For the disability arts ensemble Kinetic Light, creating “Wired” in the San Francisco Bay Area has been a kind of coming home. Dancer Jerron Herman grew up in Alameda, artistic director Alice Sheppard used to perform with AXIS Dance Company, and it was here, in Berkeley in the 1960s, that the disability rights movement began. “Wired” uses sound, light, and movement to reflect on the stories and history of barbed wire, and how it has been used to separate people, groups, and movements on the basis of gender, race, sexuality, and disability. As with previous work from Kinetic Light, the form and presentation of the production are both deeply rooted in access.
For Kinetic Light, access is not a static checklist, but a continual learning process and creative force. Considering the ways people will encounter the work is inextricable from the process of fine-tuning the technical aspects and choreography. Kinetic Light is a highly collaborative group of artists, producers, and professionals working together on all production, technical, artistic, and administrative aspects of the company. Experience the dancers in action in their residency at San Francisco’s Z Space, and as they take their movement to the universally accessible Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley, California, and to the beaches below the iconic San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge in this episode of KQED’s If Cities Could Dance series.
