UPCOMING EVENTS
New Legacies: One Act Dances
Three Choreographers, Three Composers, Three Writers Create
Friday, March 15, 7:30pm
Saturday, March 16, 7:30pm (Pre-Show Panel* 6:30-7:15pm)
Sunday, March 17, 2:00pm (Pre-Show Panel* 1:15-2:00pm)
at Presidio Theatre Performing Arts Center
(99 Moraga Avenue, San Francisco)
New Legacies: One Act Dances is the 29th explosive season of Robert Moses’ KIN, the never-predictable San Francisco institution, that continues to push boundaries, create culture, and shape art.
“New Legacies: One Act Dances" is an evening of three startlingly original works that offer a defiant response to the chilling effects of censorship. Witness an electrifying triptych forged by three choreographers, three composers, three writers, and 16 dancers along with a provocative new work by Robert Moses. Expect a dynamic mix of dance styles (contemporary to house) and music (acapella to Goth) accompanied by poetry and prose and a stunning visual design. This visceral response to the rising tide of suppression in education and outright censorship challenges us to think about the historical power of narrative erasure. Artistic Director Robert Moses warns, "Libraries crumble and rise again, their contents reshaped to serve the whims of power. This obliteration of stories is the obliteration of lives." Prepare to be moved, dazzled, challenged, and empowered by this potent convergence of art and activism.
Photo: Z Jackson, by Steve Disenhof
*Pre-Show Panel Discussions
Bootstraps: Lyric Legacies and its Impact
Saturday, March 16, 6:30-7:15pm
How does narrative and identity impact creation from the classroom to the studio, and in what ways can we continue to apply creativity and exploration in our daily lives to support our wellness?
Join us for a pre-show panel reflecting on RMK’s Educational Programming, Bootstraps: Lyric Legacies, and the ways it shapes RMK’s creative process. Our panelists share their knowledge about what they learned about themselves and how they explored their own creative process through the Bootstraps multidisciplinary arts program and took part in a collaborative in-formal performance with RMK. Facilitated by Educational Program Coordinator, Christine Joy Ferrer (tinejoy), with panelists Brian Freeman, Freddy Martin, Cora McCoy, and Sharon Woodruff. Three of our panelists (Brian, Cora and Sharon) are former Bootstraps students from our collaboration with Booker T Washington Community Services Center (BTWCSC) in SF's Fillmore District and their program for seniors “Victory Club for Aging and Older Adults.” Freddy Martin is the former Senior Health and Wellness program Coordinator at BTWCSC. Click here to learn more about the panelists and moderator.
Let’s Talk: Book Bans, Erasure, and Creative Resistance
Sunday, March 17, 1:15-2:00pm
How do you destroy an idea? Can a library ever be politically neutral? What lasting impacts do book bans have on cultural memory and identity?
Join us for a pre-show panel discussion featuring Oakland historian and librarian Dorothy Lazard and UC Berkeley Chicanx Latinx studies professor Dr. Pablo Gonzalez in conversation with RMK Artistic Director Robert Moses. A distinguished librarian and author, Ms. Lazard is celebrated for her commitment to education and to sharing Oakland’s history. Dr. Gonzalez is a researcher of borderlands anthropology and critical race theory and praxis, as well as the Director of the Ethnic Studies Changemaker Project: “Scaffolding Stories/Building Communities.” RMK Board Member Mia Diawara will moderate the conversation. Together, the speakers will explore the topics of educational censorship and the politics of erasure, and creative approaches to countering both. Click here to learn more about the panelists and moderator.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
If you are interested in helping out at the Home Season in exchange for a comp ticket to the performance, please fill our this Google Form and someone will contact you regarding volunteering.
We are seeking extra hands to assist with set up, merchandise sales, and greeting audience members. Volunteers will be asked to arrive 1-1.5 hrs prior to the show and stay about 30 minutes after the performance ends (approx. 4 hours total - 2 hours of volunteer time plus watching the show for free!). Fill out this Google Form to apply as a volunteer!
Learn More About The Season
2024 Season Trailer
In rehearsal with Natasha Adorlee
In Rehearsal with Robert Moses
Conversations between Iva & Vincent
ABOUT THE GUEST CHOREOGRAPHERS
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Natasha Adorlee is an Emmy Award-winning choreographer, filmmaker, composer, and educator based in San Francisco, CA. A first-generation Asian American woman, she is currently the Artistic Fellow with Amy Sewiert's Imagery. Adorlee began choreographing in 2014 while maintaining a dance career with Robert Moses' KIN, ODC/Dance, Kate Weare and Co., and the San Francisco Symphony. Since winning over ten international awards for her acclaimed short film Take Your Time in 2018, she has been a much sought-after filmmaker, choreographer, and composer.
