About this project

Dear Fans and Supporters!
My name is brittany and I direct an ensemble of dancers who devour the performance arena with weighted fluidity, extensions that reach through time, and a dynamically expressive commitment. Described by critics as, "swift and irresistible" (Allan Ulrich, Voiceofdance.com, 7/06) and "lucid and voluptuous" (Rita Felciano, SFBG, 12/07), the core inspiration of the work examines community, crisis and resilience through intricate and energetic dance. I have produced in the Bay Area, Portland, San Diego, New York, New Zealand & regionally via the American College Dance Festival over the past 20 years. I currently have a dedicated, talented and rising group of dancers, who are passionate about the work and we have multiple non-paid performances a year. Even more recently, Mary Ellen Hunt for the San Francisco Chronicle closed her review stating that my latest work was “profoundly affecting” (MEH, 6/09). We are gaining traction here in the Bay Area, but funding is a constant battle which limits my ability to pay for talent to perform at the highest caliber and therefore challenge my choreographic vision and further the artistry of the work.

We’ve all heard the phrase “you have to have money, to make money”! --Only a reality for a few. I’ve always believed that creatively & hard work can help bridge this gap, however the right opportunity can create a platform for launch. Recently, I’ve been given an opportunity to create work for two seasoned veteran dancers, who have spent years of their careers dancing for major US Dance companies: Yukie Fujimoto of ODC/SF Dance and Roel Seeber of Project Bandaloop and the Jose Limon Company in NYC. These two wildly successful and captivating individuals want to work with me… but they will need to be paid an appropriate wage for their rank. This is a rare and vital opportunity for my work to be danced by an elite couple, highlighting the nuance and detail of my phrasing in precise and expansive ways – if a professional dancer can make bad work look reasonable, imagine what my already acclaimed movement can evoke? This has the potential to thrust my work into a higher echelon, making my company worthy of new levels of future funding to pay the artists involved.

I wholeheartedly embrace the digital age, but a youtube video will never replace a live performance. It will never capture the subtulties and nuance of that of a live interaction. This is about keeping live performance alive on project at a time.

The project on which we embark draws accordance from the ruthlessness and inconsideration of the flowing river -- it does not sleep and it devours ravenously. It nurtures, but it does not care. It simply exists in the thoroughness of movement. There is no judgment, only growth and functionality. Maybe we understand this form of endlessness because there is no mechanism for stopping. In contrast, the damage we create is from decision, not biological unavoidability. We are destructive to one another on purpose, for even the slightest difference, not inevitably… or is it inevitable? Human fear, anger, oblivion and confusion facilitate destruction, yet the river knows nothing of judgment or difference. Wash out the human in me and let me be like the river. Would this cleanse my wrong-doings? Would it help me to forgive yours?

‘Columbia Chasing’, studying the defining differences between the path of water and the fluidity of the individual, will highlight my strengths as a dancemaker. Through the process of abstraction, we reveal the stab of shock and the spark of surprise are one in the same action. Whether through devastation or elation, the immediate state of disbelief renders us motionless. In exploring queer families, the state of constant change for LGBT communities and the purposefulness of the rushing river, our work celebrates the moments in time that profoundly surprise us. The body knows when it is finished grieving. It becomes lighter. It flows again.

It is the mission of dance ceres is to realize subtlety through action, individuality through community, immediacy through timelessness, and equality through art.
Please viisit us online at www.danceceres.org
• Read more about our work at http://danceceres.blogspot.com/
• Watch our videos at http://www.youtube.com/danceceres
• Follow us on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/danceceres
• Become our fan on facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/dance-ceres/255422430122
• Viewing on your smart phone? check out our mobile site! http://m.wbx.me/danceceres

Thank you for your time and consideration. We are so grateful for your interest in supporting live performance!
Photo of the company by Dave Rhea, Music on the video by Phoenix