SHIFT >>> Physical Theater

			Terra Incognita (2009)
			premiere:	Cowell Theater; San Francisco, California
			concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
			collaboration + performance:	Manuelito Biag, Kara Davis, & Alex Ketley
			music:	Katie Faulkner
			How do we begin to understand something? How do the unfamiliar become intimate? At what moment does an idea become whole? Terra Incognita is a collaborative project for four performers that explores the terrain between mystery and knowing. Creating a movement narrative through multiple and layered improvisational structures, the work aims to illuminate the unrecognized and reveal the limitless frontier possible with the body.

			Ballast (2008)
			premiere:	Theater Artaud; San Francisco, California
			concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
			collaboration + performance:	Norma Fong, Malinda LaVelle, Migule de Quadros, & Kelly del Rosario
			music:	Jess Rowland
			lighting design:	Pablo Santiago
			Created in residency at the Margaret Jenkins Dance Lab with support from a Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange (CHIME) fellowship, Ballast is a dance for five dancers that explores the issues and struggles of finding and establishing a place called "home.‟

The Shape of Poison (2007)

premiere:	ODC Theater; San Francisco, California
concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
collaboration + performance:	Tanya Bello, Kelly Del Rosario, Amy Foley, Damara Ganley, Tessa Nebrida, Noel Plemmons, Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, Ami Student & Ashley Taylor
music:	Jess Rowland
costumes:	Sara Kozlowski
lighting design & visual decor:	Pablo Santiago
text:	Naomi Lazard

The Shape of Poison was created in residency at ODC Theater. The project is informed by diverse source materials, primarily Tibetan Buddhist teachings regarding ignorance, passion and anger. The Shape of Poison is a meditation on our promise and aptitude to escape the suffering caused by our own attachment, minds and bodies.
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			Making Invisible (2005)
			premiere:	Cowell Theater; San Francisco, California
			concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
			collaboration + performance:	Manuelito Biag, Damara Ganley, Tessa Nebrida
			music:	Jess Rowland
			costumes:	Heidi Schweiker
			Making Invisible is a complex and multi-layered meditation on the nature of impermanence, and its impact on our vulnerable relationships with spirituality, environment and people.

Giving Strength to this Fragile Tongue (2003)

premiere:	Dance Mission Theater; San Francisco, California
concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
collaboration + performance:	Aimee Lam, Lorevic Rivera
music:	Jess Rowland

Inspired by the writings of radical labor organizer Carlos Bulosan, Giving Strength to This Fragile Tongue, draws upon the power and influence of unspoken words and explores the parts in us that have been denied, lost, hidden or forgotten.

			When We Believe Again (2003)
			premiere:	Dance Mission Theater; San Francisco, California
			concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
			collaboration + performance:	Company Mécanique (Patric Cashman, Phil Halbert, Jenna Marshall, Alisa Michelle, Anne-Lise Ruesswig, Michelle Winchell)
			music:	Jess Rowland
			prop design:	Phil Halbert
			When We Believe Again is Company Mecanique's first collaboration with artistic director Manuelito Biag. Based on a series of love letters received or written by the performers, the project is a reflective portrait of how letters can become precious containers of image and memory, and an occasion to reflect upon and yearn for past lives and lost loves.

			Near Whisper (2002)
			premiere:	Spartan Complex Theater; San Jose, California
			choreography + performance:	Manuelito Biag
			music:	Jess Rowland
			Near Whisper is a solo project, drawing on the life and writings of Filipino poet Carlos Bulosan (America Is In the Heart). The piece combines music, movement and uses autobiographical text as source material in mapping out the despair and years of racist hardship the itinerant laborer endured following the harvest trail in the rural West. Near Whisper is a project that borders between performance, essay and homage to how Bulosan gave a voice to those who were strangled of their own.

			Travelogue (2002)
			premiere:	Spartan Complex Theater; San Jose, California
			concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
			collaboration + performance:	Pia Allabastro, Aimee Lam, Alisa Michele, Brian Null, Anne-Lise Ruesswig
			music:	Jess Rowland
			text:	Pia Allabastro
			True stories from the performers regarding their experiences with traveling make up the foundation of Travelogue. Whether it‟s waiting for a train on a snowy day in Paris, an overheard conversation in a restaurant, or tales about the customs of a distant land, these travel stories guide the choreographic and narrative structure of the piece. Part essay and part story-telling, Travelogue is a performance that explores the intersections between memory, emotions, and discoveries.