After attending SUNY Purchase and graduating from UC Berkeley, Adorlee joined ODC/Dance. As a performer, she has danced a vast repertoire of works and contributed original choreography, sound design, and art direction to over 20+ ODC/Dance repertory works. In addition, she has created over 20 original dance-based works- spanning stage, film, and immersive performance mediums. Most recently, she was commissioned to create for Joffrey Ballet's Winning Works, Ceprodac (Mexico), Kawaguchi Ballet (Japan), Ballare Carmel, Ballet22, and Imagery. In addition to working for dance companies, Adorlee has created original work for Pixar Animation Studios, Occulus, National Geographic, and New Yorker Magazine. She founded Concept o4 to create multimedia dance-based experiences advocating for more accessibility to the arts. Awarded an NEA Grant, Dresher Fellowship, and Jacob's Pillow Choreographic Fellowship in 2023 and a BalletX and Kansas City Ballet commission in 2024, Adorlee is pursuing a prolific creation period while sharing her deep knowledge of movement and film with the greater community through Dance on Camera workshops. She is also an Artistic Advisor for Ballet22.
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Since relocating to New York from the Bay Area in 2019, Khala Brannigan participated in a choreographic fellowship with Sidra Bell Dance, guested with Soluq Dance Theater, and presented work at Peridance Capezio Center, Three’s Brewing, Arts on Site, and in September 2021, an evening length work at The Woods Performance Space. She also presented work at Arts On Site October as a part of Dual Rivet's Made By Women Festival. Since choreographing for the short film directed by Katherine Huggard titled Amor Fati, she has been working towards another evening length piece titled Blood & Innocence. Originally from Santa Fe, NM, Brannigan began her dance training at age seven. After high school, she attended the Alonzo King LINES Ballet Training Program in San Francisco, CA after which she was selected as a resident choreographer with SAFEHouse Arts for the next six years.
Brannigan became a certified GYROTONIC® instructor in 2013, and her first 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training took place in Rishikesh, India, with World Peace Yoga School in 2015. Throughout her time in San Francisco, Brannigan received awards from Zellerbach Family Foundation, Dancers’ Group CA$H Grant and presented full evening works at large scale venues such as ODC Theater, Joe Goode Annex, and Z Space. Her work has been presented in multiple local festivals including SF Dance Film Festival and Summer Performance Festival. Brannigan was a company member with Robert Moses’ KIN from 2017-2019. She currently teaches for Dancewave’s community programs, is a certified GYROTONIC® instructor at Movement Beyond in Soho, and also teaches yoga at Kula Yoga Project, YO-BK, and Yoga Space NYC. Instagram: @khalabrannigan Website: khalabrannigan.com
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Improvisational dance performer and choreographer, Robert S. Kelley II, a Florida native He has presented his choreography at Centre National de la Danse, The Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, California Institute of The Arts, Hillsborough Community College, Valencia College, Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theatre, St. Petersburg College, Dance Truck, The Music Box and The University of South Florida. Kelly’s most recent work was The Paradox of Lament, a collaboration that premiered at California Institute of The Arts 50th anniversary. He is an Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellow from the School at Jacob’s Pillow and currently teaches contemporary, improvisation and body conditioning at Ballet Kukan Academy in Monrovia, CA.
What compels him to choreograph has always been building shapes with the body without regard towards aesthetic, blending explicit and implicit movement to create dance that has its own balance of freedom and form that test the boundaries of the Amateur/Virtuosic spectrum. Also drawn to making content that relates to the nine primary emotions, he specifically focuses on fear, anger, trust, and love because he feels these states remind us of our fragility. He earned his Associate’s degree in Dance Performance from Valencia College, a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in Modern Dance from the University of South Florida, and a Master of Fine Arts in Choreography from the California Institute of the Arts.
ABOUT THE GUEST Composers
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Bryan Dyer is a musician with more than 30 years of professional experience. He’s a versatile multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and producer who performs many styles of music, from classical and avant-garde to rock, jazz, and blues. Music has taken Bryan around the world to perform in countries including Japan, Switzerland, Indonesia, and Africa, and alongside such notable artists as Huey Lewis and The News, Michael McDonald, and Carlos Santana. Some of the groups he currently performs with include SoVoSo, The Funk Revival Orchestra, Chelle! and Friends, Bobby McFerrin & MOTION, Crosspulse w/Keith Terry, and Linda Tillery, and the Cultural Heritage Choir. Bryan has also worked on several projects with Santa Cruz-based producer and choreographer over the last 20 years including “JOY” and “Mixed Nutz!”.
