Fabric
Weaving queer threads to build skills, generate conversation, and have a fab time with performances and free food
Fabric aims to uplift under-addressed issues and needs in the fields of experimental dance and performance through workshops in critically needed creative skills and panel conversations on vital topics, teachers and artists are majority QTBIPOC and all events are free. Instigated by Clarissa Dyas in collaboration with Keith Hennessy and Alley Wilde, Fabric launched in June 2024 with three panel conversations and a performance salon. 2025 will feature workshops in lighting, sound, and costumes with panel conversations and performance salon. Videos from our panel conversations are available here
::: COMING UP ::
The Art of Illumination: A Workshop in the Craft of Lighting Design and Collaboration
Mondays April 7-21 from 6pm-9pm
Mon April 7 at BAM House (1540 Broadway, Oakland)
Mon April 14 + 21 at Oakland Theater Project (1501 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Oakland)
The Art of Illumination is for choreographers and theatre artists interested in learning about lighting design and how to collaborate effectively with a lighting designer. Over three weeks, this course will inform each participant about the nuts and bolts of lighting design and inspire unique artistic possibilities only theatrical lighting can illuminate. This class seeks to reveal the ways in which lighting design is a lifelong craft, filled with joy, that requires discipline and commitment in order to become proficient in the language of light and how understanding it can benefit theatre workers and choreographers in future collaborations.
Stephanie Anne Johnson’s 50-year career as a designer began after graduating from Emerson College in Boston. She is a second-generation theatre worker, following in the footsteps of her mother, Virginia E. Greene who worked with the American Negro Theatre. Her designs have been produced at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Arizona Repertory Theatre, The Apollo (New York), and the National Black Theater Festival. Locally, Johnson has worked with Lower Bottom Playaz, Afro Solo, African American Shakespeare, Shotgun Players, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Oakland Theatre Project, and many others. Work can be seen at www.lightessencedesign.com
Patchwork
March 3-11
@ CounterPulse + @ The Lab
A free sound design workshop series exploring a variety of music production elements and techniques focused on electronic music and song-writing. Curated by Madre Guía, this series will include guest facilitators Xyla and Sarah who will offer their own expertise and creative approaches to music production. Throughout 5 sessions, participants will learn experimental sound design techniques, explore track development and arrangement, and dive into song-writing and freestyling through a Hip Hop lens. This series is open to artists curious and/or passionate about music production and will prioritize Black queer, trans, and disabled people of all skill levels.
TRUST YOUR EAR, TRUST YOUR BODY :: Facilitator: Madre Guía
Madre Guía will guide you through an embodied practice of trust while experimenting with different sound design techniques. Prepare to let your intuition lead you to the rhythms and soundscapes unique to your own personal creative language. We will move, create, share, and gather under the frequency of trust.
TAPESTRY THREADS :: Facilitator: Xyla
Talks and practice in transforming small pieces of inspiration into fully-realized songs and projects. Tapestry Threads will have two workshops: A session focused on learning different creative and technical approaches to assist with moving a track concept to its final arrangement and another that focuses on deep listening with constructive feedback. Xyla’s main area of expertise is Ableton, however, any DAW or form of music production is welcome.
PILLARS OF HIP-HOP :: Facilitator: Sarah
An invitation to both the history of hip-hop and your experiences witnessing this history develop. GENRE FLOW is an invitation to explore writing lyrics against a variety of (genre) forms. We’ll splice these workshops together to invoke as root-to-tip an expression of hip-hop’s soul and transformation as possible.
BAR FOR BAR :: Facilitator: Sarah
An invitation to hip-hop’s freest expression. We’ll practice freestyling primarily to tune ourselves to our intuition, though becoming a more-agile lyricist is a welcome possibility.
Attendees of each workshop will have the opportunity to customize their learning experience on a spectrum from self-led to collaborative activities. No attendees will be forced to share or perform, though outlets for sharing will exist. Black attendees, especially those whose ancestors were enslaved in the Americas, will be given priority in share-backs and, in influencing discussion topics.
::: THE PAST :::
Luminary Thots
Sat-Sun Feb 8-9 from 12pm-4pm
@ CounterPulse [80 Turk Street, SF]
Join renowned local lighting designer GG Torres for a weekend workshop to learn the process of designing lights for performance. This workshop is geared towards multidisciplinary artists who want to better understand lighting, technicians and AV workers wanting to skill up, and for people who may want to pursue lighting design or theater tech as a job.
Participants will learn the creative principles and theories of lighting design, lighting equipment and board programming, how to develop and enact a design, and generally have deeper understanding and agency with lights, as designers or performers.
