PROJECTS

BREAKING GROUND: A DANCE CHARRETTE (2008)

Photos: Vidiot and Matthew Heggem

Breaking Ground: A Dance Charrette, produced by Dancing in the Streets, is a multi-year urban voyage to the far corners of New York City that invites choreographers and audiences to explore new ways of making and viewing dance while exploring compelling New York City sites and the stories they tell.

Coined in the 1800s, the term "charrette" originally referred to an intensive course for architectural students in Paris, who were given 72 hours to solve a complex design problem and then place their plans in carts ("charrettes") and rush them to the Ecoledes Beaux Arts.

The dance charrette was conceived by Joanna Haigood as an invigorating exercise for choreographers, challenging them to create a site-specific work in five days with no prior knowledge of the site, its location, characteristics or the stories it contains. The site of this year's charrette was Hangar B at Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn.

Visit the WEBSITE of DANCING IN THE STREETS

THE SHIFTING CORNERSTONE (2008)

Photos: John Kent

The Shifting Cornerstone, commissioned by Dancers' Group, explored the character and the rhythm of Mission Street through a series of simultaneous vignettes continuously looped for 5 hours each day. Some vignettes focused on the subtle and more nuanced facets of this busy street, while others introduced imagery that challenged the viewer's general notion of the place itself.

View a photo SLIDESHOW from THE SHIFTING CORNERSTONE

THE MONKEY AND THE DEVIL (2008)

Photos: Shamsher Virk

Drawing from their individual family histories and antebellum South Carolina choreographer Haigood and visual artist Trapolin wove their histories together to create a poetic performance installation. The work reflected how slave history and its legacy of skeptical and misinformed race relations continue to influence how blacks and whites relate today, and more broadly, how the presence of unexamined perceptions subvert genuine social and economic equality.

View a photo SLIDESHOW from THE MONKEY AND THE DEVIL

DEPARTURE AND ARRIVAL (2007)

Photos: Walter Kitundu

The 2007 San Francisco International Arts Festival opened with Departure and Arrival, a landmark site-specific performance by Zaccho Dance Theatre at the International Terminal of the San Francisco International Airport. Directed by Joanna Haigood, Departure and Arrival is a performance installation that focuses on the history and the social and cultural implications of the African Diaspora in the United States. Beginning with the arrival of slave ships and spanning to present day immigration, Departure and Arrival chronicles the lives and contributions of Africans and African Americans in America while creating a tangible bridge between today's native and foreign-born citizens.

The performance is a visual and poetic essay that incorporates the elegant architectural features of the International Terminal, aerial dance, video projection and a music and sound/text score. Collaborators include designer Wayne Campbell, composer Walter Kitundu and video artist Ricardo Rivera.

View the COMPLETE PROGRAM for DEPARTURE AND ARRIVAL
View a photo SLIDESHOW from DEPARTURE AND ARRIVAL

DANCES AROUND THE HOUSE (2005)

Photos: Andy Mogg

Dances Around the House is an evening-length solo dance work created by collaborating choreographers Joanna Haigood and Remy Charlip. Dances Around the House premiered at the Exploratorium on January 14th & 15th, 2005.

For over 25 years Remy Charlip has been sending his invention Air Mail Dances to soloists and companies all over the world. The performer/choreographer receives drawn dance scores of 20 single figures on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper and without instructions from Charlip, orders them, creates transitions between positions and provides the context and meaning. While the movement score may be the same for several artists, the resulting performance is incredibly unique - drawing on individual aesthetics, movement vocabularies and personal experience. This reflects Charlip's interest in collaborations and seeing how artists comment on his original impulse. Air Mail Dances has allowed artists all over the world to create innovative works based on Charlip's drawings.

Haigood brought five of Charlip's scores to life in Dances Around the House. The scores included Dance for a Doorway, Sweeping Dance, and Dances for Three Steps. Sculptor Wayne Campbell designed a set of objects typically found in a house, which will be suspended above the Exploratorium's Distorted Room. Charlip and Haigood produced a fanciful, challenging and thought provoking performance piece. Joanna Haigood is an artist in residence at the Exploratorium and has been working on the phenomenon of shadows, which were a primary component of this new work.

Remy Charlip's extensive career has included performing with John Cage, dancing and designing costumes for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, winning two Village Voice Obie awards, and three New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year citations. He has choreographed for The Oakland Ballet, The London Contemporary Dance Company, Caracas Taller De Danza, New South Wales Dance Company and The Metro Theatre Circus. He has also written and illustrated 30 picture books, for which he has been honored and deemed a National Treasure by the Library of Congress.

TROLLEY DANCES (2004)

Photo: Andy Mogg

A freewheeling festival of site specific dances performed along San Francisco's F-line trolley route.