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Inspired by the voices of the ancestors and plant medicines — big ma’s baby — B Dukes (they/them) is a Leesville, South Carolina-raised multi-hyphenate artist who approaches their work with the transformational healing of their Black, Brown, and Indigenous queer kin in mind. Embracing the sacred art of playing with nature, inquiry, pleasure, and rest, they are currently exploring birthing sacred spaces and visual art that liberates and heals through improvisation, soundscapes, plants, movement, and visual art.
Vicki Randle was born into a musical family, her father a jazz pianist and her brother a world renowned opera singer. A guitarist, bassist, percussionist, composer, and singer, she has a 50-year-long career recording, touring, and composing in multiple genres: folk, jazz, rock, pop, and others. She has toured with Narada Michael Walden, Laura Nyro, George Benson, Lionel Richie, Wayne Shorter, and Kenny Loggins. She recorded with Aretha Franklin, Herbie Hancock, Todd Rundgren, Branford Marsalis. She was a percussionist and singer in the Tonight Show with Jay Leno band from 1992 to 2010. She toured with Mavis Staples for 8 years, appearing on 3 records, and her HBO documentary “Mavis!” Her rock and funk band “Skip The Needle” released their 3rd album on Little Village records and she most recently recorded and toured as a member of the iconic rock quintet MC5. Vickirandle.com
ABOUT THE GUEST Playwrights
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Anne Galjour came to San Francisco in 1980 to check out the theatre scene and stayed. She became a solo performer and playwright whose Cajun inspired works have been produced by theatres, colleges and theatre festivals around the country. New Legacies is her third collaboration with Robert Moses Kin. She is a lecturer in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University. Sincere thanks from the depths to Robert, the choreographers, the dancers, the staff at RMK, and to Nona Caspers. Ms. Galjour dedicates her work to the memory of Robert Henry Johnson.
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PC Muñoz is a CHamoru musician, writer, composer, and frequent collaborator with Robert Moses’ Kin. His body of recorded work as an artist and producer includes GRAMMY®-nominated contemporary classical music with composer/cellist Joan Jeanrenaud as well as projects with rock legend Jackson Browne, Chicana poet/chanteuse Ingrid Chavez, multireed sorcerer David Boyce, and more. He is a current Mosaic America Fellow and a featured writer in the award-winning 2022 collection from University of Hawai’i Press, Indigenous Pacific Islander Eco-literatures. Visit: pcmunoz.com and redfastluck.com
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Julius Ernesto Rea (he/they) is a Bay Area writer and arts producer. They co-founded The Forum Collective as well as Substrate Arts, a local longform arts journal. They are currently the playwright for "The Day the Sky Turned Orange" at SFBATCO, supported by the YBCA Creative Corps Initiative. In addition to their work as a playwright, they work with Lorraine Hansberry Theatre as a production manager.
March 16 pre-show Panelists
Brian Maurice Freeman is currently Artist-in-Residence at the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center, San Francisco. Under the auspices of the VictoryClub/Senior Wellness Program helping develop innovative artistic activities, (such as a podcasting class) for a Black centered and inclusive organization. Supporting the expression, health and well being of the way seniors live now. An actor, playwright, poet, performance artist, visual artist, arts administrator, filmmaker and, of course, a senior. Many awards include a Tony, Bessie and the CalArts/Alpert Award in Theatre.
Freddy Martin is the Congregational Life & Community Englagement Manager at Glide Memorial Church, where he manages the 20+ Congregational Life groups. He also organizes, creates, and implements social & racial justice campaigns, community events, and movements with meaning & purpose. Freddy Martin graduated from Pacific School of Religion at Berkeley and received a Certificate In Ministry Studies. He is currently in his 3rd year of the Black Community Activist Researcher course at University of SF and served on the SF African American Reparations Advisory Council and helped Win reparations for black San Franciscans. He is a performing artist, activist, and creator in the community. He has an AS Degree in Psychology from CCSF. Freddy enjoys being part of the decision-making and behind the scenes work creating events and movements with community that healthily and positively impacts many lives in San Francisco. An avid lover of God, People, & Life!
Sharon Woodruff is very outgoing, enjoys lots of family and social gatherings, Fresh Farmers' Markets, loves helping others, running errands, and taking other seniors to doctor appointments.
