SFDanceworks' program of vulnerability is the hot dance ticket of the summer

San Francisco Chronicle​

11-07-2025

The air was warm and the rafter seats were filled with the city's leading-edge dance artists for the opening of SFDanceworks.
Over eight seasons, the annual pick-up project devoted to contemporary dance with international avant-garde cred has become not just summer's hot ticket, but one of the must-see dates of the annual dance calendar. Yes, the triple-bill that opened at Z Space on Thursday, July 10, and continues through Saturday, July 12, is just one hour and 15 minutes long — and yes, I would gladly watch another hour of whatever artistic director Dana Genshaft, with her taste for movement as explosive as it is touching, might curate. But with dancing of such vulnerability and virtuosity, 75 minutes leaves you stepping back out into the twilight with your senses still abuzz.
We live in an age of viral dance clips on social media, and the big 'get' of this program was Emma Portner, a 30-year-old Canadian choreographer with nearly 250,000 followers on Instagram. Her wildly interesting biography includes choreographing a West End musical in London at the tender age of 20, directing movement for celebrity musicians and fashion campaigns, and now choreographing for ballet companies around the world. Her face without makeup, her hair in a utilitarian bun, she could be one of the unnervingly focused dancers of Batsheva Dance Company, except she's more relatable, more human than feral animal in her bite.
In 'Elephant,' a duet Portner created last year with Dutch dancer Toon Lobach and has since been touring around the world, she begins sitting on the floor with her pale, naked back to us, chest to chest with her partner in black pants, their legs entwined. Like two symbiotic plants with one root, the dancers lock arms in twisty negotiations of intimacy, rocking a handshake back and forth one moment, flinging out fingers like a tendril the next.
It's a simple choreographic premise that grows organically, aided by Portner's sensitivity to composers ranging from the richly classical work of Latvian composer Peteris Vasks to the jazz-inflected work of Finnish singer-songwriter Mirel Wagner, as well as music composed by arranger Alexander Mckenzie and recorded by his Trio Vitruvi. Repeat SFDanceworks collaborator Babatunji Johnson had been advertised to dance this engagement, but former Lines Ballet star and Nederlands Dans Theater member Brett Conway stepped in for this run, and though Johnson is missed, Conway's return to the stage feels like a gift. His precision is extraordinary, and his connection to Portner — who created the duet in response to a chronic facial pain condition — is exquisitely gentle.
JA Collective is another viral Instagram phenomenon—the Los Angeles duo composed ofAidan Carberry and Jordan Johnson, who studied with the justly venerated William Forsythe at USC, took off when they choreographed a video for the band Half Alive. This second commission created expressly for SFDanceworks, 'Everything Happens Later,' finds them in a New York state of mind.
Five standing dancers shake and rock to a soundscape of train rumblings and screeches; the effect of making us believe they are riding the subway is low-tech as it is compelling. The dance seems to bring us inside an inner world of intense emotions before regularly returning us to the simple, trudging reality of that train. JA Collective's movement style tends to be granular, built on intricate, tiny gestures. But here, Sarah Chou also explodes regularly in a big arabesque reach, and the canvas feels expanded. Emily Hansel becomes a human turnstile the others push, then has an especially beautiful duet with Lani Yamanaka, mouthing a whisper as she presses her face against an outstretched arm. The special effects-inspired music, by fellow USC grad Daniel Mangiaracino, isn't the most memorable, but it does the job.
This program launches with flowing, hungry, bounding movement in 'A Measurable Existence,' a Bay Area premiere by New York choreographer Yue Yin, creator of a dance technique, FoCo, drawing on her Shanghai-born background in Chinese classical and folk dance. Ja'Moon Jones and Nat Wilson are jaw-droppingly lovely together, equally sensitive dancing in unison and in close embrace.
The music by Dutch sound artist Rutger Zuydervelt is heavy on ominous chord builds, which didn't make for an optimal contrast with JA Collective's premiere. In the next SFDanceworks program, it might be good to have a touch more music in the soundscape, a little less atmosphere. And I do miss the piece in SFDanceworks' mission of placing the new alongside now-historical avant-garde works (in the past Genshaft has presented solos by Martha Graham and José Limón). But this isn't critique so much as begging: More SFDanceworks soon, please.