Erika Chong Shuch

Last updated

Erika Chong Shuch is an American theatrical performer, director, choreographer, and educator based in San Francisco, California. Her work has appeared on stages in the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, DC, and Seoul, South Korea.

Contents

Among many awards, she received a 2014 Investing in Artists Award from the Center for Cultural Innovation, [1] a 2008 Honorary Fellowship from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, [2] and a 2007 Dance USA Award from the Irvine Foundation [3] She received the 2003 Goldie Award for artistic achievement in dance from the San Francisco Bay Guardian , which called her "among the leaders in the field", [4] and her show "One Window" was cited by the SF Weekly as one of the Top Ten Theater Events of 2005.[ citation needed ] She has been nominated for three Isadora Duncan Awards, [5] [6] dedicated to outstanding achievement among Bay Area dance artists.

Shuch has choreographed (and appeared in) plays staged by the California Shakespeare Theater regularly since 2009. [7] Of the troupe's 2014 production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," in which Shuch directed the movement and played the role of Titania, the San Jose Mercury News said, "Shuch's hypnotic movement is at the heart of this giddy and memorable 'Dream.'" [8]

Style

Reviewing Orbit, the San Francisco Chronicle noted: "What makes Erika Shuch's work so arresting isn't the way she intuitively melds movement and theater, or the knack she has for attracting brilliant collaborators, or the Gen Y appeal of her slouchy, all-too-human performers. What's made this still-young choreographer a standout since she emerged in San Francisco six years ago is her childlike audacity in the face of big questions. Shuch is a maker of metaphors, an existential explorer whose characters consider their place in the galaxy through poetic symbols." [9]

Television station KQED documented Shuch's creative process in a May 2007, edition of its show SPARK. [10]

Career

Shuch began performing as a theater student at UC Santa Cruz under dancer/choreographer Mel Wong. There, she attended a workshop by the politically charged performance group Contraband, which suggested a broader framework for Wong's methods. She cites as influences Wong, Contraband, filmmaker and writer Miranda July, and the NPR radio show This American Life. [11]

Her first troupe was known as the Beauty School. She disbanded that group and formed the Erika Shuch Performance Project (ESP Project) in 2002. "Through metaphor and theatrical alchemy," the company, according to its website, seeks to provide "a mirror, a lens, an opportunity for reflection, a brainstorm, a meetingplace, a prayer, a conversation, and a confession." [12] ESP Project has gone on to perform at many San Francisco Bay Area venues, including a long-running residency at Intersection For The Arts. [13]

As co-founder of the Experimental Performance Institute at San Francisco's New College of California, Shuch co-directed BA and MFA performance programs during the school's initial years.[ citation needed ] She joined the adjunct faculty at California College of the Arts in 2014 [14] and lectured to UC Berkeley's Global Urban Humanities Initiative in 2015. [15]

In addition to her own productions, she has directed, choreographed, or appeared in works by Richard Montoya, Peter Brook, Eric Ehn, Sean San Jose, Octavio Solis, Philip Kan Gotanda, and Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket). [16]

Shuch has held residencies at the Berkeley Reportory Theater (2012), American Conservatory Theater (2012), San Diego State University (2012), Mullae Art Space, Seoul, Korea (2011), deYoung Museum (2010), Naropa University (2010), American Conservatory Theater (2009-2012), and UC Berkeley (2007-2010). Other residencies include the Headlands Center for the Arts (2006), [17] Djerassi (2007),[ citation needed ] ODC Theatre (2003, 2004), [18] and Intersection for the Arts (2003–present). [19]

Shuch is a member of Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange, a program of the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, under the mentorship of choreographer Joe Goode.[ citation needed ]

Productions

Choreography

Direction

Teaching

Awards

Related Research Articles

Mythili Kumar is a dancer, teacher, and choreographer. She performs the Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, and Odissi styles of Indian classical dance. Founder of Abhinaya Dance Company of San Jose and she is a lecturer in dance at University of California, Santa Cruz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yerba Buena Center for the Arts</span> Art museum and event venue in California

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, national, and international artists and the Bay Area's diverse communities. YBCA programs year-round in two landmark buildings—the Galleries and Forum by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki and the adjacent Theater by American architect James Stewart Polshek and Todd Schliemann. Betti-Sue Hertz served as Curator from 2008 through 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Kan Gotanda</span> American dramatist

Philip Kan Gotanda is an American playwright and filmmaker and a third generation Japanese American. Much of his work deals with Asian American issues and experiences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intersection for the Arts</span> Non-profit art space in San Francisco, U.S.

