By Mary Carbonara–
Krissy Keefer’s Dance Brigade will kick off its 50th Anniversary Season with a West Coast Tour, January 9–19, 2025, of A Woman’s Song for Peace, a new dance theater work featuring original live music and performances by iconic musician and activist Holly Near, seminal queer feminist singer-songwriter Ferron, and groundbreaking Afro-Caribbean jazz artist Christelle Durandy, intertwined with Dance Brigade’s fierce, nuanced choreography.
Dance Brigade is sponsoring this seven-city tour to make an indelible mark on the upcoming inauguration. This is a cry for peace to end all wars so that peace and justice can prevail, not only in the Middle East, but also in Sudan, Ukraine, and at our borders and inner cities of the United States. “As we move through an intense and divisive presidential election cycle in which these issues are front and center, Dance Brigade offers A Woman’s Song for Peace with the aim of reorienting audiences to our shared humanity and desire for peace. We believe that this collaboration can unify and activate people. We offer it as a gift to our communities for healing, transformation, and a vision for a way forward,” Keefer told me for the San Francisco Bay Times.
Her work explores the intersection between art and social issues with fierce inventiveness and a deft comic touch. Her content-driven choreographies are a high-energy blend of ballet, modern dance, jazz, song, text, sign language, and explosive Taiko drumming. She explained that the plan for A Woman’s Song for Peace manifested long before the election.
She explained, “The tour also is about invigorating the past, and celebrating the artists who are still going. This work is even more important now. There is no time like the present to manifest the future and the future should be on everyone’s minds. Our words and actions matter. Our art and our hearts matter. Taking a stand together matters. It takes all of us. We cannot give up.”
Birthed out of the Wallflower Order Dance Collective in Eugene, Oregon, in 1975, Dance Brigade has carried on a legacy of provocative, feminist dance, producing cutting-edge productions exploring the intersection between art and social justice. What broke ground in the 1970s has evolved into an institution comprising Dance Brigade; Grrrl Brigade, an empowerment program for San Francisco girls ages 9 to 18; and Dance Mission, a dance center in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission district. Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, Dance Mission is dedicated to building community, addressing social justice issues, exploring cultural identities, promoting inclusivity, and creating a more peaceful world through collective action. Many women artists, artists of color, and culturally specific ensembles consider Dance Mission to be their artistic home.
After more than 50 years of her own bold work, Holly Near is still one of the most consistent and well-informed voices for change. Her work is loving, challenging, funny, thought-provoking, and remains rooted in the global community. An outspoken singer and ambassador for peace, Near brings a unique integration of world consciousness and self-evaluation, always growing and sharing experience humbly and boldly. A recipient of dozens of awards from organizations such as the ACLU and the National Organization of Women, she was one of Ms Magazine’s Women of the Year recipients and has been nominated for Grammys as well as the Legends of Women’s Music Award.
When asked what she hopes audiences will take away from A Woman’s Song for Peace, Near responded, “What I have gathered over the 55 years of performing is that people go away feeling better than when they came in. Emboldened. Reminded of who they are before someone started chipping away at it.”
Near remains prolific, despite recently battling cancer and a mild stroke from which she says there are “some post-treatment consequences but nothing I can’t live with.” In 2019, she launched “Because of a Song,” an online archive documenting feminist and lesbian music that burst forth from Oakland, California, and which continues to grow as more women contribute to the site (www.becauseofasong.com). “I hope women will record their experiences all over the country, all over the world. Just leave your stories to be found,” she said.
Near recently produced a recording with pianists Mary Watkins and Tammy Hall and is finishing a DVD put together from material she performed with her sisters in the 1980s. She continues to work on a book of essays about her various life experiences from her work in Chile Solidarity, involvement in the development of lesbian feminist music, and lessons learned from cross-cultural collaborations. She said, “I think when all that is done, I will rest!”
Ferron explains that these days it takes a lot for her to get out on the road to perform, but for A Woman’s Song for Peace, all she needed was a text. She shared, “Krissy texted, ‘Would you be interested in doing something for peace?’ I wanted to say no.”
Instead, she said yes.
“I don’t have a new message,” Ferron said. “I’ll be singing It Won’t Take Long, which I wrote in 1983. Audiences are coming out because they’re depressed and they remember that we could get together and make the world a better place, even for 90 minutes. I’m hoping the young and old will come out and create positive energy to respond to the negative message.”
Near, in turn, shared this about her upcoming performances as part of the tour: “I often don’t decide what I will sing until the sound check the day of the concert because I want to speak to what is hovering over the audience. I will certainly sing I Am Willing because that is my hold-me-together song. To remain willing, teachable, open-hearted. Those might sound easy to some, but for me, to do them well, they are a life challenge.”
In addition to sets by Near and Ferron, Dance Brigade will perform an excerpt from Keefer’s 2020 The Butterfly Effect, an antiwar piece with dance and Taiko drumming, and a 2017 work paying homage to protest songs from the late 1960s to today with musical direction by Durandy.
Rounding out the cast of musicians and dancers ranging in age from 18 to 75 are Jan Martinelli, Tammy Lynne Hall, Michaelle Goerlitz, Shelley Jennings, Lena Gatchalian, Bianca S. Mendoza-Prado, Deb’e Taylor, Dominique Hargrove, Frances Sedayao, Fredrika Keefer, Johanna Gormley, Kimberly B Valmore, KJ Dahlaw, Megan Lowe, Sarah Bush, Sierra Tiatia, and Vivian Dai.
Dance Brigade’s 50th Anniversary celebration will continue with the premiere of Match Girl, a fractured fairytale about class struggle and the drug and homeless crisis in San Francisco as it relates to poverty, addiction, skyrocketing housing costs, and the lack of political will to make exacting change. Performances will be held January 19–28.
In November 2025, Dance Mission Theater will mark its 25th anniversary featuring Dance Mission friends and colleagues in a huge performance celebration at a San Francisco venue to be announced. For more information, go to https://bit.ly/49K0q6j
A Woman’s Song for Peace will be performed at various venues in Oregon, January 9–12. The California performances will take place on January 15 at the Center Theatre/Mendocino College in Ukiah, January 17 at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, January 18 at the Crocker Theater/Cabrillo College in Aptos, and January 19 at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco. For tickets and information about all tour dates, go to
https://bit.ly/4gixLHX
Mary Carbonara is a writer, dancer, choreographer and arts educator in San Francisco.
Arts & Entertainment
Published on December 19, 2024
Recent Comments