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Choreographer Kim Epifano is collaborating with Michael Bernard
Loggins and Creativity Explored to transform Loggins’ book Fears
of Your Life into a multidisciplinary theater performance
exploring themes of fear and difference. The finished piece
will feature dance and movement to an original soundscape on a
gallery stage where performers interact with moveable painted sets,
giant sculptural puppet-masks, and animated video projection. Also
collaborating are AXIS Dance Company, visual artist Michael Stasiuk,
and animator Todd Herman.
In his acclaimed book, Fears of Your Life, Michael Bernard
Loggins, an African American adult with development disabilities,
tackled his ideas about fear by writing them down, almost 200 of
them, in a numbered and self-illustrated list. Loggins, an artist
member of Creativity Explored since its inception, has shown his
artwork widely and collaborated with artists in other visual media. He
will be involved in the entire creative process with Epifano to
adapt and expand on the themes in his book, keep a running list
of fears that come up for himself and the other artists as the
project unfolds, and provide guidance and feedback to other members
of the creative team.
Kim Epifano has a 25-year history in the Bay Area as a teacher,
performer, vocalist, choreographer, and collaborator. She
is a pioneer of sonic dance theater, a multidisciplinary method
of performance storytelling integrating dance, sound, music, and
theater. In Fears of Your Life she saw a story that
was directly relevant to a population that is too frequently voiceless,
and imperative to a society that often has an unhealthy relationship
to fear. With Creativity Explored, an arts organization for
adults with developmental disabilities, Epifano has gathered a
community of artists inspired by Loggins’ work. She
is working on the choreography with AXIS Dance Company, an acclaimed
ensemble composed of dancers with and without physical disabilities.
The dancers also will interact with a dynamic, moveable set and
life-size papier maché props created from Loggins’ illustrations
in Fears of Your Life. Artist-educator Michael Stasiuk,
who builds fantastic masks, puppets, and props for the stage and
has been working on community theater projects with Epifano for
more than 20 years, will lead a 10-day prop making workshop at
Creativity Explored. The set for “Fears of Your Life” will
be an interactive art gallery. Projected onto the backdrops will
be animated shorts drawn from Loggins’ illustrations made
by animator Todd Herman—a former instructor at Creativity
Explored, and a long time mentor and friend to Loggins. The
final performance of the project will be accompanied by a gallery
showing of work by Creativity Explored artists, curated by Francis
Kohler.
The staged version of Fears of Your Life will be the
first foray into the performing arts for Creativity Explored. The
organization sees the project as a learning opportunity for its
member artists and a means of furthering its mission of educating
the larger community about the great creative richness of individuals
with disabilities.
Kim Epifano
Kim Epifano has a 25-year history in the San Francisco Bay Area
as a performer, vocalist, choreographer, teacher and collaborator. She
is known for her innovative and interdisciplinary “sonic
dance theater,” a high-energy, genre-bending blend of dance,
theater, music, and vocalization in which dancers, musicians,
aerialists, and actors leap from one role to another, weaving
a story on stage. Since founding her company Epiphany Productions
in 1997, she has presented 15 major works and has been recognized
five times by the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards.
Epifano performs and teaches adults and children all over the
world and has an enduring commitment to working with adults with
disabilities. In College in Salt Lake City, she danced with
the Sunrise Dance Company, directed by Anne Riordan, which featured
dancers with and without disabilities, and received a grant from
the Utah Arts Council to teach adults with disabilities at a state-run
facility in Provo. In San Francisco, she has taught at a
program for adults with development disabilities at the Potrero
Hill Neighborhood House.
