About Flyaway Productions
WHAT WE DO
Perform off-the-ground dances that expose the range and power of female physicality. We experiment with height, speed and gravity, dancing on steel objects that are both architectural and fabricated. We dance at the intersection of social justice and acrobatic spectacle. We dance anywhere from two to one hundred feet off the ground. We offer performance as a medium for social commentary and choose projects that advance female empowerment in the public realm. At its core, our work explores the female body– its tumultuous expressions of strength and fragility. We offer year round classes to adults, teens and youth; we offer GIRFLY, an Art & Activism Apprenticeship Program, integrating dance-making and activism. Our training with youth offers some remedy for the ways in which women and girls remain underserved in public culture as a whole. We also offer KIDFLY school residencies that link social justice content, school curriculum and movement innovation, where your young artists are our collaborators. Advocate and provide the bridge between women in the arts and civic life. We have for many years presented our biennial 10 Women Campaign, a celebration of ten women whose work in business, politics, activism and the arts mirrors Flyaway’s mission. The campaign encouraged dance as a vehicle for community gathering and to bring visibility to the often overlooked female leadership achievements in the Bay Area’s contemporary dance community. We currently developing new forms for community engagement. WHERE WE PERFORM
On a three-story fire escape, a hanging umbrella, an oversized scale of justice, a circling merry-go-round, suspended containers of salt, a steel-framed bath, a chandelier on fire, a live billboard, a bridge replica, and on 100 foot city walls. We have also made dances for rooftops, an active construction site and the last remaining hand-operated crane on San Francisco’s waterfront. Our work is typically free and engages a wide spectrum of the public who does not come to professional dance performances. Our work has been presented by:
ODC Theater
Dancers’ Group/ON SITE
Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco
ODC Theater in San Francisco
The International Aerial Festival in Boston, MA
The SkyDancers Festival in San Francisco
Arizona State University in Phoenix, AZ
The Aerial Dance Festival in Boulder, CO
Sushi Performance Space in San Diego, CA
Duke University in Durham, NC
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT FLYAWAY
“as strong as they are beautiful to watch” - The San Francisco Bay Guardian
“substance trumps considerable spectacle” - The San Francisco Examiner
“intimidatingly creative” - The San Francisco Chronicle
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JO KREITER
“a wonder of equilibrium” - The New York Times
Jo Kreiter is a San Francisco-based dancer/choreographer with a background in political science. Through dance she engages imagination, physical innovation and the political conflicts we live within. In both site and stage performance she works with flight. In her work the artistry of spinning, flying, and exquisite suspension is imprinted with political intent. Her use of spectacle makes a lasting impression with an audience. Her work is most communicative when it is steeped in the right balance of beauty, awe, provocation, and daring. As well as running her own teaching programs, Kreiter has taught workshops highlighting her unique approach to inverted motion at Stanford, Duke, Nevada, Sonoma State, Ohio State, and Arizona State Universities, and the University of San Francisco. Articles written by Kreiter have been published in Contact Quarterly, In Dance, Window on the Works, and in the books Aerial Dance and Site Dance. She is one of a few women worldwide to have gained expertise in the art of Chinese pole acrobatics.
“In the last several years, I have created work from broad notions of art as a catalyst for change. I have tried to bring the beauty of bodies in motion to discarded city streets; I have tried to bring the eye of the city onto an abandoned crane, to help turn it into a labor landmark. I have focused in on the subtlety of human despair. I have honored the power of dissent as a crucial political and cultural tradition, celebrating the tender underside of Market Street’s protest history. I have asked the city of San Francisco to remember its painful history of arson and have offered the body in flight as a hopeful image of transformation. After all these years of dance-making I value both the scale and marvel of site specific work and the intimacy of the theater stage.”
