Falling Up

Falling Up is an outdoor site-specific piece created for the Yerba Buena Gardens utilizing the architecture and urban environment as a background to connect movement in nature and shift the quotidian movements from ordinary to extraordinary. My desire was to draw focus to the weight of the buildings and density of the city in order to see the shapes, lines and delicacy of nature that simultaneously exists.

Falling Up was composed of a large cast of 25-30 diverse community members. We rehearsed, played and created the dance on-site with live musical accompaniment and an original score composed and performed by Caroline Penwarden.

Commissioned by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival and AXIS Dance Company in 2012. It premiered in San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Gardens.

Credits

Choreographed by:: Sonsherée Giles
Music Arranged and Performed by:: Caroline Penwarden
Dancers:: AXIS Dance Company & Community Members

A group of people colorfully costumed are charging across a bright green field, all heading in the same direction.

Sonsheree Giles, Rodney Bell and Sebastian Grubb frozen in shapes on a field of grass.

Colorfully dressed group of people, frozen in motion, listening intently, staring in one direction, on the bright green grass, waiting to make their next move.