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Sneak peak! First bird couture film shoot!

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KJ Dahlaw, Sarah Bush, Richelle Donigan, Frances Teves Sedayao, Julianna Cressman.
Photo by Olivia Ting. Costumes by Colleen Quen. Make-up by Hazel Rojas Davila & Erico Baldoviso.



Drone videographer: Aleksey Bochkovsky. Photo: Sarah Bush.
Dancers, co-creators: Richelle Donigan, KJ Dahlaw, Julianna Cressman, Frances Teves Sedayao.

From dancer, co-creator and current lead artist, KJ Dahlaw:
I experienced this incredible thing with SBDP this past month! I had fallen in love with a big Oak tree in my neighborhood and while hanging out in its limbs, I had a vision of creating a #sixfootwingspan dance film in its branches. The ideas fell out of me with ease, supported as I was upon a big, trusty limb and I went home and wrote up a proposal. Sarah Bush Dance Project has been de-centralizing their practice and is supporting us artists to follow our own ideas, visions and dances that we want to make. As a dance maker, I know how much work goes into any single project. What was stunning to me was the ease in which this project unfolded. I brought forth an idea and then suddenly we had a team of artists working together with all our diverse talents and offerings, bringing my vision to life. It was a marvelous gift. Co-creation happened. Co-creation with artists, dancers, designers, videographers, birds, lizards, creatures of all kinds, plants, and one great, mighty Oak Tree.


Julianna Cressman & Richelle Donigan. Photo: Frances Teves Sedayao. Collage: Julianna Cressman
Costumes: Colleen Quen. Make-up: Erico Baldoviso & Hazel Rojas Davila.

From dancer, co-creator, teacher and upcoming lead artist, Julianna Cressman:
The magic that was walking to the Oak Tree!
I am a dancer who loves all the things other than dance that happen in a creative project. I love the chatting, conversations about random things, the giggles and the laughter. I love the disclosures of hard things from one dancer to another, held safely in the container of the creative project we are embarking on. It’s my jam. And for KJ’s giant Oak Tree video that we filmed on 5/19, we got aaaaall of that, mind you, a year and some change after being in google or zoom boxes in our own homes.
The walk to the Oak Tree involved a carpool drive up a steep wooded hill, that led to the entrance of a rocky trail. We slugged our stuff up to the entrance and made a right turn onto the path, and we walked. And walked. All in all a 30 minute hike. I loved talking to KJ about the Bay Area dance scene and what we think will come of it. Talking to Frances of the complexity of love and what our relationships teach us. Meeting a new friend (yes NEW!), Aleksey, the drone operator, who I learned took his son Konstantin to Burning Man where he learned to ride a bike for the first time.
The trek was long, felt long for our out of shape dancer bodies (Really, I am speaking for myself). But in that long walk I felt the swirl that happens when we meet, in person, as people and as creative beings. A closeness, a giddiness, an energy. So refreshing and nurturing.
We made it to the Oak Tree rejoined, repatched into our grid. ready to dance our birds onto the old grandmother Oak Tree. 

Sign-up for Julianna’s Jazz Soul class!
Sundays 6:30-7:30pm at CityDance SF


Photo by Olivia Ting

From dancer, co-creator and upcoming lead artist, Frances Teves Sedayao:
I’m most looking forward to the unfolding of everyone’s projects and musings! Truly, I have excitement participating, even just listening to someone else’s movements towards a solo or small group SBDP endeavor. I am so interested, and I’m so ready in whatever way that unfolds. My excitement is that I still feel part of it and that is because of these weekly connecting/ check-ins that we do.  A ‘simple’ element,  but I feel is one of the most important ingredients in our work together.  The co-creation (per KJ) and collaboration make our processes, to me, alive, growing, and living.


Frances Teves Sedayao, Sarah Bush.  Photo and costumes by Colleen Quen.

From dancer, co-creator and upcoming workshop facilitator, Sarah Bush:
The Western Meadowlark. Stepping into the gold and feathers, feeling beautiful as the sun catches in the coat that Colleen created for me. The Western Meadowlark for me is a traveler.  They are here, where I am, in Northern California, golden in the golden grasslands of this golden state.  And, they are the state bird of Nebraska, the state I was born in, the state I feel like I come from, golden fields of wheat, crops, farming.  For me this bird sings across those miles, those parts of myself. So it also flies through time. I like to believe that the Western Meadowlark is the lark that Nebraska writer, Willa Cather writes about in her novels about the prairie. They sing of the call of music, of art, of creativity and creating a creative life.  

Next month, June, I’m doing something new, kind of scary, and definitely exciting! I’m facilitating a 4-week online workshop:
Body Language: The Poetry of Movement
through the SF Creative Writing Institute. For dancers, for writers, for anyone. No experience necessary.
Wednesdays June 9th-30th, 5-8pm Pacific

🙏🏼 Thanks to a very generous SBDP donor we’re able to cover the tuition for two people who would like to attend but for whom the $300 fee is a barrier. Please forward the event and offer to folks you know who might be interested. Contact me directly for scholarship details. Thank you!

And, don’t forget to get your tickets for the virtual
National Women’s Music Festival!
SBDP’s performance of Spirit & Bones will stream on
Sunday, July 4th at 11:30am Pacific!


Photo by Frances Teves Sedayao

From upcoming sixfootwingspan lead artist, Sue Li Jue:
At the forefront of my mind is how inspired I am to move forward in this project after seeing the photos and videos of KJ’s piece! It all came together so well and I felt the spirit of all the birds represented. That, coming just before scouting potential filming sites for me and my Black Necked Stilt!


Photo by Sarah Bush

From upcoming sixfootwingspan lead artist, Joan Lazarus:
What the SBDP project has prompted in me is . . . to recognize that the dance I have created in the past year or so is actually EXACTLY what I need to excavate for the material and process I am engaged in NOW.
Spontaneously blooming something new-new-new felt halting and fragmented.  But when I looked back at what was coming forth over the last 14 months, I see my statement, my dance, my understanding of this time.  Yes, I am inhabiting a bird, and thank goodness that bird is an observer, a watcher, a creature slow to react.
My process is one of gathering, translating, and revisiting — thanks for the framework from which to fly, Sarah!