			Now That You're Here/As Though You Were Absent (2002)
			premiere:	Spartan Complex Theater; San Jose, California (commissioned work for San Jose State University)
			concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
			collaboration + performance:	Emily Stark, Kym Roark, Keri Peterson, Jaime Cremeans, Christina Roddick, Sara Cuddie, Sheeree Dela Pena, Sarah Cashmore
			music:	Bruce Stark, Tricky, The Cranberries
			text:	Pablo Neruda
			sound design:	Jess Rowland
			Inspired by the poetry of Pablo Neruda, this work investigates how the heart grows fonder in times of absence and separation. The configuration of duets, trios, and quartets throughout this dance are choreographed in a way that accentuates the negative space, and highlights the evocative movements between the performers such as long embraces or dancers carrying each other or supporting each others‟ weight.

			Noise (2002)
			premiere:	ODC Theater; San Francisco, California
			concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
			collaboration + performance:	Pia Allabastro, Genevieve Lee, Brian Null, Manfred Schaechtle
			music:	Michael Galasso, Ray Noble, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Umebayashi Shigeru
			sound design:	Jess Rowland
			Inspired by the lush and hauntingly beautiful cinema of Wong Kar-Wai (Chunking Express, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love), SHIFT>>> creates an alluring dance drama rich with feeling and mood. Drawing upon the bittersweet and romantic motifs often found in Kar-Wai’s work, Noise is a masterful mixture of substance and versatility. Pushing beyond the conventions of modern dance, the piece journeys through the memories of a broken heart, and presents an episodic, portrayal of loneliness, infidelity and loss, through the provocative use of movement, soundtrack, original writing and honest imagery.

Start Adrift (2002)

premiere:	Various sites; Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area
collaboration + performance:	Oscar Trujillo, Manuelito Biag, Manfred Schaechtle

Start Adrift was initiated and organized by Eric Kupers of Dandelion Dancetheater, in collaboration with Oscar Trujillo, Mazdak Mazarei, and Manuelito Biag and Manfred Schaechtle of SHIFT>>>. Part 1 was performed throughout the Bay Area and Los Angeles in the summer of 2001 and was a series of duets between men in suits. Part 2 delves into the complicated nature of dating, using personal ads and bad TV talk-shows about love and infidelity as primary source materials. The dance boldly crosses the line between partnering and explicit intimate contact. The piece originated in an AIRspace residency at the Jon Sims Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Quiet Nights (2001)

premiere:	The Marsh; San Francisco, California
concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
collaboration + performance:	Pia Allabastro, Manuelito Biag, Genevieve Lee, Brian Null, Manfred Schaechtle
music:	Arvo Part

As we age, our recollections slip away from us and become out of focus and obscured. We can recall only a few details--absences and hints. In our mind, we evoke a world that appears faint and shadowy like the shine of a distant star. We're left puzzling together the pieces of a story, joining up the remaining dots we know to be true. In Quiet Nights, the company utilizes the performers' earliest or most vivid memories of watching stars, and in doing so, finds parallels with the endless human need to belong and be loved.

3AM Half Stories and Ghosts (2001)

premiere:	San Jose Spartan Complex; San Jose, California
concept + performance:	Manuelito Biag
music:	Bruce Stark

3AM: Half-stories and ghosts utilizes a collection of photographs obtained from a local antique store as its guiding framework. The piece is a haunting dance about death and emptiness. The dancer, disguised in a rabbit mask, repeats sparse yet detailed phrases of movement in slow motion, meditating on each change of weight and breath. Such deliberate movement evokes notions of tenderness and melancholy.

