SFDANCEWORKS’ Season 8 opened at Z Space with a world premiere by JA Collective, a Bay Area premiere by Yue Yin, and another local debut by prodigy choreographer Emma Portner. With this dynamic program, SFDW continues its streak of compelling, forward-thinking seasons—each one building on the last—making its productions a must-see event in the Bay Area dance calendar. This cutting-edge lineup reflects the discerning eye and curatorial intuition of Artistic Director Dana Genshaft, who consistently brings together a mix of notable choreographers, exceptional dancers, and works of substance.
In Yue Yin’s A Measurable Existence, JA’Moon Jones and Nat Wilson made commanding debuts with SFDW. Clad in Christine Darch’s sheer, dreamy pant outfits and immersed in Rutger Zuydervelt’s thunderous, tribal-techno soundscape, the duo moved through a charged atmosphere. Jones and Wilson, fluid and undulating, seemed like two sides of the same magnetic force—Jones with a billowing afro, Wilson with a Bowie-esque mullet. Their sensual chemistry and extreme flexibility allowed them to drop into full splits from mid-air, as if falling from the sky. At one point, Asami Morita’s lighting design mirrored this descent: two stage lights dropped and then jerked into place, hanging like orange meteors above the dancers’ heads. This visual eruption redirected the dancers’ focus upward, prompting a vigorous shift in the choreography.
A Measurable Existence evokes the energetic dance of atoms and the gliding, repelling life of amoebas. Despite the lyrical complexity of the choreography and the intimate physicality between Jones and Wilson, an impersonal quality lingered in their relationship, suggesting the detached beauty of molecular interaction.
JA Collective’s Everything Happens Later is both an urbane achievement and an urban scenario—commuters on a subway. Five dancers bounce, jerk, and sway with the bone-rattling rhythm of transit, gripping imaginary overhead grab rails or holding onto vertical poles beside them, with their backs turned to the audience. The brilliance of the piece lies in its understated narrative and movement, driven by Mangiaracino’s soundscape of train clatter, ticket machines, and clanging railway crossing rhythms. It’s effortlessly comical—a slice of everyday life that urban dwellers know intimately but rarely examine.
The five dancers—Sarah Chou, Emily Hansel, Riley O’Flynn, Ja’Moon Jones, and Lani Yamanaka—embodied the diversity and fleeting intimacy of public transit. Each dancer is immersed in their own internal world, whether lost in thought or tuning out with headphones. At one point, dancers became human turnstiles, using elbows as levers, before transitioning into a sultry duet set to jazzy music. The piece ends with the commuters returning to their original positions, again facing upstage, as Lani Yamanaka—whose fluidity and precision were consistently mesmerizing—continues to dance, absorbed in the rhythm of her own universe. Everything Happens Later is a jolting, sharply paced, atmospheric perfection.
Choreographer Emma Portner danced her duet, “elephant,” with Brett Conway on opening night but was unable to do so for the next two performances. The piece is based on her experience with Trigeminal Neuralgia, a condition that causes “debilitating episodes beyond description.” Portner created “elephant” to explore whether a dance could exist that “doesn’t hurt.” Sadly, for her, it cannot.
Yet “elephant” stands powerfully on its own. It embodies the tension between resistance and surrender, the desperate attempts to coexist with an uninvited guest—pain. Much of the choreography unfolds while seated, with the dancers intertwined in a position reminiscent of the tantric “Yab Yum”—a face-to-face confrontation with the elephant in the room. There is no running away, no turning back—both partners shirtless, exposed, raw… vulnerable. Arms intertwined, looping, pushing, pulling, then surrendering, accepting before resisting, fighting—again and again.
For the second and third performances, Emily Hansel stepped in for Portner, bringing a different but equally compelling dimension to the piece. With her buzzed hair and androgynous presence, Hansel initially appeared male from behind, adding a gender ambiguity, and an additional layer of complexity to the work. Hansel, an exceptional dancer with the emotional intensity the piece demands, performed as if the choreography had been made for her.
SFDANCEWORKS’ Season 8 pushes the boundaries of contemporary dance, offering intricate, fast-paced movement sequences where loops, entanglements, and disruptions become portals to new forms of energetic expression. With each season, SFDW reaffirms its place at the forefront of innovation, emotion, and artistry.
David e. Moreno
