ABOUT Circo Zero

Instigated by Keith Hennessy in 2001, Circo Zero makes live performances responding to political crises, while centering queer bodies and ideas. Producing in unceded Ramaytush Ohlone territory/San Francisco, the broader Bay Area, and on tour since 1982, our performances are interdisciplinary and experimental, motivated by anti-racist and decolonial practices.

Our work is born in the cities, in the repurposed warehouses and factories, in the queer communities where cultural traditions are complicated, reimagined, and renewed, in the independent art spaces where present day experimentation meets the ancestors in unpredictable ways. And here, in these ruins and utopias, we dance.

Circo Zero is one of the more prolific and widely touring of West Coast dance-performance companies. Since 2001, we have presented work in more than 75 cities and 23 countries producing more than 15 full-length performances and countless shorter works in spaces ranging from punk anarchist squats to European state theaters to San Francisco beaches. In San Francisco, we have produced performances at YBCA, Dance Mission, CounterPulse, Joe Goode Annex. Circo Zero’s performances have been awarded the Guggenheim, USA Fellowship, Bessie, multiple Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, a Bay Area Goldie, and a San Francisco Award for Performing Arts.

Circo Zero foregrounds LGBTQ+, QTBIPOC, and Two Spirit artists, exposing audiences to their creativity, leadership, ideas, and radical kinship. In addition to creating original works of performance, Circo Zero supports our communities by providing the following programs, with a strong emphasis on supporting QT/BIPOC artists: 
• fiscal sponsorship with fees ~50% less than other fiscal sponsors
• mentorship, professional support, and solidarity services to elevate local artists creatively, administratively, and financially (providing 4.5 hours per week of free support on average)
• activism and community organizing to advocate for QT/BIPOC artists and against structural inequities in the field
• to be like the river, a Black envisioned, led, and produced free residency and retreat program for QTBIPOC artists created and led by jose abad and Stephanie Hewet
• Connecting Yaqui California, a project envisioned and led by Snowflake Calvert, which provided multiple events serving Native and Two-Spirit communities
• through our solidarity grant writing, raising over $170,000 since 2021 for multiple artists, entirely Queer, Trans, and/or BIPOC

Keith Hennessy, Artistic Director

Keith Hennessy, is a frolicker, imperfectionist, and witch working in the fields of dance, performance, affordable housing, and gay sexuality. Raised on Atikameksheng Anishnawbek lands in Canada and living since 1982 on Ramaytush Ohlone lands (San Francisco), Keith tours internationally. His work is interdisciplinary and experimental, motivated by anti-racist, queer-feminist, and anarchist movement. Hennessy engages practices of improvisation, ritual, collaboration, and play to respond to political crises.

With a focus on the politics of relationships, Keith has negotiated shared power and creativity with Ishmael Houston-Jones, Sarah Crowell, Meg Stuart, Brontez Purnell, Snowflake Calvert, jose abad, Gerald Casel, Faustin Linyekula, Jassem Hindi, Peaches… and several collaboratives. Hennessy was a member of Sara Shelton Mann’s legendary Contraband (85-94), as well as the collaborative performance companies CORE (95-98) and the France-based Cahin-caha, cirque bâtard (98-02). His work is featured in several books and documentaries, including Composing While Dancing (Melinda Buckwalter, U of Wisconsin: 2010), How To Make Dances in an Epidemic (David Gere, Univ of Wisconsin: 2004), Gay Ideas (Richard Mohr, Beacon: 1992), and Dancers in Exile (RAPT Productions, 2000). Hennessy is a co-founder of 848 Community Space/CounterPulse a thriving performance and culture space in San Francisco. He earned an MFA (Choreography) and PhD (Performance Studies) from UC Davis.

Hennessy's awards include the Sui Generis Award (2017), Guggenheim Fellowship (2017), United States Artist Kjenner Fellowship (2012), a Bilinski Fellowship (2011), a NY Bessie (2009) for Crotch, Isadora Duncan Dance Awards (1998, 2000, 2009) for performance, dance activism, and visual design, a Goldie (2007) and the Alpert/MacDowell Fellowship in Dance (2005). Keith has enjoyed residencies at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, MANCC, and Djerassi. Keith's recent teaching in universities, independent studios, and festivals includes VAC Foundation (Moscow), Ponderosa (Germany), FRESH (SF), HZT (Berlin), Movement Research (NYC), Impulstanz (Vienna), Portland State University, Sandberg Institute (Amsterdam), St. Mary's, and Warsaw Flow International CI Festival. Keith's writings have been published in Contact Quarterly, Movement Research Journal, Performance Research (UK), Society of Dance History Scholars Journal, Dance Theatre Journal (UK), SF MOMA's Open Space, Itch, Front, and In Dance.