Fellow Travelers Performance Group, surrealists of movement based story telling, premier three new dance works over two weekends; In Good Taste, You Know Me Better, and 26 Movements, February 3-5 & 10-12, 2000 at 8:PM at ODC Theater, 3153 17th Street in San Francisco.
In what will be their first full production in over three years, Fellow Travelers Performance Group will premier works developed in conversations and collaborations while fulfilling Djerassi residencies. Fellow Travelers Performance Group is a modern dance company whose distinctive, intelligent style draws on dreams, myths and everyday life experiences to provide inspiration for their physical explorations of ordinary madness, called vigorously athletic,(with) absurdity, and non-sequiturs as guiding principles. The San Francisco Bay Guardian
Featuring 3 brand new works.
In Good Taste A new solo by Cynthia Adams has an original score by multi-instrumentalist, composer, and original instrument creator, Peter Whitehead. This piece examines Cynthia's memories of her two grandmothers using poetic text, gesture, and piles of hand knit clothing. The audience is taken on a tasty journey with a questioning look at our aging process.
26 Movements
Written by Poet Tom Beckett for Ken James during their residency at Djerassi. A literal vocabulary of movement, this list has been translated into a duet by Ken James and Cynthia Adams where John Wayne ambles through, while people bounce crouch, duck, elbow, fumble, go somewhere, have knee-jerk reactions and more!
You Know Me Better
What other people think of us affects us when they are our friends, but even when we have no idea who they are we want people to support our own view of ourselves. Imagine you are buying CDs and the woman behind the register looks at you with disbelief What kind of dweeb would listen to this?. Extra points off if you think she is nice and want her to like you.
This piece is about how people view each other, and how they view themselves. Conversations where you know they aren't listening, dances where you partner would give anything to be somewhere else, idiosyncrasies blown out of proportion. Nine sections watch from the outside and the inside of the mind.
It has been said that any social interaction is a civil war. We couldn't agree more.
Returning to Fellow Travelers from the original company are performers Chris Black and Andrew Alan Grant. Other Performers include Cynthia Adams, Ken James, Andrea Weber, and Jenny McAllister.
Fellow Travelers Performance Group incorporated as a Bay Area non-profit experimental modern dance company under the co-Artistic Direction of Cynthia Adams and Ken James in 1992. FTPG has performed locally, nationally, and internationally, and self-produced shows, cabarets, and showcases in theaters, parks, schools and almost anywhere people are interested in live performance. FTPG has acted as a fiscal sponsor for other Bay Area dance companies including Lizz Roman Dancers, Huckabay McAllister Dance, and Project Bandaloop. FTPG has produced over 90 artists in the Bay Area through seriesí and festivals such as Woman on the Edge. Fellow Travelers Performance Group is growing and thriving, mainly due to a strong artistic and organizational vision and the support and guidance of their Board of Directors.
Cynthia Adams been choreographing, performing, and teaching in the Bay Area for the past 13 years. Her choreographic film and video/dance works have been seen seen in New York City, Portland, Los Angeles, as well as Berlin. Since coming to the Bay Area in 1991, Cynthia s work has been performed at Dancers Group/Footwork, ODC Theater, Sonoma State University, San Jose State University, The San Francisco High School of the Performing Arts, 848 Divisadero, and Studio Five-One Five in Sacramento. She has performed with Kei Takeiís Moving Earth, Li Chiao Ping Dance, Marijoh Danztheatre. Project Bandaloop, and Dziga Vertov Performance Group. She holds an MA in choreography/Performance from UCLA, is a certified fitness at the Harbor Bay Club.
Ken James creates work which blends physicality and the absurd in thought provoking collages of performance informed by lying, tall tales and superstition. Ken has taught and shown his work across the county, and was guest artist at Hollins College in Virginia. He currently performs with POTRZEBIE Dance Project, Dziga Vertov performance Group and Project Bandaloop. He has performed with Kei Takeiís Moving Earth, Li Chiao Ping Dance, ONSITE, Chopsticks and Sneakers, and the UCLA Dance Company. Ken holds a BA in Philosophy from Oberlin College.
Lawrence LaBianca, Sculptor, works from memories of landscapes, people and stories. The imagery is a reflection of the tools and people who have transformed nature by simple means. The result is an archeological reference point of tool shapes, leaving the viewer to reconstruct a past and a feeling. Lawrence is an award winning artist, designer and fabricator whose work has been seen extensively in shows nationwide. Her many talents include developing interactive sculpture for dance, interior and exterior design, furniture and architectural design and fabrication, as well as freelance product research and design for Radwall and The North Face.
Sharon Green, Photographer, has had her commercial work in most local and many national magazines, as well as gernering aclaim for her personal studies and portraits.
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