If I Give You My Sorrows

It’s taken me 7 years to build trusting relationships with women who are currently and formerly incarcerated. In 2011, I became a women with an incarcerated loved one. I therefore know a lot about men’s prisons. I’ve sat in the waiting rooms of half a dozen men’s prisons around the country both visiting my loved one, and working with activist men doing the radical work of prison systems change from the inside. In the last 12 years it’s become clear me that incarcerated women are the most overlooked and under-resourced people living behind the walls. According to the Sentencing Project, Between 1980 and 2021, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 525%, with the rate of imprisonment for Black women 1/6 times higher than for white women.* Tonight’s performance is offered as an antidote. It asks how our beds hold what is messy, tragic, and grueling. It asks how our beds give safety to our sensual, interior lives. Within these questions, it values incarcerated women. It frames their humanity, and asks for their release.

– Jo Kreiter

* www.SentencingProject.org/fact-sheet/incarcerated-women-and-girls

The Performance Unfolds in Seven Sections

1. Skewed
2. Where Betty Can Go Find Betty
3. Secrets
4. Closure
5. Prayer
6. A Lesser of Evils
7. Salve

About Flyaway Productions

Founded in 1996 by Jo Kreiter, Flyaway Productions democratizes public space. Our work is politically driven, site specific and off the ground. For us, a building is a witness. It holds the complexity of a neighborhood’s history in its “hands,” I-beams, or concrete walls. Flyaway’s tools include coalition building, an intersectional feminist lens, and a body-based push against the constraints of gravity. Recent coalition partners include the Museum of African Diaspora, Community Works, Essie Justice Group, Local 2, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, and UC Law SF.

We’ve been supported by NEFA’s National Dance Project, the National Endowment for the Arts, Center for Cultural Innovation, New Music USA, The Gerbode Foundation, MAP, the Creative Work Fund, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, CA Arts Council, Grants for the Arts, and the SF Arts Commission. The SF Bay Guardian describes Flyaway as makers of “art at the heart of the democratic ideal.” 

From 2017-2023, Flyaway created The Decarceration Trilogy: Dismantling the Prison Industrial Complex One Dance at a Time.The Decarceration Trilogy is part of a national wave of ongoing political action to expose the devastating effects of prison on American citizens. The Trilogy is rooted in collaboration with community organizations and people directly impacted by incarceration. The project is a deeply personal and challenges Artistic Director Jo to expose her own vulnerability, as she is a woman with a formerly incarcerated loved one.

Biographies

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR:

Jo Kreiter (she/her) is a San Francisco-based choreographer with a background in political science. Through dance she engages physical innovation and the political conflicts we live within. Kreiter creates a sense of spectacle to make a lasting impression with an audience, striving for the right balance of awe, provocation and daring. Recent awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Rauschenberg Foundation Artist-as-Activist Fellowship, the Rainin Foundation Open Spaces Award, two National Dance Project Creation Grants and two Creative Work Fund awards. In her book, Moving Sites: Investigating Site-Specific Dance Performances, author Victoria Hunter cites Kreiter as a leader in the field of site-specific dance.

DANCERS:

Sonsherée Giles (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and costume designer. Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to attend Mills College and received an MFA in performance/choreography. She enjoys making dances based on observations of animals, landscapes, art history, and daily life experiences. From 2005-2021, she worked for AXIS Dance Company as a performing/teaching artist, rehearsal director and associate director. She has shared her choreography, taught dance and performed for audiences in the United States, Germany, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Russia, Scotland, Canada, China, and Japan. Sonsherée received an Isadora Duncan Award for ensemble performance, and a Homer Avila Award for Excellence in the field of integrated dance. She is honored to have been working with Flyaway Productions since 2015. ~ www.Sonsheree.com

MaryStarr Hope (she/her) is a contemporary dance artist, movement improviser & aerial dancer. She came to dance from childhood musical theater, trained at CalArts and the National Conservatory of Dance & Music in Paris, and danced professionally in Boston, Los Angeles, Paris, Chicago, and New York before finding her forever home in San Francisco and it’s vibrant arts community. This is her 11th season performing with Flyaway Productions. In 2017 she was honored with an Isadora Duncan Dance Award, Duet Performance of the Year, for her role in the ‘The Two Sisters’ from Grace and Delia Are Gone at Fort Mason. In addition to her performance work, MaryStarr is a movement teacher and works with youth theater groups, singers and soloists as a performance coach, choreographer and staging director.

