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About Flyaway
Productions
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1068 Bowdoin Street, San Francisco,
CA 94134
tel +415.333.8302
jo@flyawayproductions.com
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WHAT WE DO
Perform off-the-ground dances that expose the range and power of female physicality. We experiment with height, speed and gravity, dancing on steel objects that are both architectural and fabricated. We place dancers anywhere from two to one hundred feet off the ground. The height at which we perform is as important to us as the integration of content into an apparatus-based vocabulary. We offer performance as a medium for social commentary and choose projects that advance female empowerment in the public realm. At its core, our work explores the female body-- its tumultuous expressions of strength and fragility.
Teach a signature style of apparatus-based dance. We offer year round classes to adults of all levels of experience (in partnership with ODC School) ; we offer year round KIDFLY classes to teens and youth (in partnership with ODC Youth Program); we offer youth Art & Advocacy Apprenticeship Program, presenting a summer of dance-making and activism. Our training with youth offers some remedy for the ways in which women and girls remain an underserved element in public culture as a whole.
Advocate and provide the bridge between women in the arts and civic life. We present our biennial 10 Women Campaign, a celebration of ten individual women whose work in business, politics, activism and the arts mirrors Flyaway's mission. The campaign is designed to encourage dance as a vehicle for community gathering and to bring visibility to the often overlooked female leadership achievements in the Bay Area's contemporary dance community.
WHERE WE PERFORM
On a three-story fire escape, a hanging umbrella, an oversized scale of justice, a circling merry-go-round, suspended containers of salt, a steel-framed bath, a chandelier on fire and a live billboard. We have also made dances for rooftops, an active construction site and the last remaining hand-operated crane on San Francisco's waterfront. Our work is typically free to the public and engages a wide spectrum of the public who otherwise would never attend a professional dance performance.
Our work has been presented by:
ODC Theater
Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco
ODC Theater in San Francisco
The International Aerial Festival in Boston, MA
The SkyDancers Festival in San Francisco
Arizona State University in Phoenix, AZ
The Aerial Dance Festival in Boulder, CO
Sushi Performance Space in San Diego, CA
Duke University in Durham, NC
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT FLYAWAY
"as strong as they are beautiful to watch" - The San Francisco Bay Guardian
"substance trumps considerable spectacle" - The San Francisco Examiner
"intimidatingly creative" - The San Francisco Chronicle
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JO KREITER
"a wonder of equilibrium" - The New York Times
Jo Kreiter is a San Francisco-based dancer/choreographer with a background in political science. Through dance she engages imagination, physical innovation and the political conflicts we live within. In both site and stage performance she works with flight as an expressive medium within a larger context. The artistry of spinning, flying, and exquisite suspension is imprinted with political intent. The use of spectacle has become one method she uses to make a lasting impression with an audience. Her work feels most communicative when it is steeped in the right balance of beauty, awe, provocation, and daring.
Kreiter has taught workshops highlighting her unique approach to inverted motion at Stanford, Duke, Nevada, Sonoma State, Ohio State, and Arizona State Universities, and the University of San Francisco. Articles written by Kreiter have been published in Contact Quarterly, In Dance and Window on the Works, an arts education manual published by Lincoln Center and upcoming in two new books on aerial/site specific dance. She is one of a few women worldwide to have gained expertise in the art of Chinese pole acrobatics.
"In the last several years, I have created work from broad notions of art as a catalyst for change. I have tried to bring the beauty of bodies in motion to discarded city streets; I have tried to bring the eye of the city onto an abandoned crane, to help turn it into a labor landmark. I have focused in on the subtlety of human despair. I have honored the power of dissent as a crucial political and cultural tradition, celebrating the tender underside of Market Street's protest history. I have asked the city of San Francisco to remember its painful history of arson and have offered the body in flight as a hopeful image of transformation. After all these years of dance-making I value both the scale and marvel of site specific work and the intimacy of the theater stage."
AWARDS AND HONORS
Special Recognition Award from TradesWomen, Inc. - 2010
Isadora Duncan Special Achievement - 2010
San Francisco Arts Commission Innovative Partnerships - 2008-10
Hewlett Foundation - 2008-10
CA Arts Council Creating Public Value - 2008-09
NEA Grant - 2008-09
CHIME Award - 2008
San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Initiative Grant - 2007-09
Creative Work Fund Grant - 2006
Meet the Composer Award - 2006
Arts Presenters Award - 2005
Rockefeller/MAP grant - 2003
San Francisco Arts Commission Public Art Commission - 2003
Wattis Residency at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts - 2002
California Dancemakers Fellowship - 2001
Gerbode Foundation Award for Choreography - 2000
San Francisco Bay Guardian GOLDIE Award - 2000
California Arts Council Artist-in Communities Residency Awards - 1995-2000
NEA Grant - 2008
CHIME Award - 2008
San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Initiative Grant - 2007-09
Creative Work Fund Grant - 2006
Meet the Composer Award - 2006
Arts Presenters Award - 2005
Rockefeller/MAP grant - 2003
San Francisco Arts Commission Public Art Commission - 2003
Wattis Residency at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts - 2002
California Dancemakers Fellowship - 2001
Gerbode Foundation Award for Choreography - 2000
San Francisco Bay Guardian GOLDIE Award - 2000
California Arts Council Artist-in Communities Residency Awards - 1995-2000
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