This workshop will also benefit choreographers and performance directors to better collaborate and communicate with lighting designers and technical directors. How to get the looks you want? How to understand the options, limitations, and possibilities of lighting?
The Bay Area has an ongoing need for workers in theater tech and production, from freelance tech support to technical directors, stage managers, and visual designers. This workshop intentionally opens these career pathways to QT and BIPOC folks whose voices, visions, and perspectives are too rare in the fields of lighting design and theater tech. You can be a lighting designer.
This workshop is free, includes lunch, and is limited to ten participants.
failed performance gala
Fri June 14th :: 7:00pm-12:00am
Queer performance, dancing, community and free dinner
Presented in collaboration with forever failing
@ Omni Commons [4799 Shattuck Ave, Oakland]
This is a kick-off party for Fabric x forever failing hosted by Clarissa Rivera Dyas & ainsley tharp & Co-Produced by Circo Zero. failed performance gala is an evening extravaganza of shit art by local performers, a delicious dinner, DJ & dancing post performances, and a grand ole community time.
Come fail with us. Make me throw up a little. Crash expectations. Expect minimal tech. Take risks. FAIL HARDER. Fuck cultural pressure, euro-centric capitalistic bullshit, and elitism.
The event is FREE and there will be FREE food.
Strengthening Solidarity Between Two-Spirits and Queer/Trans Palestinians
Sat June 15th :: 6:00pm-8:00pm
A panel discussion curated by Snowflake Calvert
@ Queer AF [575 Castro Street, SF… former home of Harvey Milk’s camera shop]
An insightful panel discussion exploring how 2Spirit/Indigiqueers and Queer/Trans Palestinians can foster greater solidarity and support for one another. This event will feature activists and community leaders who will share strategies, experiences, and practical steps to building stronger bridges, enhance mutual understanding, and build a more united front. Whether you're a member of these groups or an ally, this discussion will help to provide valuable perspectives and actionable insights for creating stronger community alliances between the two groups represented.
Dykes in Dance
Tue June 18th :: 6:30pm-8:30pm
@ Wildcat Studios [2547 Eighth Street, Berkeley]
Featuring:
• amara tabor-smith —- IG: amaratsmith
• Chibueze Crouch —- IG: @carefreeblackauntie
• Frances Teves Sedayo — IG: fsedayao
• Jess Bozzo —- IG: jesssybooo
• Richelle Donigan —- IG: ojahlife
• All the amazing folks —- IG: queeringdancefestival
A panel conversation troubling and uplifting the liminal category of “Dyke,” exploring Dyke culture, Dyke identity, and Dyke history in dance. We will discuss the history of queer women*, lesbian and dyke dancers and choreographers in the Bay Area.
How have they played a foundational role in the queer community and local dance scene? How have their stories been invisibilized or re-framed over time? From the 70s, 80s, and 90s to the 2000s, the definition of “dyke” has changed, with some feeling included or excluded by this term as gender identities beyond the binary have become more visible. Are we in a post-dyke era? How have younger generations re-defined what “dyke” means to them? How do older generations feel about these shifting identities? And how has all of this impacted the dance ecosystem in San Francisco and beyond?
Collective Power: Working Without Hierarchy
Sat June 22nd :: 5:00pm-7:00pm
Panel discussion curated by Circo Zero
Featuring members of Asian Babe Gang, Bridge Live Arts, Queering Dance Festival, rupture, a worker-owned cooperative, and Bay Anarchist Free School
@ Temescal Arts Center [511 48th St, Oakland]
Are you tired of bosses or choreographers barking orders? Are you organizing to abolish top-down business as usual? Working in a collective and facing tough questions? With a focus on dance and culture work, this panel conversation brings together members of six different Bay Area collectives to share stories, questions, and ideas about working without hierarchy.
Testing Ground: A choreo lab with jose abad & Keith Hennessy
Mondays 6:00pm-9:00pm :: Nov 11 - Dec 2
Co-Presented with The Lab
Experimental approaches to choreography and performance making. Let’s liberate our imaginations and bodies by expanding what’s possible? How does improvisation talk to choreography? How do our politics impact our aesthetics impact the process of making the dance? How are care and repair integrated into rehearsal, production, and choreography? How do traditional, folk, diasporic dances flow with “contemporary” and “experimental” practices?
Mon Nov 11 - Mon Dec 2 @ The Lab [2948 16th St, San Francisco, CA 94103]
FUNDING
Circo Zero’s program Fabric is supported by funds from The California Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, and Grants for the Arts