Gretchen Garnett Photo by Rob Kunkle

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REVIEW In the late 1990s, Mary Alice Fry, artistic director of the now defunct Venue 9, found a hole. She has been filling them ever since.

The January performance calendars at her theater and many other local small venues, she noticed, were empty. At the same time her curatorial experience had shown that women artists still had a harder time getting noticed than their male counterparts. “So many of them,” Fry said, “struggle with multiple responsibilities of mortgages, children, two or three jobs, keeping relationships going.” So she started the Women on the Way Festival, now in its ninth year, to create “a stepping stone” for local women performers.

After Fry lost her lease on Venue 9, she moved the Festival to the Shotwell Studios and to Joe Landini’s Garage. For reasons of practicality and availability, WOW’s lineup changes every night. The performers seem to enjoy what, to an outsider, looks like a complicated format. “They like sharing the stage and seeing each other’s work,” Fry explained. “For them it’s about standards and not competition. These women are pumped up and work and scramble and always want to do more.”

While this year’s 17 performers working in theater, the circus, comedy, and dance are mostly up-and-coming, WOW also invited at least two highly experienced artists. Molissa Fenley and Nina Wise have each been working for more than three decades apiece. Each will present a world premiere.

On opening night, Jan. 15, the Garage hosted two soloists and a quartet. While none of the three pieces broke revolutionary ground, each had that spark of effervescence that makes one want to see where these artists are going. They deserve a bigger audience than they got.

Ara Glenn-Johanson’s based her earthstepper on a 10th-century English poem, “The Wanderer.” As a choreographer for herself, she proved to be rather heavy-handed as soon as she moved beyond a rather basic gestural vocabulary. But she is a strong, expressive vocalist — both live and in duets with herself on tape — and her solo became an intermittently moving meditation on loneliness and perseverance.

Gretchen Garnett’s Edited for Time needs more editing for time, but impressed the audience with the ambition, if not quite the realization, of a rigorously conceived study in formal structure. With an extended duet for Garnett and the beautifully expressive Leah Samson, the piece started with simple swaying motions and quickly evolved into patterns of elastic tension that would snap, only to be picked up again. Edited looked full of contradictions, pre-ordained accidents, and surprising repetitions. The other committed dancers were Becca Rufer and Chad Dawson.

Despite having what must be one of dance’s more convoluted titles, Pfannenstiel Incision Marks the Spot, Lenora Lee’s solo was a stark, tightly choreographed portrait of one woman’s fear and anguish about her own body — Pfannenstiel was the surgeon who invented the so-called

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Gretchen Garnett & Dancers will be showing an excerpt from their work in progress, Intermediate Levels of Disturbance.

Sunday, April 11, 2010 2pm CounterPULSE – 1310 Mission St., SF FREE!

Friday, May 28 – 7pm Saturday, May 29 – 9pm Sunday, May 30 – 2pm

Southside Theater Building D, 3rd Floor, Fort Mason Center San Francisco, CA 94123

Gretchen Garnett is a San Francisco-based choreographer, dancer and teacher. In addition to the works she has created for Gretchen Garnett & Dancers she has had two works commissioned by the East Street Youth Ballet in Massachusetts. Gretchen has performed with Bay Area-based companies including Kelly Bowker & Dancers, The Pfeifle Dance Project, peck peck dance ensemble, Leyya Tawil’s Dance Elixir, RAWdance. She is currently dancing with Aura Fischbeck Dance and Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton . Gretchen received her training through the high school program at the North Carolina School of the Arts and earned her B.F.A. in Dance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Kelly Bowker was born and raised in Michigan where she received her BFA in dance. Since moving west she has presented her choreography at Shotwell Studio through their residency program, at ODC and Dance Theater Mission. She has danced locally with HerPic Productions, Ishika Seth and is very excited to be performing with Gretchen Garnett and Dancers. When not dancing she can be found teaching pilates at Core Pilates on 17th and at Fitwell Chiropractic.

DUMBO Dance Festival Edited For Time September 26-27 John Ryan Theater, Brooklyn, NY

present tense – an evening of new dance work curated by Aura Fischbeck PastTime, Just Passing Through (excerpt) July 1-2 The Garage, San Francisco, CA

present tense – an evening of new dance work curated by Aura Fischbeck PastTime, Just Passing Through (excerpt) June 27 The Subterranean Arthouse, Berkeley, CA San Francisco International Art Festival Just Passing Through May 21-31 Union Square, San Francisco, CA

peck peck dance ensemble’s 7th Home Season Just Passing Through (excerpt) May 8-9 CounterPULSE, San Francisco, CA

Footloose’s Women on the Way Festival Edited For Time (extended version) January 15-31 The Garage, San Francisco, CA

2008

CONDER/dance’s Breaking Ground Edited For Time December 13 Tempe Center for the Arts, Tempe, AZ

Dance Mission’s Harvest Choreographer’s Showcase Edited For Time October 11-12 Dance Mission Theater, San Francisco, CA

raw & uncut Edited For Time October 4-5 The Garage, San Francisco, CA

SpectorDance Emerging Choreographers Festival Edited For Time July 27 SpectorDance Theater, Marina, CA