HOME * PILATES * EAST BAY DANCE FESTIVAL * FLYING * NEWS * CONTACT       Katherine Davis Dance     all photography on this page is by Matt Haber unless otherwise noted     Biography Katherine Davis landed in the Bay Area with a BA in Dance from Scripps College ('93) and a Teaching Certification in The Pilates Method of Body Conditioning from Performing Arts Physical Therapy/The Pilates Studio, NYC ('95). After a year of graduate study at Mills College, she left school to pursue a career in choreography, performance, and teaching. Since then, her work has been presented at the East Bay Dance Festival at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts ('02), DanceWorks at San Jose State University (;02), the Vision Series at The Cowell Theater('02 & '01), Applied Ballet Arts Foundation at Alice Arts Theatre ('00), Marin's 21st Century Dance Collaboration at The Marin Center ('00 & '99), Dancer's Group Studio Theater ('99), Dance Mission ('00 & '99), ODC Theater's PILOT Series ('98), Santa Cruz Dance Gallery ('99), and Works in the Works ('00). In May of 2000, Katherine began producing concerts as well as performing in them, which inspired her to found the East Bay Dance Festival, for which she received a CA$H grant in 2001. As a dancer, she has performed in New York City, New Mexico, St. Louis and throughout California with Rebecca Salzer Dance Theater, Kirstin E. Williams' STRONG CURRENT Dance Company, and independent choreographers Ann Berman, Ronnie Brosterman, and Chimene Pollard. She has taught dance classes at Sunset Movement Arts, Dance Mission, Rhythm & Motion, and Mills College, and Pilates at Performing Arts Physical Therapy (West Hollywood), Zoe: A Pilates Studio (Pasadena), Applied Ballet, East Bay Dance Center, and the Oakland Senior Center. Four years ago Katherine opened a Pilates studio from her home in Oakland, where she continues to teach private lessons (with a little help from her cat, Buster) and train apprentices for certification by Romana Kryzanowska of The Pilates Studio. In her spare time, Katherine is earning her pilot's license from the Oakland Flyers School at Oakland International Airport.     ******************************************************************     Rebecca Salzer Dance Theater photography by Marty Sohl Performance For the past three years, Katherine has performed extensively with Rebecca Salzer Dance Theater, Kirstin E. Williams' STRONG CURRENT Dance Company, and various independent choreographers. Click on NEWS for the latest on Katherine's performances with other companies.     ******************************************************************   Choreography    Katherine has been creating work for the past four years under the name Katherine Davis Dance. Her work has been presented throughout California and in New Mexico. Recent projects include:   Learning to Speak     Learning to Speak began as an inquiry into shyness. A difficult concept to pin down, "shyness" is one of those blurry, catch all terms that's too easily misused, overused, and abused to dismiss and explain away what is in fact a very complicated, and arguably universal, human condition. Virtually everyone experiences some form of shyness at one time or another, but we feel it, express it, and handle it in such remarkably different ways, for such totally different reasons, that it can be tough to recognize from one person to the next--and tougher still to understand. What causes people to retreat from their fellow humankind? What makes people avoid, reject, fear, or mistrust connection? Why do people sometimes cling so tightly to their idiosyncratic communicative styles that they can neither understand others nor make themselves understood? Why, at other times, does "shyness" suddenly disappear?    What magical thing causes people to feel an immediate connection? What is it that allows people to share themselves and absorb one another, to co-create a rapport that is new, unique, and mutual-- something that exists solely between those two people and could not have existed by the means of one person alone?Learning to Speak probes these questions, as six dancers alternately use breath, speech, touch, gesture, music, and dance to engage the audience, and one another, in an extended game of human contact, approach, and retreat.     Unborn     Unborn is about conception and pregnancy, both of ideas and children. It explores an odd but wonderful sensation that has been swelling up inside me recently--a growing awareness of my unborn children. Partly it is instinct, as old and inevitable as life itself, urging me to procreate. Partly it is because I turn 30 this year. But it's a fantastic feeling. Not yet an anxious tick-tock-you're-running-out-of-time sort of thing, but more of a visceral sensation, as tactile as it is spiritual, that I will have children and that I can already detect just a glimmer of their presence, their souls, their individualities. This feeling, this respect for unborn life, has struck awe into my heart, and fortifies a newfound respect for the kernels of my creative work as well. hrough the process of choreographing Unborn, I have learned to listen more closely and more attentively to my instincts, to my body. There is an unsurpassable wisdom to the pure movement that pours out of one's body improvisationally. No matter how much time, thought, or preparation one applies towards developing a piece of art, nothing can ever replace that spark--the moment of inspiration, the moment a not-completely-formed idea was conceived. Unborn has taught me to listen and in fact defer to my seedling choreographic ideas, and for that I am grateful.        Divided Self:  Confessions of a Woman-Child     This piece is a complex work that was greatly influenced by a painting by Jacqueline Morreau (see picture at left).  Jacqueline Morreau came of age during the 40's and 50's, studying art in San Francisco and Los Angeles.  While trends in the art world leaned towards abstraction, Ms. Morreau's creations were often figurative, representational, and highly personal.  Her early works anticipate the feminist wave of the 60's, depicting the internal tensions (work vs. family, love vs. responsibility, knowing one's self vs. knowing one's place in society), that were commonly felt, though not openly expressed, by many women of her generation.    The image at right, "Divided Self IV," is projected throughout the performance.  It portrays a mother's conflicting feelings towards her daughters.  My dance, a generation later, is a daughter's response.             Performance Calendar  Katherine Davis Dance performances in the San Francisco Bay Area include the following:     March 1 & 2, 2002 DanceWorks San Jose State University Spartan Complex San Jose, CA Learning to Speak     February 24, 2002 Vision Series Cowell Theater, Fort Mason San Francisco, CA Learning to Speak     February 8 & 9, 2002 East Bay Dance Festival Julia Morgan Center for the Arts Berkeley, CA Learning to Speak       February 3, 4, and 10, 2001 Vision Series 2001 Cowell Theater, San Francisco, CA Unborn     December 8 & 9, 2000 Applied Ballet Arts Foundation Benefit Concert Alice Arts Center, Oakland, CA Unborn     September 22, 23 & 24, 2000 Marin's 21st Century Dance Collaboration Concert Marin Center, San Rafael, CA Divided Self: Confessions of a Woman-Child     Which Came First?  Destiny Unstrung Dance Mission Theater, San Francisco Unborn and Divided Self: Confessions of a Woman-Child     April 30, 2000 Works in the Works Eighth Street Studios, Berkeley, CA Unborn         October 2 & 3, 1999 Marin's 21st Century Dance Collaboration Concert Marin Center, San Rafael, CA Learning to Speak         September 17, 18 & 19, 1999 Local 7 Choreographer's Showcase Dancer's Group Studio Theater, San Francisco, CA Learning to Speak         June 11 & 13, 1999 Vessel Dance Mission Theater, San Francisco, CA   July 10 & 11, 1999 Vessel Santa Cruz Dance Gallery, Santa Cruz, CA Learning to Speak         February 11, 1998 PILOT 25: Your Seat is a Flotation Device ODC Theater, San Francisco, CA Learning to Speak     Unless otherwise noted, all photography on this page by Matt Haber  e-mail questions and comments about this site to webmaster@katherine-davis.com Copyright @2000, Katherine Davis