experiments, you should go see this for yourself. So should the creators of Appommatox. Ticket information is here.