The Cardboard Series (2001)

premiere:	Dancers' Group Studio Theater; San Francisco, CA
concept + performance:	Manuelito Biag

On August 15, 2001, from dusk until midnight, a "circus of resistance" took to the streets in the Mission District of San Francisco, to protest the closure of Dancers' Group Studio Theater. Designed as a quiet yet poignant means of protest, The Cardboard Series was an installation performance to make sense of a jumbled, magical and fragmented night of loss, crisis and personal reflection. A performer in a suit and animal mask mingles with the crowds, embodying a catalog of cardboard sign characters created organically on the spot. The act of arranging, rearranging and presenting information, be they spatial, visual or textual became the central methodology of the performance that allowed narratives and meanings to emerge. The Cardboard Series, later that year, was documented by Adrienne Nishina in the sleepy suburban landscapes of Long Beach, California.

Mapping (2000)

premiere:	24th Street Theater;Sacramento, California
concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
collaboration + performance:	Manuelito Biag, Sam Mitchell
music:	Etta James, Chet Baker, Craig Armstrong
sound design:	David Barron

Mapping (2000) is a duet set to the longing vocals of heartfelt ballads. Inspired by the desperation found in sex chat lines and "lonely hearts" adverts, "Mapping" documents the trials, the push-pull dynamics and pressures of being together in a society where relationships are often set up to fail.

Repeat Forever (2000)

premiere:	24th Street Theater; Sacramento, California
concept & direction:	Manuelito Biag
collaboration + performance:	Manuelito Biag, Beth Calarco, Adrienne Haufler, Genevieve Lee, Brian Null, Manfred Schaechtle
music:	John Altman, Samuel Barber
voiceovers:	The Company
sound design:	David Barron

Using chairs and suitcases as primary anchors of the piece, Repeat Forever takes place in an imagined train station. It is a dance based principally on the exits and entrances of people in our lives, and how the past can often have a powerful hold on us that it restricts us from moving forward on our respective journeys.

Blind(Sighted) Intentions (1999)

premiere:	848 Community Space;San Francisco, California
concept +direction:	Manuelito Biag
collaboration + performance:	The Company
perfomers:	Manuelito Biag, Beth Calarco, Adrienne Haufler, Genevieve Lee, Brian Null, Cynthia Yang
music:	Maurice Ravel

Blind(sighted) Intentions depicts how in the course of a failing relationship, there exists an uneven balance where one is left feeling isolated or neglected. The choreography, which is set on three different couples, is performed intimately and the performers create their own sense of timing in the piece; as such, the movement vocabulary appears to move through the three pairs of dancers as if carried by wind.

Falling Through the Ice: Part 1 (1998)

premiere:	Temescal Arts Center; Oakland, California
concept + performance:	Manuelito Biag
music:	Danny Kaye

Falling through the Ice: Part 1 is a solo comprised of ordinary pedestrian movements. Set to a familiar children's song, the dancer moves according to the constraints of gravity, and the natural changes in weight, leverage and energy of movement. The aim of the dance is to create a fragile sense of order, peace, and tranquility.

Taking, Leaving, Taking (1998)

premiere:	Temescal Arts Center; Oakland, California
concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
collaboration + performance:	Rebecca Bryant, Beth Calarco, Genevieve Lee
music:	Massive Attack

Taking, leaving, taking is a high-energy performance that see-saws between extreme qualities of movement. Dancers execute long phrases of complex movement vocabulary, and then distill these movements to their essential components. Physical gestures include perpetual grabbing, running, and dodging, which help symbolize the idea that we can often lose parts of ourselves to others.

			Inertia (1998)
			premiere:	Sushi Performance Gallery; San Diego, California
			concept + direction:	Manuelito Biag
			collaboration + performance:	Manuelito Biag, Rebecca Bryant, Beth Calarco, Brian Null
			music:	Erik Satie, Alpha, Charles Trenet, Oscar Peterson
			sound design:	James Jhun
			A stage full of hopeless dancing contestants, a ruffled shirt, a beauty queen, and cheap cardboard signs are just some of the elements seen in Inertia. This work brings to mind a disconnected place--a place where the lights are flickering, the cigarette smoke is building, and the booze is steadily diminishing. The audience pays witness to an abusrd dance contest in a strange basement ballroom somewhere at some drunken middle of the night hour. This dance-theater production is a portrait of a world where all contestants are losers, where the dancing is flawed, and where applause is imaginary.