Recent Highlights of Individual Choreography, Soundscore,
and Direction
Lotta’s
Opera May 6 and 7th 2006, for the Centeniel of the 1906 earthquake
Presented
by San Francisco Art Commission, Art on Market Street
- Artistic Director and Choreographer, San Francisco Trolley
Dances, (2004 & 2005)
- “Cawville,” St. Louis, Missouri (2004)
- “Ours Not Ours,” Lower Left, Sushi, San Diego,
California (2004)
- “Songs for Mileva,” “Nonninonno,” and “Speak
the Language,” Scooa residency, Veolcity Dance Center,
Seattle, Washington and University of California, Santa Barbara
(2004)
- “The River’s Site,” Trolley Dances, San Diego,
California (2003)
- “Einstein’s Daughters,” Cowell Theater, San
Francisco, California and Sushi Performance Space and Gallery,
San Diego, California (2003)
- “E Motion of Atoms,” Dance Mission Theater, San
Francisco, California (2002)
- “I don’t Know How to Kiss You,” San Francisco
Lesbian & Gay Dance Festival, Dance Mission Theater,
San Francisco, California; Aerial Dance Festival, Boulder, Colorado
(2001-02)
- Mathematics of the Heart,” Dancer’s Group Summer
Intensives Festival performance, The Marsh; San Francisco Street
Theater Festival, San Francisco, California (2001)
- Below Zero, Theater Artaud, San Francisco, California (2001)
(Received Bay Area Isadora Duncan Dance award for set design
and nominated for soundscore)
Performance Groups
- Artistic director, dancer, performer, and vocalist, Epiphany
Productions (1997-present)
- Principal dancer, singer, costume designer, and contributing
choreographer for Oracle, Reigare, Mira I, Mira II, and Mira
III, Contraband (1988-97)
- Principal dancer, costume designer, and choreographer, The
Dance Brigade (1984-97)
- Dance Brigade Principle Dancer, singer and choreographer (1985-1991)
- Martial artist/dancer, Corpo Santos, Oakland, California; United
States Capoeira Team; placed first in the 1983 Women’s
International Competition; performed in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo,
and Bahia, Brazil (1983-90)
- Teacher/performer, touring Guatemala teaching health education
through dance and theater in rural communities, United States
Peace Corps (1979-80)
Selected Grants/Awards
NEA
Trolley Dance 2005/2006
- Walter and Elise Haas Fund for Trolley Dances (2004)
- Fleishhacker Foundation for Trolley Dances (2004)
- National College Choreographers Initiative, DanceUSA, University
of California Santa Barbara and University of North Dakota (2003-04)
- Djerassi Foundation Aritst Residency, awarded William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation Honorary Fellowship in recognition for work
in residency (2002)
- National College Choreographers Initiative, DanceUSA (2004,
2002)
- Theater Bay Area’s CA$H Fund, (2004, 2002)
- Grants for the Arts of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund (2000-present)
- WESTAF Touring and Presenting Program (2001)
- Sheridan Arts Foundation (1999-2000)
- San Francisco Arts Commission Art on Market Street, OPG
(1997-02-04-06)
Recent Highlights of Teaching Experience
- Dance Theater Professorship, San Diego State University (2003-04)
- Guest Professor, Dance Department, Goucher College (2003)
- Guest Professor, Dance Department, Mills College (2002)
- Adjudicator, instructor, National College Dance Competition,
Arizona State University (2002)
- Guest professor, Theater Department, University of North Dakota
(2001)
- Workshop leader, classes & performance, Tanzinitiative
Dock 11, K77, Germany (2001)
- Dance and improvisation workshops, Colorado Dance Festival
(1998-9; 2001, 2005)
- Choreographed and set work on students, taught master classes,
San Diego State University and City College of San Diego (2001)
- Guest Professor, Department of World Arts and Cultures, University
of California, Los Angeles (1999-2000)
- Choreographer, Dance Department, University of California,
San Diego (1998-01)
Recent Highlights of Teaching Experience with Children
and Youth
- Artist-in-residence, Children’s Storefront School, Harlem,
New York City (1996-present)
- Artistic Co-director, Telluride Academy; Co-director with Sally
Davis of The Mudd Butt Mystery Theater Troupe (1986-present)
Recent Theater exchange Uchisar Turkey April 2006
- Choreographer Marsh Youth Theater, The Marsh, San Francisco,
CA (2002-present)
Michael Bernard Loggins
Michael Bernard Loggins has been an artist member of Creativity
Explored since its inception in 1983. His artwork ahs been
shown in the San Francisco Bay Area, nationally, and internationally. He
has appeared in two films, including a biographical documentary
titled, “Life Itself.” Fears of Your Life was
first published in a ‘zine format in 1998. Portions
were published in The Sun, a magazine of literature,
poetry, and photography. In 2003, Fears was featured
on Chicago Public Radio’s “This American Life” with
Ira Glass, and appeared in the June issue of Harper’s Magazine. A
hardbound edition of Fears was published by Manic D
Press in 2004. As a writer, Michael continues to be an
avid list maker.
