ODC Theater to Host Mann Premiere

Anya Cloud and Pamela Z (photograph by Robbie Sweeney, from the ECHO Web page on Sara Shelton Mann’s Web site)

Last June this site reported on a work-in-progress performance of ECHO/ the voice of stones, conceived by choreographer and writer Sara Shelton Mann with music provided by Pamela Z. After reviewing Mann’s performance schedule, I realized that “ECHO” is actually the generic title for a series of performances, each of which has its own characteristic subtitle. All of these events involve Z presenting her own compositions for performances by Anya Cloud and Jesse Zaritt. The most recent of these was ECHO/ listening through walls, which took place last month in Berlin (in Germany) as the “headline” for the Once in California Festival.

This month ECHO returns to San Francisco with the performance of ECHO / Riding the Rapids. Once again the music will be both composed and performed by Z, who will appear onstage with Cloud and Zaritt. For this particular “incarnation” of ECHO, those performers will be joined by Abby Crain and Jesse Hewitt. Each of Mann’s creations involves one or more perspectives on the concept of an echo. Mann prepared the following text to establish the diversity of those perspectives:

What is an echo that resounds from the walls?  Is it an invitation to inhabit a spacial interim, the terrain between viewer, performer, composer and space? Where does the light shine? When entering a grand room of another era one can almost experience a presence, a conversation or something of the past coming forward divulging bits of personality, culture, preference. Or, it is stuck in time and you see the image of a past as the present, formal and forbidden teasing you to imagine yourself in this history, this room, this sketch of players, kings, queens, vagabonds, slaves and archers.

ECHO / Riding the Rapids will be given three performances, all at 8 p.m. on Thursday, October 11, Friday, October 12, and Saturday, October 13. The venue will be ODC’s B.Way Theater, located in the Mission at 3153 17th Street on the northwest corner of Shotwell Street. Tickets for all three performances will be $30. Tickets may be purchased online through separate Web pages for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.