January 3, 2020
Save the Date. MAY 9th, 2020.
Five Feet Dance are working on a new project to be performed May 9th! More information to come soon. In the mean time, meet the collaborators for the project by clicking here.
April 20, 2018
Clarissa K. Ko @ Luna Dance Institute for 20 Points of View// April, 2018
On April 26th Artistic Director, Clarissa K. Ko, will joining many other Bay Area artists at Luna Dance Institute’s 20 Points of View 12:30pm-1:00pm.
Event is FREE and open to public.
Click here for the Facebook event.
March 8, 2017
Five Feet Dance @ CounterPulse// April, 2018
We are less than a month away from the premiere of ‘(de)classified’ at CounterPulse April 5-14!
Tickets are available for purchase now! Please visit the CounterPulse website to learn more.
We also made a podcast about our process and the significance of coming together as a cast of Asian American women. Listen to it or read the podcast here.
We thank you so much for your continued support as we count down the days. We’re excited to see you at the show.
updated: December 23, 2017
CounterPulse Artist in Residence! // April, 2018
Five Feet Dance is pleased to announce that Clarissa K. Ko has been invited to be an Artist in Residence at CounterPulse through their Edge program to produce an original piece of work using the generous support of the organization.
Purchase your tickets now at this link.
About This Project
Five Feet Dance presents (de)classified, a multidisciplinary performance of ancestry, culture, and change; (de)classified honors the Asian American experiences that our media and documentation of history have overlooked. It is radically created in collaboration with Asian American women rooted in examining their cultural evolution growing up in this country. In order to move forward in this deeply divided time, we reconcile and heal from our pasts.
With a cast from various cultural backgrounds, upbringing, and ages, the company delves into what it means to be Asian American. Looking through the lenses of their own individual experiences bridging what is often two culturally polar worlds. Noticing how they have navigated the two worlds in the past, as well as how they navigate them now, a community and process of support and healing is built.
“Sometimes there are no solutions or answers. Only stories and the space to hold them. To be listened to, to be really heard — it is radical; it is personal and political for me…Unpacking my stories to refresh and re-render my identity on my terms.“ -Melissa Lewis, company collaborator.
Five Feet Dance is partnered with StoryCorps in San Francisco, an organization whose mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories to form relationships between people and create a more just and compassionate world. Together they have interviewed the cast to save these voices and individual stories within the organization’s archives and the Library of Congress. It is important for these individual stories to be regarded as unique and significant in their own right. As what often happens in Americanized movies, television, and conversation, these experiences are rarely presented or, if they are, grouped together and potentially stereotyped. This project provides an opportunity for these particular collaborators to speak their truth and perhaps for others to see their self, their two worlds, reflected in it.
This work is developed through the CounterPulse Artist Residency Commissioning Program with the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the Ken Hempel Fund for the Arts.