Exhibition Sites
- Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California
- Inside Out Gallery, San Francisco, California
- San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, California
- SOMARTS, San Francisco, California
- Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, San Francisco, California
- Southern Exposure, San Francisco, California
- Market Street Kiosks, Market Street Art in Transit Project,
San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco, California
- Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles, California
- Bronwyn Keenan Gallery, New York, New York
Michael Stasiuk
Exhibitions
- “Sculpture from Found Objects,” group exhibition,
Fire House Gallery, Damariscotta, Maine (2004)
- “Reconfigured,” two-person show, Clark Gallery,
Lincoln, Massachusetts (2003)
- “The Figure as Object,” group exhibition curated
by Gail Brown, Southern Highland Craft Guid Folk Art Center,
Asheville, North Carolina (2003)
- “LaLapalooza,” three person show, George Marshall
Store Gallery, York, Maine (2002)
- “Figures from Found Objects,” solo exhibition,
New England Biolab Gallerey, Beverly, Massachusetts (2002)
- “Found Object Show,” selected artists from Dorothy
Spencer’s book Found Object Art, The Works Gallery,
Phiadelphia, Pennsylvania (2002)
- “An Evening of Earthly Delights, art auction to benefit
the museum, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, Massachusetts
(2002)
- “Assembled Figures,” two person show, Clark Gallery,
Lincoln, Massachusetts (2002)
- “Recreation/Re-Creation: Fun with Found Objects,” group
exhibition curated by Bobby Hansson, The Noyes Museu, Oceanville,
New Jersey (2002)
- “ARTcetera,” art auction to benefit the Aids Action
Committee, Boston, Massachusetts (2002, 2000, 1998)
Todd Herman
Exhibitions
- Showings of film “Life Itself”: Pacific Film Archive,
Berkeley, California (2002); Sacramento Film Festival, Sacramento,
California (2002); Manchester Film Festival, Manchester, Vermont
(2002); The Roxie Cinema, San Francisco, California (2002); The
Nerve Center, Derry, Ireland (2002); Red Vic Movie House, San
Francisco, California (2002); Exploratorium, San Francisco, California
(2002); Art Lab Ova, Japan (2001); California College of Arts
and Crafts, San Francisco, California (2001); Koret Auditorium,
San Francisco New Main Library (2001)
- Showing of film “Clown,” Noh Space Theater, San
Francisco, California (2002)
- San Francisco International Black Film Festival, San Francisco,
California (2002)
- “One Heart, One World,” international traveling
exhibit of photography and painting (2001-02)
- “Spectra 2001,” Group Photography Exhibtion, New
Canaan, Connecticut (2001)
- “Kathmandu: Impressions, solo photography exhibit, San
Francisco City Hall, San Francisco, Caifornia (2000)
- Group film show, Film Arts Foundation, San Francisco, California
(1999)
- Group film show, The Substation, Singapore (1997)
- Group film show, San Francisco Cinematheque, San Francisco,
California (1996)
- Group film show, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California
(1996)
Awards
- Taipei Artists Village Residency Award (2005)
- San Francisco Arts Commission Emerging Curator Award (2005)
- Theater Bay Area CA$H Grant, San Francisco, California (2002)
- Artists Residency at the Derry Playhouse, Arts Council of Northern
Ireland, Derry, Ireland (2002)
- San Francisco Arts Council Technical Assistance Grant (2001)
- Odell Foundation, San Francisco, California (2000)
- Film Arts Foundation Grants, San Francisco, California (1996,
1992, 1989)
- Media Arts Fellowship, Western States Arts Federation (1994)
Curatorial
- “In Passing,” San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery,
San Francisco, California (2004-05)
- “Don’t Call Me Retard,” Jewett Gallery, San
Francisco New Main Library, San Francisco, California (2004)
- “Beauty Shop,” (film component), Noh Space, San
Francisco, California (2003)
- “Don’t Call Me Retard,” Creativity Explored,
San Francisco, California (2002)
- “Abstractions,” SOMARTS Gallery, San Francisco,
California (2001)
- “What’s Love Mean to You?” Creativity Explored
Gallery, San Francisco, California (2000)
Publications
- In Passing, A Book About Death, Dancing Tree Press
(2004)
- Article on co-curated art exhibit, “Don’t Call
Me Retard,” ArtWeek (2002)