Cora McCoy is a retired license vocational nurse well-known for her dedication to serving her church and community. She is also a member of various organizations that educate, empower and engage individuals to improve conditions for their families and communities: Senior and Disability Action, Church women United, Association for advancement of colored people, a member of the El Bethel Missionary Baptist Church. In addition Cora connects with senior and community groups: Booker T Washington Community Center Senior Victory Club, Dr. George Davis Senior Center. Network for elders, Third Baptist Church Senior program and National Council of Negro Women. She also enjoys listening to music and crocheting.
Christine Joy Amagan Ferrer (moderator, a.k.a. Tine or tinejoy) is the Educational Program Coordinator for Robert Moses Kin. Creator, author and designer of The Divine Coloring Book. Tine is an INNER-disciplinary creative soul from San Francisco. A jack of all trades, a master of nothing but herself. She is a curator of spiritual wellness, cultural arts practitioner and healing arts facilitator. Rooted in Philippine, Haitian and Afro-Brazilian folkloric music and dance. Spirituality, folklore, indigenous art forms and rhythms across diasporas, of Spirit ground her. By day, she has been empowering youth through movement arts for over 15 years. By night, she is also a freelance designer, cultural and media producer. She delivers solutions for community organizations and individuals working towards the highest good of ALL. Through visual, written and embodied storytelling, she uses sacred healing practices, movement and design to guide the remembrance of the Divine within. She also coaches youth movement arts at AcroSports.
March 17 pre-show Panelists
Dorothy Lazard grew up in San Francisco and Oakland during the height of the Black Arts Movement. She received a bachelor’s degree in English from San Francisco State University and a Master of Library and Information Studies from UC Berkeley where she began her career as a librarian in 1983. She joined the staff of the Oakland Main Library in 2000 where she was responsible for various collections including history, biography, genealogy, travel, architecture, and maps. From 2009 until her retirement in 2021, she managed the library’s Oakland History Center, where she hosted and delivered history lectures, mounted exhibits, and wrote articles for the community about Oakland history. She is widely celebrated for encouraging people of all ages, cultures, and educational levels to explore local history. She retired in 2021.
She was the recipient of the Partners in Preservation Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oakland Heritage Alliance in 2022, and the Book Club of California's Oscar Lewis Award for contributions to Western History in 2023.
Along with her busy library career, Dorothy, who holds a MFA degree in Creative Nonfiction (Goucher College), has been a committed writer for decades. Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications including Oakland Noir; The Public Library: a photographic essay; Oakland Heritage Alliance News; and a number of literary anthologies. Her recently published memoir, WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW WILL MAKE A WHOLE NEW WORLD, is her first book.
Dr. Pablo Gonzalez is a Continuing Lecturer in Chicanx and Latinx Studies and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Gonzalez is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2022 from UC Berkeley. His research and teaching focus on questions of political and cultural resonance in social movements, the construction of Mexican criminality, dispossession, and insurgent histories amongst communities of color. Dr. Gonzalez is also the Director of the Ethnic Studies Changemaker Project, a multimedia center focused on amplifying the voices of communities of color through storytelling. He is originally from Berkeley and Richmond, California.
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Mia Diawara (moderator, RMK Board Member) is a Manager of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Performance at Y Analytics--the internal ESG & Impact capability of private investment firm TPG--where she manages climate change strategy across the TPG investment portfolio, advising portfolio companies on climate resilience and emissions reduction and assessing the impact of TPG's climate-related investments. Before joining TPG, Mia worked as a management consultant at Bain & Co. where she led diversity recruiting for the San Francisco Associate Consultant program and helped drive the implementation of Unconscious Bias & Inclusion training.
Mia holds an M.S. degree in Civil & Environmental Engineering and a B.S. in Science, Technology, and Society—both from Stanford University--where she was actively involved in the dance community through student groups and faculty projects. She is humbled by the opportunity to support RMK in its mission.
Activities of Robert Moses’ Kin have been made possible by: The Dream Keeper Initiative/Human Rights Commission, The International Association of Blacks in Dance, Grants for the Arts, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, National Dance Project/NEFA, Fleishhacker Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, and generous individuals.
The Bootstraps program is funded by the "Storytelling and Narrative Shift for the Black Community in San Francisco" grant through the Human Rights Commission's new Dream Keeper Initiative (DKI) and the California Arts Council.
“Robert Moses, with his dance company, Kin, not only creates some of the most gorgeous movement on stage anywhere, but also is committed to tackling ideas of race, class, culture and gender, and he does so successfully."
— San Francisco Chronicle
“The movement is extremely stretched out and jazzy, and underscores Moses’ expansive use of space, which in this case makes us feel there are far more than six dancers on stage.”
— Seattle Times