ODE TO JANE

Our Bodies. Our Homes.

It’s a basic human right to be sheltered, and to be in control of one’s body. ODE TO JANE centers these two rights with two voices in the Tenderloin–women living unhoused, and people who give birth facing restrictions over control of our bodies. This project unites two voices together in one telling, to join the usually separate silos of activism on these issues.

In making this piece, I probed the intermingling of autonomy and place. I asked the dancers, “How is your body a country?” I asked the costume designer to create flags for each dancer, in the form of a dress or nearly a dress. To tell these stories, I followed the lead of our community partner, Peaches, as she asks us, “Would you want someone to give up on you?”

Tonight we celebrate what resistance is amidst San Francisco’s housing crisis, threats to our bodies, racial reckoning, and most important, the complex intersection of these realities. We are pushing back against the misogyny dominating the presidential race, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, and current state legislative trends. We are pushing back against insult, physical peril,
and the lack of political will to embrace housing for all.

– Jo Kreiter

The Performance Unfolds in Three Sections

1. Jane Can You
2. Peaches is Our Jane
3. Walk with Them

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, Empowerment Avenue, Community Works, Essie Justice Group, Local 2, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, and UC Law San Francisco.

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. This project is part of a national wave of ongoing political action to expose the devastating effects of prison on American citizens.

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:

艾音 “Ài Yīn” (Nicole) Adelski (she/her) is a biracial artist of Chinese and European descent. Born in Hong Kong, raised in Shanghai and Taipei, she moved to San Francisco for college where she majored in Dance and Social Justice while minoring in both Philosophy and Chinese Studies. She is currently a freelance dancer, dance teacher, and pilates instructor based in San Francisco. Despite being trained in many different styles of dance, she mainly identifies as a contemporary dancer. She is currently excited to be learning more about vertical dance and heels! Her non-dance related movement history includes: getting her black belt in taekwondo at age 14 and ski instructors license at 19. She has worked with For You Productions, Detour Dance, PUSH Dance, and Flyaway Productions. She hopes to continue to learn and grow as a human and as an artist, to establish herself as a performer, choreographer, and visual artist.

Laura Elaine Ellis (she/her) maintains a non-stop career of performing, choreographing, and producing in the Bay Area.  Over her 35 years of performing, she has worked on projects and collaborated with notables Deborah Vaughan, Robert Henry Johnson, Joan Lazarus, Anne Bluethenthal, Robert Moses, Nora Chipaumire, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Kim Epifano, Christy Funsch, and Joanna Haigood. Ellis’ first project with Flyaway Productions was in 2014. Ellis has been awarded an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Outstanding Individual Performance and numerous funding awards for her own choreographic and producing projects.  She is co-founder and executive director of the African & African American Performing Arts Coalition, co-presenters of the Black Choreographers Festival: Here & Now.  Ellis is a dance educator serving on faculty for the Theater and Dance departments at the Athenian School and CSU East Bay.  She also serves as a board member for Robert Moses’ Kin, and Oaktown Jazz Workshops.

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/they) 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 13th season performing with Flyaway Productions. In 2017 she was honored with an Isadora Duncan Dance Award, for Outstanding Achievement in Performance – Duet, 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. She is currently pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts in Dance at Bennington College, via the Low Residency Dance MFA under the tutelage of Thomas DeFrantz, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and Donna Faye Burchfield and spent her summer dancing in Montpellier, France at the International Choreographic Institute with a truly exceptional cohort of mid-career international artists.