- Article on film, “Life Itself,” Film Tape World (2002)
- Article on film, “Life Itself,” San Francisco
Weekly (2001)
- Article on film, “Life Itself,” Potrero View (2001)
- Article on film, “Life Itself,” San Francisco
Chronicle (2001)
- Article on film, “Life Itself,” New Mission
News (2001)
- Article on “Kathmandu: Impressions” photography
project, ZOOM Photography International (2001)
AXIS Dance Company
Since 1987, AXIS Dance Company has created an exciting body of
work developed by dancers with and without disabilities. It is
in the forefront of paving the way for a powerful and inclusive
dance form, “physically integrated dance.” AXIS has
performed in theaters and dance spaces at its home base in Oakland
and the Bay Area, on tour throughout the U.S. as well as in Germany
and Siberia. AXIS has become one of the premiere physically integrated
companies and is known internationally for setting high artistic
and educational standards. Under the Artistic Direction of Judith
Smith, their repertory includes works by AXIS choreographers
as well as world-class choreographers and composers including
Bill T. Jones, Stephen Petronio, Ann Carlson, Joe Goode, Joanna
Haigood, Sonya Delwaide, Victoria Marks, Joan Jeanrenaud, Meredith
Monk, Fred Frith, Eve Beglarian, Katrina Wreede and SoVoSo. New
works by Margaret Jenkins, Joe Goode and Victoria Marks will
join the repertory in 06/07. AXIS has established itself
as an important Bay Area dance company and has gained national
visibility as an exciting contemporary repertory company.
AXIS has been recognized with numerous awards that include five
Isadora Duncan Dance Awards and six nominations for both artistic
merit and production values and a GOLDIE 2000 Award from the SF
Bay Guardian. Oakland’s Mayor Jerry Brown awarded AXIS
a ‘Key to Creativity‘ in 2002 in honor of our artistic
achievements. The Company has also received numerous awards
from the organizations in the disability community.
The Company has created over forty repertory works, two evening
length works and two works for young audiences. AXIS has been commissioned
to create works for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Bates Dance
Festival, San Francisco Exploratorium and the CAL Performances
and UAM/PFA’s Off the Wall series. They’ve been featured
in several national and local broadcasts including public television
KQED’s Spark program in 2004, WNET’s nationally-broadcast
production of People In Motion as well as in a documentary video,
Dancing From the Inside Out, which won over a dozen awards including
Dance On Camera in New York and the National Educational Film and
Video Festival. AXIS dancers have also served as consultants
and models for the creation of Life Forms choreography software
used to introduce disabled students to dance and choreography.
Among the Company’s most notable performances are the Olympic
Arts Festival, Salt Lake City; Meredith Monk’s 40th Anniversary
Celebration at St. Marks Church in-the-Bowery & the World Financial
Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; New York;
Central Park Summerstage, New York; Paralympics, Atlanta; Florida
Dance Festival, Miami; Walker Arts Center/Southern Theater, Minneapolis;
Cal Performances and UAM/PFA, Berkeley; The Hopkins Center at Dartmouth
College, Hanover, NH; Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington,
VT; UMass Fine Arts Center, Amherst, MA; University of Koln, Germany;
Dance Umbrella’s International Festival of Aerial Dance in
Boston; and Railroad Theater, Novosibirsk, Siberia.
In addition to performing, AXIS maintains an extensive Community
Education Outreach program, Dance Access and its youth component
Dance Access/KIDS!. These programs offer a wide array of activities
including ongoing classes for youth and adults; in-school workshops,
classroom visits and assembly performances; residencies in schools
and communities; lecture demonstrations; workshops, masterclasses
and Teacher Trainings. This model program is receiving much local
and national attention. Our Assembly Program is in high demand
and is on the roster of Young Audiences Bay Area and featured prominently
on the Young Audience's Arts4Learning website, an excellent resource
for teachers nationwide
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