Intersection for the Arts, established in 1965, is the oldest alternative non-profit art space in San Francisco, California. Intersection's reading series is the longest continuous reading series outside of an academic institution in the state of California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AXIS Dance Company</span>

AXIS Dance Company is a professional physically integrated contemporary dance company and dance education organization founded in 1987 and based in Oakland, California. It is one of the first contemporary dance companies in the world to consciously develop choreography that integrates dancers with and without physical disabilities. Their work has received nine Isadora Duncan Dance Awards and nine additional nominations for both their artistry and production values.

Margaret Jenkins is a postmodern choreographer based in San Francisco, California. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1980 and in 2003, San Francisco mayor, Willie Brown, declared April 24 to be Margaret Jenkins Day.

Sharon Langston Ott is a director, producer and educator who worked in regional theaters and opera throughout the United States. Two plays she directed, A Fierce Longing and Amlin Gray's How I Got That Story, each won an Obie award after their New York runs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rick Shiomi</span> Japanese-Canadian playwright, stage director, artistic director and taiko artist

Rick Shiomi is an internationally recognized, award-winning Japanese Canadian playwright, stage director, artistic director and taiko artist, and a major player in the Asian American/Canadian theatre movement. He is best known for his groundbreaking play Yellow Fever, which earned him the Bay Area Theater Circle Critics Award and “Bernie” Award. Over the last couple decades, Shiomi has also become a notable artistic and stage director. He directed the world premiere of the play Caught by Christopher Chen for which he received the Philadelphia Barrymore Award Nomination for Outstanding Direction. He is currently the Co-Artistic Director of Full Circle Theater Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dawn Monique Williams</span> American theatre director (born 1978)

Dawn Monique Williams is an American theatre director. She was born in Oakland, California, United States, and is a graduate of California State University, Hayward, San Francisco State University and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Shakespeare Theater</span> American theater company

California Shakespeare Theater is a regional theater located in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Its performance space, the Lt. G. H. Bruns III Memorial Amphitheater, is located in Orinda, while the administrative offices, rehearsal hall, costume and prop shop are located in Berkeley.

Smuin Contemporary Ballet, formerly known as Smuin Ballet, is a touring ballet company based in San Francisco, California. Smuin Ballet performs its season in multiple venues: the Dean Lesher Center in Walnut Creek, the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts in Mountain View, the Sunset Center in Carmel, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and The Palace of Fine Arts Theater in San Francisco.

Amara Tabor-Smith is a San Francisco Bay Area-based choreographer and performer noted for significant contributions to dance that draw on, celebrate, and reconfigure African-American and women's history.

We Players is a site-integrated theater company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company was founded in 2000 by Ava Roy, its Artistic Director, while she was a student at Stanford University.

Cal Performances is the performing arts presenting, commissioning and producing organization based at the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Mankin</span>

Joan Mankin (May 16, 1948 – September 26, 2015] was an actor and clown prominent in the San Francisco Bay Area, from the early 1970s through 2014. Mankin started her professional career in San Francisco in 1970 with a production of the San Francisco Mime Troupe's An Independent Female. Thereafter, she appeared in major roles in many Bay Area theater companies including the American Conservatory Theater, Aurora Theatre Company, Berkeley Rep, San Francisco Playhouse and California Shakespeare Theatre as well as the feminist Lilith Theater in the late 1970s early 1980s, of which she was Artistic Director for two years. In 2006 she had a major singing role in the Los Angeles Ahmanson Theatre's production of The Black Rider: The Casting of Magic Bullets.

The African-American Shakespeare Company (AASC) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit professional regional theatre company in San Francisco, California. Since its founding in 1994 Sherri Young has been its Executive Director and in 2009 L. Peter Callender joined as its Artistic Director.

Sean Dorsey is a Canadian-American transgender and queer choreographer, dancer, writer and trans rights activist. He is widely recognized as the United States' first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer. Dorsey founded his San Francisco-based dance company Sean Dorsey Dance, which incorporates transgender and LGBTQ+ themes into all of their works. Dorsey is also the founder and artistic director of Fresh Meat Productions, a non-profit organization. Fresh Meat Productions creates and commissions new work, presents performing arts programs, conducts education and engagement, and advocates for justice and equity in the Arts. The organization hosts Fresh Meat Festival in San Francisco, an annual festival of transgender and queer performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cindy Im</span> American actress

Cindy Im is an American actress, most notable for her roles in Manifest, as Hannah in the world premiere of Hannah and the Dread Gazebo at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and as Lizzie Darcy in the world premiere of Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon's Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley at Marin Theatre Company.

Carla Blank is an American writer, editor, educator, choreographer, and dramaturge. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, for more than four decades she has been a performer, director, and teacher of dance and theater, particularly involved with youth and community arts projects.

Kathleen Hermesdorf was a dancer, teacher, choreographer, improviser, producer, and curator, born in Wisconsin, USA, and a long-time resident of San Francisco.

References

  1. ↑ "CCI : Investing in Artists". Cciarts.org. Retrieved 2017-01-13.
  2. ↑ "Six Commissions for Playwright Collaborations - Hewlett Foundation". Hewlett.org. 2010-01-14. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved 2017-01-13.
  3. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). erikachongshuch.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 December 2015. Retrieved 17 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ↑ "Intersection for the Arts: The Erika Chong Shuch Performance Project". www.theintersection.org. Archived from the original on 4 September 2009. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  5. ↑ "Squarespace - Claim This Domain". Izzies.org. Archived from the original on 2017-01-16. Retrieved 2017-01-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  6. ↑ "Squarespace - Claim This Domain". Izzies.org. Archived from the original on 2017-01-16. Retrieved 2017-01-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  7. ↑ "Cal Shakes to Continue 40th Season with A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, 9/3-28". Broadwayworld.com. 2014-08-20. Retrieved 2017-01-13.
  8. ↑ Karen D'Souza (8 September 2014). "Review: 'Midsummer Night's Dream' gets bold, brilliant new look at Cal Shakes". The Mercury News. Retrieved 2017-01-13.
  9. ↑ Rachel Howard (2006-07-17). "'Orbit' searches for love and a real connection". SFGate. Retrieved 2017-01-13.
  10. ↑ "Spark | KQED Arts | KQED Public Media for Northern CA". Kqed.org. 2015-06-30. Retrieved 2017-01-13.
  11. ↑ "Welcome to Erika Chong Shuch Performance Project". erikachongshuch.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  12. ↑ "Welcome to Erika Chong Shuch Performance Project". www.erikachongshuch.org. Archived from the original on 13 July 2011. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  13. ↑ "intersection". intersection. Archived from the original on 2017-01-16. Retrieved 2017-01-13.
  14. ↑ [ dead link ]
  15. ↑ "Public Space: Placemaking and Performance | Global Urban Humanities". Globalurbanhumanities.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2017-01-13.
  16. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). erikachongshuch.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 December 2015. Retrieved 17 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  17. ↑ "Erika Chong Shuch - Headlands Center for the Arts". Headlands.org. Retrieved 2017-01-13.
  18. ↑ ".:. ODC .:. Theater". www.odcdance.org. Archived from the original on 21 March 2015. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  19. ↑ "» Artist Residencies Intersection for the Arts". theintersection.org. Archived from the original on 15 January 2012. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.