AXIS Dance Company | 1428 Alice Street, Ste. 200 | Oakland, CA 94612 | www.axisdance.org | T: (510) 625-0110 | F: (510) 625-0321

“If art is supposed to change how we think, how we view the world, then credit AXIS Dance Company for a blazing artistic vision.” Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune

AXIS Dance Company, one of the world’s most acclaimed

and innovative ensembles of performers with and without

disabilities, will change the way you think about dance

and the possibilities of the human body forever. Founded

in 1987, AXIS has become a jewel of contemporary dance

and disability culture. AXIS has paved the way for a

powerful contemporary dance form - physically integrated

dance - performing nationwide, as well as in Russia, Europe, and Siberia, in over 120 cities.

Amongst many honors, AXIS has received seven Isadora Duncan Dance Awards

with equal number of nominations. Most recently, the Company was featured

to great acclaim on an episode of FOX Television’s series, So You Think You

Can Dance! and filmed an episode for AOL’s ‘You’ve Got’ Campaign.

Additionally, AXIS was featured on KQED’s SPARK program and KRCB’s One in 5

Stories. AXIS was one of 5 named ‘Best Dance Companies in San Francisco’ by

CBS San Francisco (2011) and one of the Bay Area’s top 10 high-impact arts

nonprofits by Philanthropedia (2010). Under the Artistic Direction of Judith Smith, the company has

commissioned works by such movement innovators as Bill T. Jones, Stephen Petronio, Joe Goode, Victoria

Marks, Ann Carlson, David Dorfman, Alex Ketley, Joanna Haigood, Sonya Delwaide, and Margaret Jenkins and

worked with world-renowned composers Meredith Monk, Fred Frith and Joan Jeanrenaud. Additionally, AXIS’

own choreographers have created numerous repertory works - expanding AXIS’ repertory to over 75 works.

Through its model education programs Dance Access and its youth

component Dance Access/KIDS!, AXIS offers classes and

workshops, school assemblies, presentations, lecture

demonstrations and residencies locally and abroad for adults and

youth of all abilities. AXIS is the primary organization that

provides pre-professional training to adult dancers with

disabilities: consisting of advanced level master classes taught by

well-known dance educators/choreographers, week-long Summer Intensives and university residencies.

AXIS Dance Company | 1428 Alice Street, Ste. 200 | Oakland, CA 94612 | www.axisdance.org | T: (510) 625-0110 | F: (510) 625-0321

Biographies... JUDITH SMITH, Artistic Director and founding member of AXIS, has earned an international reputation in the field of physically integrated dance. She teaches integrated dance and lectures at community organizations, schools, universities and conferences. Judith received the 2009 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award, KQED’s Local Hero and the Homer Avila danceAble awards in 2005 and was featured in KGO TV’s Profiles of Excellence. SONSHERÉE GILES, Associate Director & Dancer, is originally from New Orleans, LA. She is a dancer, choreographer, teacher and costume designer. She received her MFA in performance/choreography from Mills College. In 2005, she began dancing with AXIS Dance Company. When not working with AXIS, she makes her own dances by combining movement and intermedia. Her dancing is ever influenced and inspired by yoga, running and Steve Paxton. JOEL BROWN, Dancer, grew up dancing and doing gymnastics. At 9, Joel was paralyzed in a car accident. He returned to dance in high school at the encouragement of his older brother Graham. Graham created a duet, The Better Half, commissioned by Dance Exchange. The brothers have since performed in Salt Lake City, UT; Takoma Park, Silver Spring, College Park, MD; and Washington, DC. Joel studied vocal performance and jazz guitar at the University of Utah from 2008-2011. In 2011, he released his first music album, In Retrospect, under the Spy Hop Records Label. This singer/songwriter turned modern dancer finds passion in creating art, movement and music and joined AXIS in April 2012.

EMILY EIFLER, Dancer, is a dancer and visual artist. Initially a pre-med student before becoming interested in art, she strives to mix artistic and scientific thinking in her work. Originally from Colorado, she now lives and works in San Francisco where she continues her dance training in contact improv, ballet, contemporary and release technique. She has an MFA in Fine Art from the California College of Art and a BFA in Theater and Film from the University of Colorado. She has shown her work at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institution and the Armory show in New York. Emily joined AXIS Dance Company in 2012.

SEBASTIAN GRUBB, Dancer & Choreographer, is a movement artist based in San Francisco. He performs, choreographs and teaches dance from the perspectives of artistry and health. He has toured nationally with AXIS Dance Company since 2009, and has performed in Scott Wells & Dancers since 2008. His choreographic work has been both commissioned and self-produced, and has been shown extensively in the SF Bay Area and also in Florida, Washington State, Washington, DC, and Russia. JULIANA MONIN, Dancer, grew up in the Bay Area and is pleased to be a part of AXIS. She graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College with a BA in psychology before dancing professionally in New York and teaching yoga internationally. She has most recently worked with Nina Haft and Company, Lizz Roman and Dancers, Jessica Damon, and Chris Black. In 2012, she will choreograph Spring Awakening for CenterRep. She would like to thank her parents, teachers, and friends for all their love and support.

AXIS Dance Company | 1428 Alice Street, Ste. 200 | Oakland, CA 94612 | www.axisdance.org | T: (510) 625-0110 | F: (510) 625-0321

Selected Performance Highlights...

2012 Season James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA Florida Dance Festival/DanceAble, Miami, FL

Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington, VT North Fourth Art Center/VSA New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

Connecticut College, New London, CT Transelement Conference, Catholic University, Washington, DC

University of Denver/Newman Center, Denver, CO San Francisco International Arts Festival, San Francisco, CA

Dance Place/Atlas Theater, Washington, DC Dizzy Feet Gala, Los Angeles, CA

2011 Season Joe Goode’s GUSH Festival Brava Theater, San Francisco, CA

Chandler Center for the Arts, Chandler, AZ San Francisco International Airport Opening Event, San Francisco, CA

Ford Amphitheater, Hollywood, CA The Dislocation Express, BART Stations throughout Bay Area, CA

So You Think You Can Dance, Fox TV, Los Angeles, CA Cal Performances Fall Free For All, Berkeley, CA

Walking Distance Dance Festival/Innerstate Touring, Willits, CA AXIS 2011 Home Season, Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Performing Arts, Oakland, CA

Cal Poly University, San Luis Obispo, CA Myrna Loy Center, Helena, MT

Auditorium Theater, Chicago, IL

2010 Season

UCLA Center for Performance Studies, Los Angeles, CA University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

Montgomery Community College, Blue Bell, PA Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY

Dance Place with VSA Arts, Washington, DC Bates Dance Festival, Bates, ME

Bumbershoot Music and Dance Festival, Seattle, WA AXIS 2010 Home Season, ODC Theater & Malonga Casquelourd Theater, Oakland & San Francisco, CA

Lied Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln, NE

2009 Season Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, OR

AXIS 2009 Home Season, Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Performing Arts, Oakland, CA Florida Dance Festival/DanceAble, Miami, FL

AXIS Dance Company | 1428 Alice Street, Ste. 200 | Oakland, CA 94612 | www.axisdance.org | T: (510) 625-0110 | F: (510) 625-0321

“It’s not only visual effect, of course. The very make-up of the company implies a reaffirmation of human possibility, a triumph over adversity, that’s both magnificently powerful and unlike what you’ll see elsewhere.” Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune “In an earlier era, AXIS was, understandably, set on justifying its existence. Today, the quality of the

dancing takes your breath away.” – Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Chronicle “Like much that is surprising in art … AXIS’s work instructs the viewer in how to appreciate it, and the lesson

is delivered with cogent force: Sympathy is irrelevant. Forget what isn’t here, and pay attention to what is.” – Bruce Weber, The New York Times

“The dancing drew us in, and by the finale, the evening was coruscating with brilliant dancing, and there was no place on earth I'd rather be.” - Paul Parish, Dance View Times “Audiences unaccustomed to seeing such inventive movement generated from what could be considered

limitation may find themselves re-evaluating their own ideas of artistic perfection.” - Lucia Mauro, The Chicago Tribune “There is no more defiant a land that I can think of than AXIS. They showed me what dance could be.“ – Bill T. Jones “I love the wide ranging and dynamic vision…unique, unexpected, touching, powerful and glorious physicality.” – Brenda Way, Artistic Director, ODC “Working with AXIS Dance Company was one of my most satisfying experiences as a presenter.

I would recommend the company to any presenter who is serious about showcasing enjoyable, engaging, thought-provoking dance!” – Rhys Mason, The JCCSF, San Francisco, CA “AXIS helped us realize what we could achieve as an organization. The work accomplished in these couple

of weeks will have a lasting impact on our connections to numerous community groups, on our programming and sense of inclusion.” – Arnie Malina & Aimee Petrin, Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington, VT

AXIS Dance Company | 1428 Alice Street, Ste. 200 | Oakland, CA 94612 | www.axisdance.org | T: (510) 625-0110 | F: (510) 625-0321

The Repertory...

Contingencies (2012) Named by the Village Voice as “A choreographer of superior intelligence, lyricism, and wit”, Victoria Marks will create her second work for AXIS based on “If/Then” statements: studying the ways we make sense of conditionality and ways in which this logic creates unreliable truths. Marks will explore movement built on If/Then statements, and draw inspiration from actual conditional statements from the AXIS community.

Full of Words (2011) 25 minutes As if peering through the windows of three different rooms, UK-based choreographer Marc Brew challenges us to think about how we might exist with each other in passion and conflict. The physical conversations, encounters and interventions told through Brew’s edgy, intricate movement vocabulary, ask questions of what it is to be human and who might dance. For Mature Audiences.

The Narrowing (2010) 11 minutes Choreographer Sebastian Grubb, in collaboration with dancer Rodney Bell, investigates performer as subject and object - sliding between various stances such as passive audience member, virtuosic dancer, objectified figurine, and sarcastic critic. “… a work that explores competition and support between two almost-equals.” –Rita Feliciano, Dance View Times Terre Brune (2005) 15 minutes Set to an original music score by former Kronos Quartet cellist Joan Jeanrenaud, choreographer Sonya Delwaide found her inspiration for this trio in the haunting words of a short poem of the same name by French Canadian writer Marie Savard. “Delwaide’s rough hewn modernist language is efficient and focused…Jeanrenaud carves out pizzicato passages with uncommon vigor.” – Allan Ulrich, Voice of Dance

AXIS Dance Company | 1428 Alice Street, Ste. 200 | Oakland, CA 94612 | www.axisdance.org | T: (510) 625-0110 | F: (510) 625-0321

Residencies… AXIS works with presenters to create dynamic residencies for your community. Our performances and outreach activities are effective in any number of settings including theaters, schools, colleges and universities, museums, community centers, art and dance centers, medical centers and more. Residency activities may include:

• Performances: AXIS is available for professionally presented performances in a wide variety of venues from proscenium theaters to alternative spaces. Performances are tailored to your specific needs. Our diverse repertoire includes choreography by commissioned guest choreographers as well as AXIS company members. AXIS can travel as a full company or smaller ensemble, presenting shows of 30 to 90 minutes in length.

• Post-Performance Q&A: One of the company's favorite outreach activities, the question and answer session provides an opportunity for our audiences to talk to the dancers about our work. Often mediated by the presenter or a dance professional, topics can range from the choreographic process to the issues related to dance and/or disability, or they may allow the audience an opportunity to give honest feedback about the pieces presented.

• School Assemblies/Performances for Youth: AXIS dancers with and without disabilities perform innovative choreography that demonstrates how people with differences can work together. Includes interactive participation by students, plus candid discussion and Q&A with AXIS Dancers. Programs typically last 35-45 minutes.

• Accessibility Trainings: AXIS Dance Company invites theater staff, volunteers and board members to participate in an interactive training on accessibility. The session includes video as well as information about AXIS philosophy, disability awareness, and an experiential component using adaptive equipment.

• Master classes and Workshops: AXIS offers classes and workshops to adults with any level of experience. Disciplines taught include: Physically integrated dance technique, Contact Improvisation, contemporary dance techniques, creative movement and choreography and composition. AXIS also offers master classes for intermediate and advanced students, as well as special 'intensives' and ‘teacher trainings’ providing more concentrated study of particular themes or approaches. We also direct performance labs, in which a cast of community members (often spanning a wide range of generations, backgrounds, and abilities) design and create a dance piece, which is then presented in various community settings and venues.

• Youth Classes: AXIS youth classes are intended to simultaneously entertain and educate about dance, disability, diversity and inclusion. These classes not only provide a healthy and fun physical outlet emphasizing each child’s inherent creativity, but also encourage cooperation and communication. Classes can be organized around a particular curriculum, or geared towards the children's creation of their own performance piece.

• Lecture Demonstrations: Lecture demonstrations are often a good choice for community centers, schools, conferences, libraries, or other public venues, which lack the space or resources for an AXIS performance or workshop but are interested in learning about our work. Demonstrations may include video presentation, slides or other media aids, and short physical demonstrations.