Having now retired from my senate faculty position as dance professor at UC San Diego, I am moving back home to the UK to begin the next chapter of my life. Looking back over my 21 years in San Diego, I am thankful for the many professional dance theatre projects and collaborations, and all the wonderful dancers, designers, composers, theatre directors and videographers I have had the pleasure, and the honor to work with. Here is a gallery of images, words and memorable moments, from 2019 back to 2005, also featuring photography by several San Diego based photographers.
Of Body and Ghost, 2019.
Photos by Jim Carmody and Manny Rotenberg.
Of Body and Ghost was a dance-theatre-opera collaboration between dance maker Yolande Snaith, composer Kris Apple, writer / dramaturg Roswitha Gerlitz and vocalist Barbara Byers. An ethereal rite of passage through the experience of aging. Movement, text, images, music and song join forces to create a poetic synthesis. The performers negotiate tensions between scientific fact, memory, embodied experience and fantasy in a surreal dance through time, space, gravity and spirit. Questions of human mortality in relation to our modern world are grappled with, whilst celebrating life in the present moment, and the beauty of the human body’s expressive capabilities. Presented as part of UC San Diego Department of Theatre and Dance's Dance Series in May 2019, Tête-A-Tête Opera Festival, London, UK August 2019 and Oxford College, Atlanta US, November 2019. Full lenghth video can be found on https://www.yolandesnaith.com/video
Mapping Invisibility, 2018
Photos by Tim Richards and Manny Rotenberg.
Mapping Invisibility was a collaboration between dance makers Yolande Snaith, Kyle Sorensen, Gina Bolles Sorensen, and composer / musician Kristopher Apple, created during an artist's residency at the City Heights Performance Annex, San Diego, in May 2018. Under the artistic direction of Yolande Snaith, this work collectively evolved a system of mapping choices and behaviors in response to changing space and perceptions between performers and objects, with systems of signals built into the sound design, text and music. An IMAGOmoves production performed at City Heights Parformance Annex, May 2018.
Video can be found here: https://vimeo.com/316646451
Out Of The Ether 2018
Photos by Jim Carmody
Out Of The Ether was a collaboration with LITVAKdance and composer / musician Kristopher Apple. Directed by Yolande Snaith and choreographed collaboratively with dancers; Ashley Akhavan, Josh Dunn, Beverley Johnson, Berlin Lovio, Lemoe Mataitusi, Traci Mcknight, April Tra, Korey Van Hoy and Sadie Weinberg. Commissioned by LITVAKdance and performed as part of the company's inaugural spring concert 2018 at UC San Diego, and as part of a double bill with Mapping Invisibility at City Heights Parformance Annex, May 2018.
Once I Dreamed I Was a Dinosaur Swimming Backwards, 2016
Photos by Jim Carmody and Manny Rotenberg
A solo work by Yolande Snaith in collaboration with composer Ryan Welsh, for the San Diego International Fringe Festival. This work was a development of Yolande's solo material from Girls at Wor, a collaboration with Katie Duck. Presented at The Geoffrey Off Broadway, June / July 2016. Once I Dreamed I Was a Dinosaur Swimming Backwards constructs and imaginal space where the living body and inanimate objects invite multiple projections and possibilities, whilst simultaneously bringing intrinsic histories and truths into the present. I am interested in creating a world where the personal and the universal hold hands, where meaningfulness and meaninglessness collide, where fantasy and reality converse, where the unseen stories etched into the skin of things are revealed, where the body brings its life story to every action, with and without intention”
Duck&Snaith: Girls at Work (2015 - 2016) A collaboration between Katie Duck and Yolande Snaith
A collaboration that evolves around chosen objects, text and movement. Duck & Snaith engage with juxtaposition, conjunction and interaction. They willfully give their presence as female artists with an unusual flavor of humour, accompanied by a surprising energy and clarity of movement activity, embodied by their experience over the past 35 and 39 years. Devised and performed: Katie Duck and Yolande Snaith / music: Alfredo Genovesi, Stephen Kent, James Blake, Jean-Jaques Palix and David Coulter. Girls at Work evolved over a two year period of working both in San Diego, US, and Amsterdam, Netherlands.The work premiered as part of the LIVE ARTS FEST at the WHITE BOX THEATER in San Diego, April 2015, and toured to Amsterdam (OT301), Berlin (DOC11) and Surrey University (UK) in February 2016
