Bay Area dancers Megan Lowe and Johnny Huy Nguyen investigate the meaning of home in a new, site-specific performance work developed during the duo’s 16-week residency at The David Ireland House. HOME(in)STEAD, an hour-long dance experience for intimate audiences of just 10 per performance, moves from front door to salon, utilizing the entirety of late conceptual artist David Ireland’s unique historic house turned work of art to explore themes of home and the intersection of dance, sculpture, and performance. The piece features original music by cellist Peekaboo and lighting by Rico Duenas.
June 24 & 25, 2022: 5pm & 8pm (SOLD OUT)
June 26, 2022: 4pm & 7pm (SOLD OUT)
NEW DATES ADDED
July 1 & 2, 2022: 5pm & 8pm (SOLD OUT)
July 3, 2022: 4pm & 7pm (SOLD OUT)
Tickets: $20-150
Available on a first-come, first serve basis. No one turned away from lack of funds.
The residency marks a developing collaboration for Lowe and Nguyen, who are building a dance together in co-collaboration for the first time. The two artists share a deep interest in immersive, sculptural, site-specific work, bringing their own strengths to the partnership—Lowe as a specialist in contact improvisation, aerial, and site-specific dance, and Nguyen with a multifaceted movement practice that includes breaking and other street dance forms.
Lowe and Nguyen were inspired by The David Ireland House’s residency open call in early 2022 to investigate and heal the concept of home together. “In our lived experiences, both of us have had complicated relationships with home. In interacting with the physicality of The David Ireland House through place-based movement interactions and contact partnering, we hoped to unlock new possibilities within the architecture to inspire embodied reflections on home and how we can define it for ourselves as an expansive space for healing, freedom, and connection,” they wrote.
Collaborative residency partner Minnesota Street Project will host a further performance program by the resident artists in summer 2022.
Lowe and Nguyen were selected from more than 60 applications. Jurors for the selection process included Aay Preston-Myint, Program Manager at Headlands Center for the Arts; Julie E. Phelps, Artistic & Executive Director of CounterPulse; and María Elena González, Sculpture and Ceramic Department Chair at the San Francisco Art Institute.
About the Artists
Megan Lowe is a fierce female dancer, choreographer, performer, singer-songwriter, filmmaker, teacher, and administrator of Chinese and Irish descent, creating dance art in the SF Bay Area on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Territory. With an affinity for dynamic places and partners, her creations through Megan Lowe Dances tackle unusual physical situations and invent compelling solutions, opening up the imagination to what is possible. Megan has performed with Flyaway Productions, Lenora Lee Dance, Dance Brigade, Scott Wells & Dancers, Lizz Roman & Dancers, Epiphany Productions, and more. She teaches for Joe Goode Performance Group, Bandaloop, Flyaway, for contact improvisation gatherings, and for her alma mater Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, where she currently works as the Office Manager. Megan’s artistic process thrives off of collaboration, prioritizing creating relationships of respect, generosity, and gratitude. This culture of magnanimity is infused in the dance classes Megan teaches all over the Bay Area, for organizations, schools, universities, and dance festivals, serving movers of all different ages, experience levels, body types, races, cultures, and socio-economic status—building community, connection, and understanding. meganlowedances.com
Johnny Huy Nguyen is a second generation Vietnamese American multidisciplinary somatic artist based in Yelamu (a.k.a San Francisco) and son of courageous refugees. Fluent in multiple movement modalities including myriad street dance styles, contemporary, modern, and martial arts, Nguyen weaves together dance, theater, spoken word, ritual, installation, and performance art to create immersive, time-based works that recognize the body’s power as a place of knowing, site of resistance, gateway to healing, and crucible of imagination. In addition to his work as an individual artist, he has appeared in the works of Lenora Lee Dance Company, KULARTS, Embodiment Project, the Global Street Dance Masquerade, and James Graham Dance Theater and has performed in the Bay Area, Oregon, Boston, and New York City. His individual work has been presented at the Asian Art Museum, the Chinese Historical Society of America, APATure, and SOMArts. His most recent full-length work, Minority Without A Model, premiered in 2021 as part of the 24th United States of Asian America Festival.
Peekaboo (they/them) is an experimental cellist, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and youth educator situated on Ramaytush Ohlone land (SF). Their compositions are rooted in honoring the essence and spirit of past, present, and future Queer ancestors, prioritizing sonic exploration practices towards the decolonizination of Euro-centric structures embedded in youth and adult music education and performance. Through multiple collaborations with QTBIPOC2S Bay Area-based performers, they continue to work in togetherness, sonically activating bodily vibrations, readying the move towards non-binary Queer liberation, strengthening connections between Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Filipinx ancestry, and celebrating freedom of expression, rest, and breath.
Rico Duenas was born and raised in San Francisco. As a child, he spent time on the east coast with his grandfather, a sculptor and founding member of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In San Francisco, he also often accompanied his father to flea markets and garage sales, where his father bought, fixed, and re-sold furniture. It was there that he was introduced to artist Kevin Randolph, who was repurposing lights, and quickly developed a love of lighting and sculpture. He lives and works in San Francisco as a union electrician and artist.
HOME(in)STEAD is generously sponsored by John Sanger.
Image by Henrik Kam