Your Fast Pass is a ticket to see the best show in town, so climb aboard for an exciting day of modern dance in the streets of San Francisco! Kim Epifano's Epiphany Productions takes audiences on a creative ride with Trolley Dances, a chance to travel Muni's historic F-line trolley cars down the rails on Market Street and see four short, original dance performances in unexpected places. Some of California's most innovative choreographers will be participating including Kim Epifano, Joanna Haigood, Jesselito Bie and Jean Isaacs.

GHOST ARCHITECTURE (2003)

Photos: Ira Nowinski

Ghost Architecture focuses on the buildings and inhabitants that previously occupied the site of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum. Based on the architectural records and social histories of the site, Choreographer Joanna Haigood and Sculptor Wayne Campbell have created an installation which transparently reveals the continuing presence of the past - engaging the audience with a new perspective of time and space.

View the PROJECT PAGE for GHOST ARCHITECTURE
Read the DANCE MAGAZINE REVIEW
Read the VOICE OF DANCE REVIEW
Read the SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN REVIEW

THE VIEW FROM HERE (2002)

Photo: Jane Grossenbacher

Inspired by the dreamlike paintings of Marc Chagall, this new work by Artistic Director Joanna Haigood used aerial dance, colorful design, and music to evoke the essential elements of Chagall's art. The elements ranged from fractured images reminiscent of Cubism, to particular characters that recur in the paintings, to the altered state that his images can convey, a state outside time and space

March Chagall, a Russian-born painter and designer, created a genre virtually his own in the early and mid-twentieth century. His lively, highly imaginative renderings of life experiences display a rich, poetic, dreamlike sense of fantasy and color. He approaches his subjects with a warm and generous sense of humor, while expressing a profound connection to the spiritual.

THE PICTURE PROJECT (2000-Present)

Photos: John Kent & Dan Dennehy

Picture... is an interdisciplinary site specific work that focuses on the dreams and aspirations of the residents of Powderhorn in Minneapolis; Bayview in San Francisco and Red Hook in Brooklyn, New York as they enter into a period of economic and demographics transformation. All three communities are diverse, urban neighborhoods that, while perceived as troubled, are home to many residents and organizations working to realize their vision of a positive future.

Spectacular aerial choreography allows the seven member dance company to interact with the architecture of twelve-story grain terminals and 100 foot digital video projections. Twelve channel industrial soundscapes surround the audience while custom aerial rigging transports the dancers across immense multiple planes, altering perceptions of time and space.

View the PROJECT PAGE for PICTURE...
Read the NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW
Read the VILLAGE VOICE REVIEW

ARENA (2000)

This work was developed for the opening ceremonies of the Kaatsbaan International Dance Centre. The folowing is an excerpt from a review by Deborah Jowitt in New York's Village Voice:

For this gala, Joanna Haigood of San Francisco's Zaccho Dance Theatre created in five days the site-specific Arena. Haigood was responsible for one of last year's most enthralling works, Invisible Wings (a voyage for the audience through Jacob's Pillow's history as a stop on the Underground Railroad). On a leaner scale, she gives Kaatsbaan a lovely send-off, linking the riding ring's past to its future. Two women put their horses through careful designs. Jennifer DePalo and Robert Wood swing on suspended window frames. Anne Marie de Angelo trots and swerves about, a mock-innocent who's inquisitive about horses and slips through the archway formed by the legs of a laconic cowboy on stilts (Wood). Andre Gingras wire-walks to the rafters to meet DePalo and pass along a horseshoe dug up by Haigood. In the end, Van Hamel, who has dismounted from a suspended branch to do some fluid, joyous dancing, puts the horseshoe back where it came from and plants a sapling on top of it. Instead of a tree, there'll be a sprung floor one day, but we all get the point. Strong may it grow!

INVISIBLE WINGS (1998)

Photos: Liz Zivic

A site specific performance inspired by the legends of the Underground Railroad featuring traditional and contemporary choreography, music, storytelling and aerial dance.

Zaccho Dance Theatre's 2007 production of "Invisible Wings," commissioned by and performed at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, was conceived and directed by Joanna Haigood in collaboration with Kim Euell, Diane Ferlatte, Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, Alexander Nichols, Jack Carpenter, Wayne Campbell, Robert Henry Johnson, Amara Tabor Smith, Shakiri, Sheila Lopez, Paul Benney, Ashley Taylor, Robert Ernst, Shereel Washington, Ramon Ramos Alayo, Raissa Simpson.

What follows is an excerpt of Joanna Haigood's artist statement regarding the project:

"My motivation and inspirations for this project lie in our social need to recognize and celebrate our histories - to illuminate and enrich our present with our past. In this particular situation, I feel there is a great opportunity to unite 200 years of characters, stories, and place through performance, and at the same time reveal and preserve an important part of our national heritage..."

"Slavery has delivered a deep wound to the heart of our society. It is my hope that this project will encourage us all to look at our history and connect it to the current social and political trends as they relate to race, class and international relations. Recognizing that the evil of slavery is neither unique to this country nor ended in the world today, it is important to begin dialogue and move towards strategies for healing."

