Featured Article
Donor Profile: Susan Foster
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 Susan Foster has been a generous supporter of AXIS since 1999 after seeing the Bill T. Jones/AXIS piece, Fantasy in C Major. AXIS is tremendously grateful for her friendship and support, as we are to all of our donors that make this work possible. Thank you Susan for sharing your compelling and personal story! read more...
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Artistic Happenings
Judith Smith, Artistic Director
I love this work: in any given day you might find AXIS teaching, performing, or presenting at a corporation, university or community group. These days, you'll also find us having some serious fun creating a suite of vignettes inspired by the legendary Remy Charlip's whimsical Air Mail Dances.
What in the world, you might wonder, is an Air Mail Dance???
Read more...
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AXIS Nominated for 3 IZZIE Awards
AXIS Dance Company is thrilled to announce that our performances in the
2007/2008 season have been nominated
for three Isadora Duncan Dance Awards:
-Ensemble Performance, Rodney Bell and Sonsheree Giles, To Color Me Different by Alex Ketley (click here for an excerpt)
-Company Performance, the beauty that was mine, through the middle, without stopping by Joe Goode. (click here for an excerpt)
-Choreography, to Joe Goode, the beauty that was mine, through the middle, without stopping
THE 23TH ANNUAL ISADORA DUNCAN DANCE AWARDS
Monday, March 23, 2009
Brava Theater
2781 24th Street, San Francisco, CA
Reception 6 pm / Ceremony 7 pm
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AXIS Dancers Settle in CA Lawsuit
Smith vs. Hotels.com L.P.
OAKLAND, Calif. - Under a settlement announced today, Hotels.com and
Expedia.com, two of the world's leading online travel companies, have
agreed to add features to their online travel reservation systems so
that millions of travelers with disabilities can use their online
services to search for and reserve hotel rooms that have the
accommodations they need.
Plaintiffs in the
California lawsuit Smith v. Hotels.com L.P. were represented by the
public interest law firms of Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) and
Public Justice, and a leading class action law firm in Mill Valley,
Calif., Chavez & Gertler LLP. read more...
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AXIS Performances in March/April
For complete details on all performances please visit our website: http://www.axisdance.org/performance.php
VISION SERIES
Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center, San Francisco
Sat/Sun - 3/7 & 3/8 @ 4pm
Mix & Mingle and Talk with the Artists from 2:45-3:45pm
AXIS will be a guest artist at Dance Repertory's acclaimed VISION SERIES Dance Festival. AXIS Dancers will provide master classes and will perform.
AXIS in Residence at Del Oro High School
Del Oro High School, Loomis, CA
Fri - 3/13 @ 8pm
AXIS
will be in residency with the Del Oro High School Dance Department,
offering masterclasses, an all-school assembly and performing with Del
Oro Students.
Spring Dance Inspiration
Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center, San Francisco
Sat - 3/21 @ 8pm & Sun - 3/22 @ 3pm
AXIS
has been selected to perform in the unique Spring Dance
Inspiration, an annual benefit at which San Francisco Bay Area
artists perform to raise funds that support brain tumor research, patients and their
families. The event has helped raise over $70,000 for the National Brain Tumor Foundation.
Access Advisors' Open House and Disability Arts Festival
The de Young Museum, San Francisco
Sat - 3/28
A
day long event celebrating the arts and disability. Performances,
exhibitions, hands on art-making, and workshops. Check back for a more
detailed schedule or contact the de Young Museum.
Dance Access Performance for Youth
Spreckles Performing Arts Center, Rohnert Park, CA
Tues - 3/31
AXIS
dancers with and without disabilities perform innovative choreography
that demonstrates how people with differences can work together.
Includes interactive participation by students plus candid discussion
and Q&A with AXIS dancers. Bring your students to this thrilling
experience. Contact Spreckles Performing Arts Center for more information.
AGENCY: The Work of Artists - A Perfect Day
Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, CA
Sat - 4/4
AXIS will be part of A Perfect Day that
celebrates the dance, theater and book artistry of Remy Charlip, a much
loved painter, dancer, choreographer, theater director, children's book
author and illustrator. The day will include hands on art-making,
picknicking, masterclasses for families and performances of Air Mail Dances along with Joanna Haigood and her ZACCHO Dance Theatre.