Woman For The Sake Of It (2016)
Photos by Jim Carmody
Woman For The sake Of It was a site specific research performance project for a group of San Diego based women dance and music artists, ranging in age from mid 20’s to mid 50’s. Yolande Snaith invited this group to undertake a short, intensive collaborative process during 6 days at the RAW space. Driven by a desire to explore a non hierarchical, non ego-centric creative process of shared authorship, this work embraced the diverse and multifaceted voice of the group, whilst also supporting each individual’s unique attributes. Situated within a raw environment of objects, lighting and layers of eclectic sound and music, the resulting performances shared an exploration of collaborative, spontanous performance making with audiences, inviting viewers into their wild, provocative, unpredictable, multidimensional and transformative playground of female expression.Yolande Snaith was joined by a cast of San Diego based dance artists - Anya Cloud, Karen Schaffman, Kristianne Salcines, Gina Bolles Sorensen, Veronica Santiago Moniello, with live sound and music curator Mary Oliver. Presented at RAW Space Off Broadway, San Diego, March 20016.
Measuring The Dream, 2016
photos: Jim Carmody
Measuring the Dream was a multimedia dance collaboration that drew on "The Dream", by the 17th Century Mexican nun Sor Juana Inez De La Cruz. Artistic direction Yolande Snaith, production design Victoria Petrovich, composer Ryan Welsh, lighting design Jose Lopez, dancers Erin Tracy, Aurora Lagattuta, Heather Glabe and Veronica Santiago Moniello. Choreographic scores by Yolande Snaith, Erin Tracy, Anne Gehman and Veronica Santiago Moniello. Costumes designed and created by Yolande Snaith.
This project embraced a creative process of cross pollination of artistic ideas and practices, blurring the distinctions between the artists respective disciplines and conventional roles. The choreographic process was a collective endeavor, bringing together several scores created by Yolande Snaith and the dancers in response to the text of ‘The Dream’, and research into the life of Sor Juana Innes de la Cruz. This work does not attempt to convey a linear narrative, but aims to bring the space to life through a collective response to ‘The Dream’ and evoke an essence of Sor Juana’s thoughts and vision. Presented as part if IDEAS Performance Series at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology(Calit 2), San Diego, US.
The mapping Games (part 2) - SOMA/LUX, 2015
Photos by Jim Carmody and Tim Richards
SOMA/LUX, a multimedia installation performnace, poetically navigating embodied and imagined journeys of sensory exploration, within a visceral, visual and sonic field of fluctuating states, light, shadow, opacity and transparency. Directed by Yolande Snaith, this production featured collaborative San Diego dancers Anne Gehman, Gina Bolles Sorensen, Kyle Sorensen, Angel Acuña, Andromeda Bradley, and Kris Apple, production designer Victoria Petrovich, lighting designer Omar Ramos, with music by Kris Apple with Andromeda Bradley. An IMAGOmoves production presented at WHITE BOX LIVE ARTS, San Diego, October 2015. Video: https://vimeo.com/440963831
IF (2014)
photos by Tim Richards
IF was a collaboration between Yolande Snaith, Katie Duck, Liam Clancy and Alicia Peterson Baskel, with music composed by Alfredo Genovesi and lighting design by Dolly Zhao, presented as the second half of ‘IMAGOmoves presents Katie Duck and Guests’, a UCSD Department of Theatre and Dance’s Dance Series event. IF explores spontaneous dance making in juxtaposition, conjunction and interaction with objects, to create visual and movement compositions that are resonant with layers of associative readings. Through an accumulative practice over several rehearsals the group built a history of images, events, and spatial architectures together, creating a shared sense of transformative ‘story-ness’.
The Mapping Games ( part 1) - 2013 -2014
