Rachel Howard June 1, 2021Updated: June 1, 2021, 7:31 am
Brenda Way, ODC artistic director. Photo: Darryl Bush / The Chronicle 2007
With a 13,000-square-foot Mission District campus billed as “the most active contemporary dance center on the West Coast,” ODC found itself in a strong position for survival when the pandemic hit. But “ODC doesn’t want to be the last dance organization standing after COVID,” ODC executive director Carma Zisman said recently. “We want the dance ecosystem around us.”
The organization is proving its commitment to that statement with the online ODC Theater Festival, which examines the San Francisco dance landscape, past and future, starting Thursday, June 3.
From S.F. Opera to the Rickshaw Stop, presenters struggle to take their patrons’ emotional temperature about reentry Lily Janiak and Joshua Kosman April 14, 2021Updated: April 15, 2021, 7:21 am
Krystyna Finlayson shows off the theater tickets she has kept on March 31, 2020, in Walnut Creek. Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle
In normal times, Walnut Creek theater patron Krystyna Finlayson sees 10 to 15 plays a month. So when playhouses reopen after being dark for more than a year, she vows to be there.
“I want to go back today,” she says. “I want to go back
yesterday.”
Vivien Sin of San Francisco is more cautious. Before the pandemic, she saw approximately one play per month. If a theater opened its doors to her right now, she says, “I would ask a bunch of questions: How big is the crowd? Would we be seated in a socially distanced way?