Moving alchemy training manual
about the book
What if dancers could change the energy in the room? What would that look like? This book is the product of over 50 years of inquiry in pursuit of an answer to these questions.
The choreographic puzzles offered here hold some of the most essential keys I’ve found to open the door to transformation – personal and creative. Each exercise is an invitation to engage the imagination with creative rigor, to fuse technical skill with improvisation, to move steadily into a place of empowered intuition. They are meant to help you find your own essential questions and forge the path to pursuing the answers.
The book itself is a beautiful object, printed in full-color and filled with photographs, sketches, and hand-written notes. There are prompts to movement, writing, and reflection, instructions on deep listening (inner and outer), and tips to locating a reality that speaks with one’s own unique voice.
Dive into the unknown with them, honor yourself and the space you’re in, discover, heal, and most of all, Enjoy!
Erasing Time PHoto Book
Erasing Time: Fragments from the Work of
Sara Shelton Mann
In collaboration with the photography of Robbie Sweeny, this book showcases fragments from the 2015 YBCA retrospective, Erasing Time, which explored themes from performance work over 50 years of collaboration. It was a terrific moment for me and it brought the community together from many generations. I am very proud to have had this opportunity and experience so much love and generosity that created the event.
—Sara Shelton Mann
About the book
Erasing Time is a photographic record of a live performance celebrating 50 years of Sara Shelton Mann’s collaborative performances. Spanning five hours and featuring over 40 artists, including members of the catalytic ensemble Contraband, the work was presented at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Dec 4-5, 2015. Featuring an extensive archive of both live performance and video projection, the event unfolded as a durational ritual.
With written memories from Jules Beckman, Lauren Elder, Kim Epifano, and Norman Rutherford, editing support from Elaine Katzenberger, with massive thanks to and energetic contributions from all the members of Contraband and our many many collaborators past and future. The Erasing Time book was supported by San Francisco Grants for the Arts/SPUN.
Erasing Time was co-produced by Mixed Bag Productions and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts . Funded by Kenneth Rainin Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach Family Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts