Oct 25-Nov 2: D.I.R.T. Festival 2025 – Come Hell Or High Water

Dance Mission Theater presents
D.I.R.T. Festival 2025 – Dance In Revolt(ing) Times
Come Hell Or High Water

For all shows, meet at Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF.

TICKETS: Reserve now
All shows are offered on a sliding scale. Including FREE! Please choose the ticket level that matches your ability. Your higher ticket level helps subsidize the ticket of someone who might not be able to pay in full. All ticket sales go into supporting the work of these artists!

You can also purchase tickets over the phone by calling 415-826-4441. Please leave a message if no one picks up, and someone will call you back.

A social-political dance festival addressing our current dystopian times. Two weekends, three distinct programs! At a time when freedom of speech is being attacked, these D.I.R.T. artists are not backing down.

WEEK 1: OCT 25-26
Program A Saturday – Sunday, 2:30pm and 4:30pm
Fugitivity by NAKA Dance Theater
DOWNLOAD DIGITAL PROGRAM HERE

WEEK 2: OCT  30-NOV 2
Thursday-Saturday 7:30pm, Sunday 6pm
     Program B (Thurs & Sat): Tammy Hall and Latanya Tigner, Dance Brigade, Georges Lammam & Jeanette Cool with Loay Dahbour and Priscilla Wathington.
Program B includes an outdoor section. Dress warmly.
DOWNLOAD DIGITAL PROGRAM HERE
     Program C (Fri & Sun): Sara Shelton Mann, Embodiment Project, Gina Pacaldo, La Mezcla (Sun only), Guillermo Gómez-Peña (Fri only)
Program C is primarily outdoors (meet at Dance Mission). Dress warmly.
DOWNLOAD DIGITAL PROGRAM HERE

ACCESSIBILITY INFO
ASL Interpretation offered Saturday, Oct 25, 2:30pm show.
Audio Description on Sunday,  Oct 26,  4:30pm show. Haptic tour starts at 4pm.
Other Accessibility Information: Dance Mission Theater is ADA accessible and is located on the second story of our building and can be reached by an elevator or stairs. Seats do not have arms. If you would like wheelchair or limited mobility seating or have other accessibility requests, please email info@dancemission.com.
Restrooms: Restrooms are all-gender and also wheelchair accessible.
Outdoor portion: For the outdoor portion of the festival (performances happening directly outside of Dance Mission on the street), there will be seats available for those who need to sit.

About FUGITIVITY by Naka Dance Theater (Week 1)
Program A
Oct 25-26: Sat-Sun, 2:30pm & 4:30pm
Out of an abundence of caution, now all part of this performance will be indoors.

NAKA Dance Theater’s Fugitivity is an interdisciplinary performance project exploring the theme of fugitivity: Who has lost the ability to move freely? Who is forced to flee? How can we respond creatively to xenophobia and the threat of mass deportations? What underground networks are keeping people safe?

The project centers the revolutionary capacity of improvisation to challenge and shift structures of power, hierarchy and oppression. An eight-member artistic cohort will engage in an immersive process of experimentation, generating and exploring structures within which movement, sound, visual imagery, video and storytelling interact to interrogate systems of power and imagine new possibilities for the future.

Woven throughout this work is an exploration of the parallels and connections between the Underground Railroad and contemporary networks of people, places, and information that currently exist to support immigrants and other “fugitives”. With the increased dangers of deportation and xenophobia in our socio-political climate, these networks and systems are simultaneously being strengthened and are under threat.

Created and performed by: Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz, Amelia Uzategui Bonilla, Cristina Lopez Suarez, Krhistina Giles, Music Research Strategies (Marshall Trammell), Oka Ver, Jose Ome Mazatl and Debby Kajiyama, with video and object design by Ian Winters. Lighting design by Jose Maria Francos. 

The development of the Dismantling Tactic X: Fugitivity work was made possible, in part, by the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University. This performance is also supported by Dance Mission’s D.I.R.T. Festival, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Initiative, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, California Arts Council, Cornell University’s Society for the Humanities and the Arthur C. and Molly Phelps Bean Faculty Fellowship, Richmond’s MilkBar, Dani Bruyn, Carol Uyeda-Lyons, Judy Kajiyama and Craig Matsuzaki.

About Week 2: Program B
Oct 30 & Nov 1: Thurs & Sat, 7:30pm
Program B includes an outdoor section. Dress warmly.

Dance Mission Theater’s Liberation Academy presents this first installment of Rock In A Weary Land,  featuring a  new collaboration between choreographer/dance ethnographer Latanya d. Tigner and musical director, Tammy L. Hall. This new dance and music work investigating the influence of Black American protest dance and music on contemporary dance forms like House and Hip Hop through intersecting lenses of dance cyphers and Afrofuturism.  We start by looking at the largely unknown influence of Gullah Geechee dance and music, exploring a cultural continuum from the peoples of the Gullah Islands to Black social dance in the Bay Area today.

Dance Brigade presents a revolutionary piece by Krissy Keefer and includes Taiko composition by Bruce Ghent. Artistic Director Krissy Keefer is known for how she explores the intersection between art and social issues with fierce inventiveness and a deft comic touch. Coming out of the legendary Wallflower Order (founded in 1975), Keefer has honed her craft over the last 40 years by creating her content driven choreographies that are a high-energy blend of ballet, modern dance, jazz, song, text, sign language and explosive Taiko drumming.

Georges Lammam, of Palestinian descent, was born in Beirut, Lebanon. The second of three brothers who are professional musicians, he is a solo violinist exemplifying the Arab style of instrumental improvisation. His repertoire spans a wide range of Arabic music, form classical to contemporary popular songs. Having performed with the most well-known singers of the Middle East, his reputation as an instrumental accompanist with a strong command of maqamat precedes him. He wil be joined by Jeanette Cool on piano. Arab percussionist Loay Dahbour will also play and palestinian Priscilla Wathington will perform.

About Week 2: Program C
Oct 31 & Nov 2: Fri 7:30pm, Sun 6pm
Program C is all outdoors (meet at Dance Mission). Dress warmly.

Sara Shelton Mann is celebrated as being one of the most exciting contemporary choreographers of our time. She says, “My art is of a piece with my healing work and political engagement: it is meant to reveal and transmit the story of our collective humanity—our potential for excellence, our danger—in a time of global change, chaos, and paradigm shift. It is an antidote to fear, doubt, and greed as the face of who we are.”

La Mezcla (Sun only) is a polyrhythmic, San Francisco-based dance and music ensemble rooted in Chicana, Latina and Indigenous traditions and social justice. Founded in 2015 by Dance/USA artist fellow Vanessa Sanchez, their work brings together Tap dance, Son Jarocho and Afro-Caribbean rhythms to bring the often unseen histories and experiences of communities of color to stages, streets and fields.

Embodiment Project  serves to uplift the ancestral and primordial power of dance as an act of resistance, collective healing and social transformation. Founded in 2008 by Nicole Klaymoon, Embodiment Project celebrates Black social dances and street dance forms, recognizing them as healing modalities. They also draw on other dance traditions, including modern dance, and use choreo poetry, documentary theater, live song, and video art to articulate and hold stories of liberation.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña (Fri only) is a performance artist, writer, radical pedagogue, Public Citizen,  and activist against all borders. An intellectual Coyote (Nanabush), he has been fighting colonialism since 1492. He is the Artistic Director of international arts organization, La Pocha Nostra, that  mixes experimental aesthetics, activist politics, Spanglish humor, and audience participation.

Gina Pacaldo is a performance artist and director of Nativa Women Productions,  offering  unique presentations of contemporary dance, theatre and poetry.

This festival is made possible with support from SFAC and GFTA.