ArtAbility : TransAccess Fundrasing Event
San Jose, CA
Sat - 4/18
AXIS
will perform a short piece at this benefit for TransAccess in San Jose.
For more information, to order tickets or to inquire about sponsorship
opportunities please contact Kelly Ramirez at (408) 278-2009
Bay Area Celebrates National Dance Week Performance
Mark Foehringer Dance Project|SF - Dancing in the Park
Sat - 5/2 @ 12-5pm
Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
AXIS will perform as one of 30 Professional dance companies, school
dance programs, solo artists and ethnic dancers coming together on an
outdoor stage for a free afternoon of performance in celebration of
National Dance Week.
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Outstanding Donor: Susan Foster
When I saw ballet dancers on the Bell Telephone Hour on television in 1954, I knew that dancing was for me. I asked my parents for ballet classes continually, until they finally relented when I was age seven. My mother, who had had polio as a child, found a suitable teacher in a ballet studio forty miles from our home. The studio was on the third floor of a building reached only by two very long flights of stairs. I will never forget the look on my mother's face when she saw those stairs, and nonetheless resolved to climb them for her daughter, the aspiring ballerina. My father then drove me every Saturday to those classes. The excellent teacher, Diana Morgan Welsh, had trained at Saddler's Wells, and she did an exceptional thing in her classes: at the end of class, she asked each student individually to perform an improvisation to a selected piece of music. I have continued to love dancing, making dances, watching dance, and writing about it, all my life.
Perhaps my favorite experience of AXIS occurred when I was able to show my mother a tape of one of their first repertory concerts, a production that included dances by Bill T. Jones, Joe Goode, Joanna Haigood, and Sonya Delwaide. My mother, who had always been very reticent to demonstrate in any way that she was differently abled as a result of her polio, alternately cried and marveled at the performance. It was one of the most moving things she ever saw, and it was equally moving for me to see her watch it.
Every year on my birthday, I give money to dance companies. It's my gift to myself. This year I asked friends also to donate in lieu of giving me presents. We don't need more things in the world today, more plastic to throw away. We need experiences that help us understand what a body is and can be. AXIS does that most excellently. Please join me in stimulating the economy: give to AXIS.
VIEW A COMPLETE LIST OF AXIS DONORS FOR THE PAST YEAR!
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Dance Access & Dance Access KIDS!
by Annika Nonhebel
Our Dance Access/KIDS! program has kicked off the new year with a fresh start! We have developed a brand new, interactive dance piece called Bounce Back, choreographed by Janet Das with music by Raja Das, especially created for our in-school assembly for k-5. The piece will be premiered in March and will definitely be shown at Dance Access Day on October 28.
A team of volunteers from the Taproot Foundation has worked for months to create a new Dance Access/KIDS! brochure. We are thrilled to announce that the brochure is in print as we speak. You can view an online version of the new brochure here.
http://axisdance.org/pdf/DAKbrochure_front.pdf
http://axisdance.org/pdf/DAKbrochure_back.pdf
Among other things we are excited about our upcoming collaboration with Albany High School. During this residency, students with and without disabilities will work with AXIS Dancers to create a performance piece. The students will be performing the work for elementary students in Albany along with AXIS Dance Company and folk music legend Gary Lapow.
As for our studio program. The teens are still meeting each week. Drop by one day and see the beautiful "face dances" we are working on. In April, we will make room for 4 weeks of creative Dance Classes for KIDS and a new series of adult workshops . (Check our class schedule online)
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Special Thanks
Thank you to the following individuals who have given generously of their time, resources and talents to AXIS since November!
AXIS Board of Directors, Catherine Cole & Scott Wallin of the UC Berkeley Performance Studies program, Katie Faulkner, John Killacky, Dr. Bruce Lawrence, Mary Luft & Tigertail Productions, Nancy Quinn, Megan Schirle, Anne Smith, Marilyn Straka, Louise Vesper and the Taproot Foundation brochure team: Anne Diaz, Mimi Basu, Joel Koosed, Jennifer Leonard, Dierdre Spencer, Ilona Sturm, DeWayne Walton.
PHOTO CREDITS: Banner & Izzie Article: Photos by Andrea Flores.
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