Intersectional Feminism Embodied
in RebollarDance Premiere
Evening-length “woman spectacular” Sacred Profane is a multi-company, cross-cultural collaboration between RebollarDance’s Erica Rebollar and women-led, DC-based dance companies. Premiering on Saturday, Oct 3 at 8pm and Sunday, Oct 4 at 7pm at Dance Place, the all-women cast highlights backgrounds in various dance genres and viewpoints. Rebollar collaborates with feminist punk rock dance band Tia Nina, South Asian Performing Arts Network (SAPAN) Institute, Somapa Thai Dance Company and guest artists Esther Geiger, Heather Doyle and Annemarie Clark.
Sacred Profane engages women of diverse ages, cultures and ethnicities to create an all-encompassing feminist work, at times delving into human rights issues and at times celebrating the irreverent joy of sisterhood. Using music composition by Jeffrey Dorfman coupled with pop songs and classical music, Sacred Profane skirts the boundaries of risk-taking. With special interest in the subjects of performativity, colonialization, orientalism, occidentalism, femininity and feminist culture, Rebollar presents manifestations of women as subject vs. object. Sacred Profane is a loose, provocative canvas of bodies in motion, placing movement stories in juxtaposition to each other in order to stimulate questions and challenge beliefs.
About Erica Rebollar & RebollarDance
With the founding of RebollarDance in 2003, Erica Rebollar created a modern dance collaborative where multi-genre artists can make innovative work. RebollarDance examines dichotomies and fragmentations of physical behavior that explore boundaries of performance, using bodies, light and sound as conceptual canvases to evoke authentic, highly-charged experiences for both dancers and audience.
Rebollar is a three-time Lester Horton Award nominee in LA. A resident of Mabou Mines Suites in NYC, Erica showed works at PS 122 and St. Mark’s Church. She received funding through Joyce Soho’s A.W.A.R.D show, performing at Judson Church, DTW (NY Live Arts), DNA, TPAC and the Flea.
Upon relocating to DC, RebollarDance has received funding from the Art Council of Fairfax County, Kennedy Center’s Local Dance Commissioning Project (LDCP) grant, Culture DC’s Mead Theatre Lab Program and space grants from American Dance Institute (ADI). The company has performed numerous evenings at Dance Place, LDCP/Kennedy Center, Harman Hall/Shakespeare Theatre, CityDance at Strathmore, ADI, Atlas Performing Arts Center, Roundhouse Theater and Jack Guidone Theater. Nominated for two Dance Metro DC Awards, RebollarDance has been highlighted as a Season Pick in Washington City Paper and The Washington Post with features on WAMU radio, FOX 5 and NBC news shows, along with a feature in the “Arts and Power” issue of DC Magazine/Modern Luxury. Hailed as “exactly what the District needs,” RebollarDance recently received a 2013 Dance Metro DC Award for “Excellence in Choreography.”
Erica is currently Visiting Professor in the Department of Dance at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. RebollarDance is the current awardee of Fairfax County Art Council’s Operating Support Grant and Dance Place’s Space Grant for the creation of Sacred Profane. Information at www.rebollardance.com
About Tia Nina
Tia Nina is the brainchild of DC area movement-based artists Leah Curran Moon, MPA PhD (J Van Stone), Ilana Silverstein, MFA (Sammy Rain) and Lisi Stoessel, MFA (Sticks) who founded the feminist punk rock dance band in 2011. By originating vivid, creative live performances of punk rock modern dance, voice & stage art and live-form puppetry, Tia Nina defines — unforgettably — the value of thinking critically about gender in popular culture.
Tia Nina has played the festival circuit including Capital Fringe (Washington, DC), Asheville Fringe (Asheville, NC), The Supernova Festival (Arlington, VA), The Festival of Subversive Ideas and Minds (College Park, MD) and Artscape (Baltimore, MD), as well as theatre venues including the Lang Theatre (Washington, DC), Gesa Powerhouse Theatre (Walla Walla, WA), EMP Collective (Baltimore, MD) and Single Carrot Theatre (Baltimore, MD). Tia Nina also performs in non-traditional venues, including SlutWalk DC on the National Mall and bars and clubs, like the Wonderland Ballroom. Tia Nina frequently hosts community events including an annual feminist haunted house, tailgate parties for modern dance concerts and feminist parties for artists and scholars.
Tia Nina shows have been included on the syllabi for Gender Studies courses, and the band has taught in the Dance and the Women’s Studies departments at University of Maryland, George Washington University, Whitman College and DeSales University. Tia Nina also teaches performance workshops at Girls Rock DC, a music camp for young girls. Tia Nina works with talented designers to create their original aesthetic. Collaborators have included composers Michael Moon, Eric Shimelonis and Troy Herion and costume designers Katy Kincade and Deb Sivigny. The band recently received a Space Subsidy Grant Award from Dance Metro DC. www.tianinarocks.com
About Somapa Thai Dance Company
The Somapa Thai Dance Company, based in the Washington DC Metropolitan area, has been actively giving performances, presentations, classes and workshops since 1999. Key performers have over 30 years of performance experience, trained in Thailand with the most celebrated dance masters including National Artists and others from the prestigious Department of Fine Arts in Bangkok, Thailand. The group has performed extensively in the DC Metropolitan area and has been invited to perform in many prestigious locations in the US and abroad (Mexico and Chile). They have performed in such locations as World Bank, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ Millennium Stage, Smithsonian Arthur M. Sackler and Freer Gallery of Art, the National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. The Somapa Thai Dance Company’s mission is to preserve and promote Thai culture and arts in the Americas. Through performances and workshops, the Company hopes to encourage understanding and appreciation of the arts between people of different countries, cultures and ethnicities in every community we visit.
About The SAPAN Institute
In Hindi, sapan translates to “dream,” which is precisely what the South Asian Performing Arts Network (SAPAN) Institute represented to its founders in 2007. Based in Washington, DC, SAPAN is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and advancing all South Asian performing arts, including dance, music and theater. With 30+ resident artists, the SAPAN Institute represents DC’s leading South Asian dancers, musicians and actors, who collaboratively strive to create innovative performance art by integrating their diverse backgrounds and passions.
In addition to their own productions, SAPAN has been honored to share its talents with the wider DC community at national events. Past performances include the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Smithsonian events such as Asia After Dark and Congressional Night, the Indian Embassy’s Natya Bharati Felicitation event and NetSAP DC’s Fusion 2013 at the Kennedy Center. The SAPAN Institute was also selected to participate in Dance Place’s 2015 New Releases Choreographers Showcase. Most recently, the SAPAN Performance Company partnered with the Smithsonian to develop and showcase a series of in-exhibit performances exploring the Indian-American experience as reflected in the Smithsonian’s groundbreaking Beyond Bollywood exhibit.
WHAT: RebollarDance
WHEN: Saturday, Oct 3 at 8pm and Sunday, Oct 4 at 7pm
WHERE: Dance Place, 3225 8th Street NE, Washington, DC 20017; two blocks from Redline Brookland/CUA Metro station; free and convenient parking
TICKETS: $30 Admission At the Door; $25 Admission (Advance Sales only)*; $20 Dance Place Members, Seniors (55+), Artists (Advance Sales only)*; $15 College Students and Children (17 & under)
*Advance Sales end 4 hours prior to performance start time.
To purchase tickets, visit danceplace.org or call 202.269.1600
