Tatianna Steiner, Teo Lin-Bianco and Ella Wright were dance majors at University of California, Berkeley in 2023 when they decided to create a troupe as their senior project.
Inspired by being in the Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies Department, where they found a tight community, Steiner says, “We wanted to bring it to the real world, expand it to the wider Bay Area, create a community for emerging artists like us, and connect with each other and find mutual support.”
They called their initiative Tether Dance Project; its mission is to employ dance as a vehicle for personal and collective storytelling and celebrate diverse narratives. Its first production “Flux & Form,” a showcase of 11 new works by 12 choreographers exploring reflection and evolution, runs Nov. 14-16 at Joe Goode Annex in San Francisco,
Before graduating in 2024, Wright, who grew up in Sonoma County, Lin-Bianco, from Los Angeles, and Steiner, from San Diego, gravitated toward each other during the pandemic.
After meeting just when people were starting to gather again during COVID, Steiner says, “We became quick friends and then collaborators, and that experience of going through COVID and coming back to in-person really strengthened our bond.”
Funding “Flux & Form” was an immediate challenge for the trio, who turned to GoFundMe for seed money and raised more from community donors such as Fitness SF and SF Skate Club. The company also will hold a raffle to help support performers.
“Paying our artists is one of the core reasons why we wanted to have ‘Flux & Form,’ and we believe they deserve a professional experience, which included compensation,” Steiner explains. “There are a lot of performance opportunities for emerging artists, but not all of them include compensation, and we wanted them to feel supported in that way.”
Emerging artists themselves, Steiner, Lin-Bianco and Wright also were challenged in curating the program, but they knew what they were looking for when they vetted applications.
“We had a thing for flexible form, which was reflection and evolution, so we wanted their pieces to somehow connect in that theme,” Wright says. “However, all of the pieces are very different; we wanted to have a very diverse curated show with gut-wrenching modern pieces. We wanted them to be some sort of emerging artist, whether a recent graduate, someone who’s new to the Bay Area, or maybe a more established dancer who has never choreographed before.”
Participating choreographers include Matt Barry, Mai Corkins, Corinne Dummel, Ellis Emerson, Lily Gee, Abigail Hinson, James Jared, Fosse Lin-Bianco (Teo’s brother) and Elizabeth Wiehe, as well as Steiner, Wright and Lin-Bianco.
“Because it’s such a diverse program, it includes two dance films, as well as projection, and it’s really going to bring audiences into a different program,” Steiner says. “Usually performances are one format, whether it’s modern dance or jazz, contemporary or a drag performance, but we’re bringing everything all together all at once.”
Steiner, who has trained in ballet, jazz, tap, contemporary and modern, and has been dancing since she was 5, choreographed “Callus Theory” for “Flux & Form.”
“It touches on themes of growing up and coming into adulthood, as well as personal identity and how that is shaped,” she says. “It’s acrobatic, there is a whole bunch of different lifts and interesting configurations utilizing the space at Joe Goode Annex—they have a giant wall we’re taking a lot of inspiration from. You’ll see some cool play on that, and it speaks to the Gen Z experience. It’s a modern performance art piece.”
Wright, a ballet student at a young age and later pre-professional in San Francisco, where she attended high school, choreographed “Catalyst.”
“It’s a larger ensemble piece that I would describe as modern, and it is inspired by the random occurrences we have with each other in life and how it can affect your path,” she says. “It’s very visually interesting with lots of cool patterns, and it’s set to house music.”
Lin-Bianco, a practitioner of Horton modern dance technique, jazz, contemporary and tap, also with circus arts experience and performances with Printz Dance Project, choreographed “Copper Piss Lasagna.”
“This piece is about my past relationship, and it’s a duet,” says Lin-Bianco. “I am using projections as well as doing dance, and this is also in the postmodern-slash- performance art space. There’s a lot of contact and lifts, and there will also be some paint involved in the set design and on the dancers’ bodies.”
As young artists in the Bay Area dance scene, Steiner says the trio needed to put in an extra effort to break into the community, including investing in marketing and spreading the word in classes.
“The Bay Area arts and dance community is very segmented, and also a little ‘gate-keepy.’ We’ve freelanced individually with various companies that have been very welcoming. However, there’s still that barrier of, if you know the community, you are part of the community, and it’s really hard to break into that scene,” she says.
Lin-Bianco, who feels the Bay Area arts scene could have better-attended live performances, stresses community-building for the arts in general and for sustaining and growing Tether Dance Project and “Flux & Form” artists’ careers.
“There is a tendency to see community-building as a chore, but community-building at its core should be fun and fulfilling for everyone involved,” says Lin-Bianco. “We are also hoping this is a springboard for us to get our name out there a bit more so we can continue to support emerging choreographers. We know there are going to be a lot of people in the audience who are artists, and it’s our hope that through this performance they see what we can offer, and that then we can form partnerships moving forward.”
The “Flux & Form” co-curators also wanted their program themes to connect with today’s socio-political climate.
“We, as a society, need to be reflecting and evolving, especially in the arts with recent cuts to funding and space,” says Steiner, “so we wanted this show to be also a call to gather and to action.”
Although funding, available performance space and attendance levels are current concerns, the Tether Dance Project founders hope audiences leave “Flux & Form” with an upbeat outlook.
“There’s a new generation and we have a lot of energy and a lot of drive,” Lin-Bianco says. “I think we’re going to be the change we want to see in this community, and so I hope people walk away feeling, A, inspired, and B, that the the future of the arts community is in good hands.”
Tether Dance Project presents “Flux & Form” at 8 p.m. Nov. 14-15 and 3 p.m. Nov. 16 at Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama St., San Francisco. Tickets are $25-$45 at fluxandform.eventbrite.com.
