This San Francisco institution is one of the most active
centers for dance on the west coast, engaging the community through
both performance and activism.
Touring in Southeast Asia: Burma, Indonesia,
Thailand from January
24 - February 21, 2010
About the Company
ODC/Dance is known throughout the world
for its athleticism, passion, and intellectual depth. The Company's
three resident choreographers, Brenda Way, KT Nelson, and Kimi
Okada, are considered among America's important contemporary
choreographers and have created a dynamic movement vocabulary that
has significantly influenced dancers and choreographers alike. In
38 years, ODC/Dance has performed for more than a million people in
32 states and 11 countries.
Founded in 1971 by Artistic Director Brenda Way, who trained
under George Balanchine, ODC (Oberlin Dance Collective--named after
its place of origin, Oberlin College in Ohio) loaded up a yellow
school bus and relocated to San Francisco in 1976. Her goal was to
ground the company in a dynamic pluralistic setting. ODC/Dance was
the first modern dance company in America to build its own home
facility in 1979, from which it operates the ODC School, the ODC
Theater, and the ODC Gallery. In September 2005, ODC opened a
second performing arts facility, the ODC Dance Commons. Through
their various programs, ODC strives to inspire audiences, cultivate
artists, engage community, and foster diversity and inclusion
through dance performance, training, and mentorship.
News & Updates
About the Artistic Director
Brenda Way, Artistic Director, received her early training at
The School of American Ballet and Ballet Arts in New York City. She
is the Founder and Artistic Director of ODC/Dance and creator of
the ODC Theater and ODC Dance Commons, a community performance
venue and training facility in San Francisco's Mission District.
She has choreographed some 75 works including commissioned pieces:
On a Train Heading South (2005, CSU Monterey Bay);
Remnants of Song (2002, Stanford Lively Arts);
Scissors Paper Stone (1994, Alvin Ailey American Dance
Theater); Western Women (1993, Cal Performances)
performances at Rutgers University and Jacob's Pillow; Ghosts
of an Old Ceremony (1991, Walker Art Center and The
Minnesota Orchestra); Krazy Kat (1990, San Francisco
Ballet); This Point in Time (1987, Oakland Ballet);
Tamina (1986, San Francisco Performances); and
Invisible Cities (1985, Stanford Lively Arts and the
Robotics Research Laboratory).
Way is a national spokesperson for dance, has published widely,
and has received numerous awards and 30 years of support from the
National Endowment for the Arts. She is a 2000 recipient of the
John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and is a Resident of the Arts at
the American Academy in Rome in the spring of 2009. Way holds a PhD
in aesthetics and is the mother of four children.
For more information on ODC/Dance, including program
notes and print materials, please visit Resources.