Jhia Louise Jackson (she/they) is a movement-based scholar artist who regularly engages in interdisciplinary projects. She has worked with artists such as 13th Floor Dance Theater, Alexandra Pirici, Joya Powell/Movement of the People Dance Company, RAWdance, Cally Spooner, Kim Epifano/Epiphany Dance Theater, dNaga Dance, and Octavia Rose Projects. As the founder of j.habitus and a current doctoral student in Sociology at UCSF, they create visceral explorations and presentations of topics drawn from their scholastic and community-based work. ~ www.JhiaJackson.com

Megan Lowe (she/her) is a dance-maker/teacher, aerialist, and singer-songwriter of Chinese/Irish descent. Her creations through Megan Lowe Dances explore complex identities/experiences by tackling unusual physical situations and inventing compelling solutions. Her recent choreographies have been at ODC, de Young Museum, Legion of Honor Museum, The Annex, and in SF Trolley Dances and United States of Asian America Festival. She won an Izzie for Outstanding Achievement in Performance for “HOME(in)STEAD”, a site-specific dance co-created with Johnny Huy Nguyen at 500 Capp Street. Megan has performed with Flyaway, Lenora Lee Dance, Dance Brigade, Scott Wells & Dancers, Lizz Roman & Dancers, Epiphany Productions, and more. She’s a teaching/choreographing artist for Joe Goode Performance Group, Bandaloop, Flyaway, and her alma-mater Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, where she works as the Program Associate. ~ www.MeganLoweDances.com or @MLoweDanceKitty | Instagram 

natalya shoaf (she/her) is a LA native who enjoys calling the Bay Area her home. She is an alumni from Los Angeles County HS for the Arts and the Alonzo King LINES BFA program. natalya spends her mornings teaching pre-k and her afternoons educating and choreographing with the youth at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center. In her free time, natalya enjoys studying, sewing new crafts, and spending time with loved ones. This is natalya’s first season with Flyaway Productions. For more info check out Natalyashoaf.com or @NatalyaShoaf | Instagram 

Razelle Rae Swimmer (she/her) is a life-long performance and visual artist whose background spans from political street theatre to hip hop dance. As a radical trans artist, she proudly traces her history of artistic and social subversion back to the day she dropped out of art school at age 16. Since then she’s been fearlessly making art that prioritizes expression over medium, often using her own body as the vehicle of work. Currently, she is the resident Narrative Art Director at Take 3 Presents, a large-scale immersive events organization. In the past she has written, directed, and produced a range of political and music videos viewed tens of millions of times around the world.

ACTIVISTS:

Tomiekia Johnson (she/her) is a Black woman born in Torrance and raised in Compton, California. She earned a bachelor’s degree in public administration (criminal justice) on a basketball scholarship from Cal State Dominguez Hills. She is a certified minister of the Gospel, a distinction obtained while wrongly incarcerated in the Central California Women’s Facility, where she is currently housed. Tomiekia has published as a prison journalist in publications like Prison Journalism Project and the Spotlong Review. Her poem “Queen Restored” sold at auction and she wildly impressed judges, staff, and peers with an art exhibit she curated for Black History Month 2022.

Sean Riley (Set Designer – he/him) combines suspension, kinetic movement, and narrative sculpture with performance. Through scenic design, rigging design, and mechanical design, often in concert with each other, he creates unique environments for time-based art. Riley has created installations in collaboration with a wide spectrum of artists in different genres around the world. Known for bold and often surprising use of space and suspension, and for large-scale movement, Riley’s installations commonly reflect his lifelong obsessions with gravity, architecture, and Newtonian physics. Recent clients include MOMA, the Asian Art Museum, SF City Hall, Cirque Du Soleil, and the Joe Goode Performance Group. For 5 years, he was featured on the National Geographic Channel for the World’s Toughest Fixes. He has received several Izzy Awards, including a 2016 award for Special Achievement

Jamielyn Duggan (Costumer – she/they) is a multidisciplinary native San Franciscan artist rooted in contemporary performance and visual design. As creative director of Eimaj Design since 04’ they emphasis “fashion that moves” through custom concept, design and production. This encompass avant-garde to casual garments made to be seen, costume for live performance and film, image styling, wardrobe and content creation. Collaborations with diverse clients include: SFDFF, ODC, LEVY dance, LINES/BFA, AXIS, SF Dance Works, Liss Fain Dance, Bandaloop, Oakland Ballet, MFDP/SF, and choreographers: Hope Mohr, Joe Landini, Gregory Dawson, Amy Seiwert, Sidra Bell, and Alexander Ekman. She is a tenured dancer with SF Opera, performer and co-founder of Collective Attention, resident artist at SHACK15, and grateful to expand her artistic practices thru inspired action. ~ www.JamielynDuggan.com

Jack Beuttler (Lighting Designer – he/him) is an Oakland based designer and producer. His work has appeared with ODC, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, LEVYdance, and Dance Theatre SF, and he received a 2019 Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design for Flyaway’s The Wait Room. He’s the Director of Production for ODC and Production Manager for the Sun Valley Music Festival in Idaho. Most recently Jack produced the feature opera film Goodbye, Mr Chips. ~ www.JackB.info

