"An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. (Their) role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. (They) have to tell, because nobody else can tell what it is like to be alive." - James Baldwin
What does it mean to curate a season of dance and performance amidst an on-going pandemic, a relentless drought, and a time of social and political volatility? What is the purpose of live performance and what does it have the potential to do?
When we came together as two dance artists rooted in the Bay Area, Charles in San Francisco and amara in Oakland, we didn’t really know each other well. Through a series of conversations, though, we realized that we both shared a feeling of being overwhelmed by and depressed about our socio-political context, and a vision for how things might be different. We talked for hours about the field of dance, and about how we are still navigating our own challenges of making work. We talked about ODC Theater, about racism and privilege, and about wanting to raise the visibility of queer and BIPOC artists who we felt were making phenomenal art. We talked about performances that blew us away, and we thought about how this could be an opportunity to bring together a group of local and visiting artists whose work excites us, whose work we have long admired, and who we thought would be extraordinary for Bay Area audiences to experience.
Our 2022 ODC Theater season is a significant shift towards curation through a collaboration rooted in us getting to know each other, listening to what we each felt was important at this moment in time, and ultimately a collective desire to invite artists who we think have important and powerful voices, and whose work values community, people, and engagement.
The artists presented in this season range in their areas of interest, perspectives, and aesthetics. If there is a unifying theme in our curated season, it is that these artists are creating work that we feel will provide much needed breath, hope, and inspiration to move through this moment in time that we all find ourselves in. It is our hope that you too will experience the work in this way, being reminded as James Baldwin said, “…what it is like to be alive.”
In the Spirit of NOW,
amara tabor-smith and Charles Slender-White