Détente - Oakland Premiere
Thursday 8/22 & Saturday 8/24 at 8pm
Temescal arts center, 511 48th st. oakland, 94609 (12 min walk from macarthur bart)
Tickets $10-20 sliding scale (no one turned away for lack of funds)
Détente investigates displacement, the words’ meaning and impact. Through dance, video, and story, performers experiment with the “the act or process of displacing”, and what it means to be removed “from the usual or proper place; specifically: to expel or force to flee from home or homeland”. The work is inspired by choreographer Cherie Hill’s personal experience with displacement from Oakland, and is titled after an email her landlord sent months after battling to save her home.
Dancers Cherie Hill, Andreina Maldonado, and Rose Rothfeder transform internalized experience into physical expression using improvisational structures that play with ethereal senses of the body- finding and tracing invisible impressions while moving in and out of solo and group phrasing, dancing quickly through weaving pathways. Sections of the choreography explore complex emotions via an aesthetic that is a mix of subtleness and defiance. Video by Imani Karpowich.
Détente includes a special screening of Alice Street, an Endangered Films documentary, that captures Oakland in transition, undergoing population and culture shift, raising important questions about the need to preserve and defend arts and culture, and whether it is even possible for historically-marginalized communities to stop the momentum of gentrification once it’s begun.
Post performance discussion on gentrification and housing rights with Causa Justa: Just Cause follows each performance.
This event is made possible with support from Dancers’ Group’s CA$H grant program, and the Clorox Foundation. This work was developed through the Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now Artist Mentorship Program.
Post performance discussion on gentrification and housing rights with Causa Justa: Just Cause follows each performance.
This event is made possible with support from Dancers’ Group’s CA$H grant program, and the Clorox Foundation. This work was developed through the Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now Artist Mentorship Program.