David Freitag (Rigging Designer – he/him) is an aerial rigging designer who has spent the past 20 years designing mechanical rigging systems for site specific dance, circus productions, and permanent theatrical installations on walls and in theaters across the Bay Area and internationally. Dave has rigged with Flyaway Productions since 2010, designed for Capacitor Dance Company, Circo de la Luna NYC, and toured internationally with Cirque Mechanics and Printz Dance Project. Dave’s recent design projects include Zaccho Dance Theatre’s Love, A State of Grace (2022), and the 7Fingers Dear San Francisco (2021). Dave is a journeyman member of IATSE Local 16, and always “stands under his work.”

Ariana Boostani (Stage Manager – they/them) is an accomplished multidisciplinary artist based in the Bay Area. With a BS in Environmental Chemistry and a minor in Dance from UC Davis, Ariana seamlessly integrates their scientific knowledge with their artistic pursuits. Their career spans diverse roles as a dancer, musician, educator, and audio engineer. In addition to their work as a stage manager, Ariana is a committed educator, imparting audio skills to female and gender expansive youth at Women’s Audio Mission. Ariana continues to contribute as a stage and prop manager for SF Arts Education’s youth theatre group, “The Players,” marking their second year of involvement.

Matt Leonard (Production Manager – he/him) has spent the past 26 years at the intersections of event production and social/environmental justice activism. He toured with politically outspoken bands as a sound engineer and tour manager, worked with international organizations such as Greenpeace and 350.org, and is now the Director of the Oil and Gas Action Network. In his spare time he tries to pet every dog, find the best vegan comfort food, and cheer on the Oakland Roots soccer club.

COALITION PARTNERS:

The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) is a contemporary art museum whose mission is to celebrate Black cultures, ignite challenging conversations, and inspire learning through the global lens of the African Diaspora. MoAD is one of only a few museums in the United States dedicated to the celebration and interpretation of art, artists, and cultures from the African Diaspora. The Museum presents exhibitions highlighting contemporary art and artists of African descent and engages its audience through education and public programs that interpret and enhance the understanding of Black art. Founded in 2005, the Museum continues to be a unique, cultural arts staple in the San Francisco Bay Area community. ~ www.MoADSF.org

Empowerment Avenue’s (EA) mission is to normalize the inclusion of incarcerated writers and artists in mainstream venues by bridging the gap between them, harnessing this creative proximity as a path to decarceration and public safety. Founded by Rahsaan “New York” Thomas, who was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, and freelance writer Emily Nonko, EA advocates for talented writers and artists in prisons across the country by providing them the resources they need to get their creative work outside prison walls and be fairly compensated for it. Nonko oversees EA’s program for writers, and Christine Lashaw, a senior museum professional, oversees EA’s program for visual artists.

Letter to a Prison Bed

by Tomiekia Johnson

Dear 2UP: why you gotta do me like that? You provide no privacy, I can’t even put up a sheet or curtain to block me from groggy inmates and staff stalking by. The way you position me is like when busy minded people walk by department store displays on the street. Except this is internment, the oldest American experience. The blind assassins are loud clumsy ignorant addicts and classless. Their jokes aren’t even funny. The light above my head gives me headaches. It’s brighter than the sun, perfect for the tweekers. Fractions of my skull adjust to the chaos. This is war—a combat zone. You used to provide me with more refuge, a small sense of security because prisons aint never safe. It gives an illusion of safety. But you are a lesser of evils, so I do appreciate that. You’re a trench, I a soldier. You provide loose cover. You’re lumpy, gray, flat, ugly but still here for me. You allow a spiritual beam to shine from heaven to my heart. I love that most about you. Get ready though because I am about to leave you forever. 

Sincerely,
Tomiekia

Call to Action: 

Sign Tomiekia’s petition.
Featured Activist Tomiekia Johnson is fighting for parole.
Find her story and sign her petition:
www.change.org/p/gavin-newsom-grant-commutation-for-incarcerated-survivor-tomiekia-johnson

LEARN ABOUT OTHER IMPORTANT ORGANIZATIONS:

Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB)
www.CurbPrisonSpending.org

Essie Justice Group
www.EssieJusticeGroup.org

Initiate Justice
www.InitiateJustice.org

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
www.EllaBakerCenter.org

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
www.PrisonersWithChildren.org

Care Not Cages
@CareNotCagez | Instagram

Funders and Supporters

IF I GIVE YOU MY SORROWS is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco Art Commission, Rainin Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, LABA Bay, Charlotte Mailliard Shultz Fund for the Arts, and Flyaway’s generous individual donors.