"The spirit of the Underground Railroad was driven by compassion, respect, and cooperation between many kinds of people. With the performance of Invisible Wings we celebrate its success with songs, dances and stories of the time. We dedicate this work to all our ancestors."

Joanna Haigood

Read the NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW
View a photo SLIDESHOW from INVISIBLE WINGS presented at Jacob's Pillow in 2007

NEVER LESS ALONE (1997)

Photo: Weiford Watts

An evening of solo dances by Joanna Haigood at Zaccho's Yosemite Street Studio in San Francisco's historic Bayview District. The performance featured new works by Ms. Haigood, a choreographic collaboration with Remy Charlip, set designs by Chico MacMurtrie and Benjamin Young, and original music by Lauren Weinger, Roberto DeHaven, and Ron van Leeuwaarde.

WHERE DREAMS LIE (1996)

NOON (1995)

Photo: Theodora Litsios

In May of 1995, Zaccho performed NOON on the clock tower of the Ferry Building - the landmark image of San Francisco. Commissioned by the San Francisco Art Commission's Market Street Art in Transit Program, this aerial event was choreographed by Joanna Haigood, with rigging design by Benjamin Young. The company's seven dancers rappelled from the tower, using a movement vocabulary that complimented the building's architecture and was influenced by the inherent mechanics of the city's most famous clock.

IN STEEL'S SHADOW (1994)

Photos: Liz Zivic

In a January residency at Theatre Artaud, Zaccho premiered a collaborative, site specific work choreographed by Joanna Haigood, with an original score composed by Lauren Weinger, and set design by Benjamin Young. Using a ten ton bridge crane, suspended rigging, and an industrial soundscape recreating the atmosphere of a 1920s canning factory, In Steel's Shadow explores the archival and architectural history of the American Can Company - an industrial machine shop now occupied by Theatre Artaud. Primary source material for the piece was gathered in interviews with Mr. Walter Lister. a former machinist foreman and plant superintendent who worked at the American Can Company from 1925-68 (its entire lifespan). In Steel's Shadow premiered as a part of the Annual Artist Residence Project produced by Theatre Artaud.

CHOMU (1993)

Choreographer Joanna Haigood, composer Lauren Weinger, and visual artist Reiko Goto created CHOMU (Butterfly Dreams) which uses naturally occuring elements - local butterflies and their metamorphic process - to suggest a metaphorical relationship with human growth and evolution.

Conceived as a walk through performance installation, this work took place in six stations along a designated path. The path and character of the stations drew from the juxtaposition of nature and urban life, as well as from the inherent breeding patterns of the butterflies. CHOMU was developed at Capp Street Project, Dancing in the Streets, Jacob's Pillow, and the Walker Art Center. It premiered as a finished work in July of 1993 in the Walker Art Center Sculpture Garden in Minnesota, on Roosevelt Island in New York, and on the grounds of Jacob's Pillow.

INVERTED YEAR (1992)

OPEN SYSTEMS (1992)

Photo: Liz Zivic

As part of the Exploratorium's Arts and Sciences special exhibition designed to illustrate the significance of Columbus' first voyage across the Atlantic, Zaccho Created Open Systems, a performance based on the physical and conceptual aspects of navigation. At the beginning of each show, seven performers received individual, detailed maps based on a series of explorations made previously by Joanna Haigood. Some of the routes were marked step by step while other routes had options the performers could choose from. The maps physically traced the ceiling's grid structure and incorporated, aerial rigging which allowed vertical, horizontal, lateral and diagonal movement for the performers. In addition, each performer was given a series of tasks which highlighted special points of interest within the building. The viewers were given a variety of vantage points from which to orient themselves to the performance as it unfolded. This work was created in collaboration with composer Lauren Weinger and designer Benjamin Young.

THE KEEPING OF BEES IS LIKE THE DIRECTING OF SUNSHINE (1987)

Photos: Richard Barnes

In the spring of 1987 I was accepted as an Artist-In-Residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts. There I met sculptor Mark Thompson, whose work centers around natural processes and the honey bee hive. That fall we began a collaboration which was inspired by a wild hive in the studwork of an old military gymnasium. The piece integrated architecture, dance, light, scent, and the flight of the bees. It captured the essence of the hive environment as both a microcosm of nature and as a metaphor for a larger human experience. Through my work with Mr. Thompson, I have discovered latent interests in the study of other life forms. Our relationship to animals has frequently been our link to the natural and supernatural worlds as expressed in myths and legends. By deepening our understanding of these relationships, we not only expose the parallels between human and animal behaviours, but also illuminate the unity of all things.

TREES IN THE BACKYARD (1983)

Photos: Robert Kingsbury

Performed in two San Francisco Bay Area parks, the audience was led by a "Pied Piper" figure through the trees, creeks and meadows while performers appeared and disappeared along the path. Those in full animal head masks danced on trapeze, rope, and spider webs they had woven. Exploring the relationship between illusion and reality, the finale called upon you to focus on a clear vision of the world.