Sean Dorsey Dance 20th Anniversary Home Season

Date & Time:

September 19-21, 2024

Venue:

Z Space
450 Florida Street
San Francisco, CA

Performance Times

Thursday 9/19 – 8pm SHOW
*KN95 Masks provided & required for show AND post-show lobby

Friday 9/20 – 8pm SHOW (Includes ASL interpretation)
*KN95 Masks provided & required for show AND post-show lobby

Saturday 9/21 – 8pm SHOW
*KN95 masks optional for post-show Gala reception
(Announcement that “masking is optional now” will be made in the lobby 10 minutes post-performance)

ONE WEEKEND ONLY! Celebrate two decades of groundbreaking artistry at Sean Dorsey Dance’s 20th Anniversary Home Season (September 19-21 at Z Space, SF). For the first time in Sean Dorsey Dance’s entire history, the company will revisit and perform excerpts of audiences favorites from the last 20 years.

Sean Dorsey Dance will perform a powerful retrospective program featuring two decades of their award-winning artistry — with works including Lou (2009) based on the lifelong diaries of trailblazing trans activist Lou Sullivan; and excerpts from The Missing Generation (2015) and The Secret History of Love (2012), both based on oral histories Dorsey recorded with LGBTQI+ elders across the US. These 3 works comprised an award-winning trilogy that the company performed and toured to more than 25 cities across the US.

These dances are powerful explorations of human experience – featuring Dorsey’s signature fusion of full-throttle dance, luscious queer partnering, theater and intimate storytelling. Highly physical, accessible, rooted in story, and danced with precision and guts and deep humanity, Dorsey’s work has boldly created new space for trans and queer voices, bodies and stories in contemporary dance.

Sean Dorsey Dance’s 20th Anniversary Home Season is performed by: Becca Dean, Sean Dorsey, Brandon Graham, Héctor Jaime, and David Le. Lighting Design: Clyde Sheets. Costume Design: Krystal Harfert and Tiffany Amundson. Technical Director: Emily Paulson; Assistant Stage Manager Jessi Barber; Sound Operator Jules Indelicato. Original music composed by:  Jesse Olsen Bay, Anomie Belle, StormMiguel Florez, Alex Kelly, and Ben Kessler.

Our special 20th Anniversary lobby experience includes: a retrospective photo exhibition of photos of Sean Dorsey Dance by Lydia Daniller and Kegan Marling; a gigantic love letter to Sean Dorsey Dance for audiences to sign; limited edition Sean Dorsey Dance merch; photobooth and DJ!

Plus: Saturday September 21 performance includes a special post-show Gala reception and champagne toast with Artistic Director Sean Dorsey – a transgender trailblazer and internationally-celebrated artist.

Tickets for this Anniversary event will sell quickly: advance tickets are recommended.

Special Thanks to our Lead Community Partners:
The GLBT Historical Society and The Transgender District.

Thank you to all of our other Community Partners as well!
AXIS Dance Company; Community United Against Violence; El/La Para Trans Latinas; LYRIC Center for LGBTQ+ YouthOpenhouse; San Francisco Trans Film Festival; San Francisco AIDS Foundation; Sins Invalid; San Francisco LGBT Center; TRANS:THRIVE; TAJA’s Coalition; Shanti Project; Queering Dance Festival; Z Space

ABOUT SEAN DORSEY:

Sean Dorsey is an Emmy award-winning choreographer, dancer, writer, educator and activist. Long recognized as the U.S.’ first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer, Dorsey has toured his work to more than 35 cities across the US and internationally – and taught with his explicitly trans-positive pedagogy in more than 40 cities.

Dorsey is a Doris Duke Artist, a United States Artists Fellow, and a Dance/USA Artist Fellow. He has been awarded an Emmy Award, five Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, and the Goldie Award for Performance. In 2019, he became the first openly-transgender person on the cover of Dance Magazine. Dorsey is the first openly-transgender US artist to be presented by The Joyce Theater (NYC), American Dance Festival, and many other major stages.
As a transgender, white, disabled/Hard-of-hearing and queer longtime social practice artist, Dorsey creates his works over 2-3 years in deep relationship with/in community. Learn more about Sean Dorsey. Learn more about our Company Dancers.

ACCESS INFORMATION:

  • Z Space’s entrance, lobby, bathrooms and audience seating areas are all wheelchair accessible.
  • The front row of theater seats are at floor level; all other rows of seating are on risers and require climbing stairs. The front row will be reserved for accessible seating, wheelchair users, mobility-device users, and people who would like to use extra-wide, armless chairs. 
  • The front row of seating features armless chairs; all other chairs in the theater have non-moveable arms.
  • If you need to reserve accessible seating, please email us at boxoffice@zspace.org. Please specify your access need (eg. if you’re a wheelchair user coming with one companion; if you need an extra-wide, armless chair; if you need to be seated in the ASL seating area).
  • Z Space’s bathrooms are all-gender.
  • There will be no strobing or rapidly changing lights at this performance.
  • All ages are welcomed. This performance has some mature language. Parental guidance is advised.
  • Identification (ID) is not required to purchase or pick up tickets.

COVID SAFETY PROTOCOLS FOR THIS EVENT:

  • Please note that this show requires all attendees to wear a KN95 mask at all times while in the building (except for during the 9/21 post-show gala reception, after an announcement from Sean Dorsey), which is different than Z Space’s usual policy. Sean Dorsey Dance staff will provide KN95 masks to everyone before they enter the building (unless someone’s disability, chronic illness or health condition means they cannot wear a mask).
  • By attending the 20th Anniversary Home Season, you agree to the following:
    • You do not have any signs of contagious illness (COVID or otherwise), including pink eye, that aren’t fully explained by a non-contagious health condition that you have
    • If you have had COVID, it’s been at least 10 days since your first symptoms or positive test if you were asymptomatic.

ASL interpreters were coordinated through
Urban Jazz Dance Company’s Access Services