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/they) is a dancer, choreographer, performer, aerialist, singer-songwriter, filmmaker, teacher, and administrator of Chinese and Irish descent, making dance art in the SF Bay Area, situated on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land. With an affinity for dynamic places and partners, her creations through Megan Lowe Dances explore complex identities and experiences by tackling unusual physical situations and inventing compelling solutions, opening up the imagination to what is possible. Megan’s recent choreographic works have been seen at Fort Mason, ODC, de Young Museum, Legion of Honor Museum, and The Annex, as well as in SF Aerial Arts Festival, United States of Asian America Festival, SF Trolley Dances, CAAMFest, and on KQED Live. She won an Izzie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance for HOME(in)STEAD, a site-specific dance she co-created with Johnny Huy Nguyen at the historic 500 Capp Street Foundation. In addition to working with Flyaway Productions since 2015, Megan has also performed with Dance Brigade, Lenora Lee Dance, Scott Wells & Dancers, Lizz Roman & Dancers, Epiphany Productions, and more. She is a teaching/choreographing artist for Joe Goode Performance Group, Bandaloop, Flyaway, and her alma mater Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, where she currently works as the Program Associate. ~ www.MeganLoweDances.com or @MLoweDanceKitty | Instagram 

Saharla Vetsch (she/her) is a Somali American multidisciplinary artist rooted in the Bay Area. Saharla earned a degree in Performing Arts and Social Justice with a concentration on dance from the University of San Francisco. Her focus is on movement storytelling using elements of vertical dance, drag, and spectacle. As her drag persona Major Hammy, Saharla strives to be a beacon of self-expression, harnessing the liberating power of dance to ignite a sense of freedom through community. Her artistic and academic journey has been marked by a profound commitment to the transformative power of movement. Saharla’s teaching and performances encourage and celebrate the intersecting identities that make up who we are and inform how we all engage with the world and each other. She does this in the spaces of queer nightlife entertainment, early childhood dance education, and through collaborative dance performances.  Currently, Saharla is a Youth Performing Arts Program Community Engagement Coordinator at Zaccho Dance Theatre. She has collaborated and performed with Bay Area based companies such as: Flyaway Productions, OX Performance Group, Detour Dance, CounterPulse, Oaklash, Zaccho Dance Theatre & Oasis Arts.

COALITION PARTNERS:

Nina “Peaches” Foster (she/her) is a collaborator and community liaison to women in the Tenderloin. Peaches is currently a safe ambassador for the City of SF and a team member with Urban Alchemy. She worked as a Case Manager at Code Tenderloin from 2020-2023, specializing in permanent and transitional housing placements for unhoused individuals and families. Her case management work led to the establishment of the “Together Tenderloin Women’s Group”, a support group for women in the Tenderloin/Mid-Market area of San Francisco. The support group was created to provide a safe place for women dealing with homelessness, substance abuse issues, and domestic abuse. She is also the owner of “Peaches Catering Services” specializing in Soul Food for banquets and parties. Peaches is formerly incarcerated and has lived experience of addiction and long-term recovery. She is a proud, Black Christian woman and a San Francisco native, born and raised in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunter’s Point neighborhood.

The Tenderloin Museum, which opened in July 2015, celebrates the rich history of one of San Francisco’s most overlooked neighborhoods. Through history exhibitions, resident-led walking tours, community programs and the presentation of original artwork, the Tenderloin Museum invites all comers to learn about the roots of this dynamic neighborhood and reclaim the city’s past and future.
~ www.tenderloinmuseum.org

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 Izzie 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.

Call to Action: 

• Vote on November 4th. Your voice matters.
• Stay informed. Sign up for Jessica Valenti’s Abortion Every Day: jessica.substack.com
• Volunteer/Donate to local housing efforts of A WOMAN’s PLACE: sfwar.org/get-involved/donate

Get the FREE SOUNDTRACK from the SHOW by XOA ASA

Extended Music Credits: 

• Jane Can You: Voice and Text by Maxine Waters, Representative Cori Bush, Representative Kat Kammack, Paris Paloma’s song Labour, Kiara Bridges, Representative Josh Hawley, Dr. Serina Floyd

• Peaches is Our Jane: Voice and Text by Peaches

• Walk with Them: Vocals and Text by NAIA and Diane Stevens of the Jane Collective

Funders and Supporters

ODE TO JANE is supported the Gerbode Foundation Special Award in the Arts program, with additional backing from the California Arts Council, Zellerbach Family Foundation, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, Fleishhacker Foundation, New Music USA, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, and Flyaway’s generous individual donors.