Calendar

Last year, Jean Isaacs inaugurated �Aging Creatively with Dance,� a weekly class taking participants, ages 60-84, on a journey through movement, journaling and creativity. Students are encouraged to write journal entries about any memories or life stories that are triggered from the movements generated in class.�Their experience will culminate in the world premiere of a full length work where the seniors share the stage with San Diego Dance Theater�s professional dancers. 'The Door is Open: An Intergenerational Dance Project' premieres May 18 & 19 at City College Saville Theatre.

Providing creative vision to the project is award wining photographer, videographer, fine and new media artist Kira Carillo Corser. Corser is a recipient of a recent San Diego Foundation�s Creative Catalyst Grant for this unique collaboration. She is one of 15 artists who were selected to receive these inaugural grants as part of an innovative program that supports artists directly.

The completely collaborative work will be Isaacs' first full length work, lasting 66 minutes. �The program will weave 5 different stories garnered from the class work. �The length is no coincidence as that is a major milestone year for receiving Social Security,� explains Isaacs. �She has been working with them since last February and has been moved by the transformation of some of the seniors in the class. �These stories are honest, vulnerable, moving, spiritual, uplifting and often humorous.�

The evening will merge dance, video, sound, projections and feature all 8 Company dancers and 16 seniors. �Corser created an image that will be projected onto the background of the stage and will slowly change.... as a building crumbles during the performance, trees grow.� One of the senior dancers was an opera singer and she will be singing The Ash Grove, a traditional Welsh folk song so the metaphor of trees will comes up several times during the performances.

'Working with Jean, the senior dancers and the younger professional dancers is giving me a wonderful opportunity to save and savor the moments in life that are meaningful,� explained Corser. �Art has a way of communicating at a deep level, the faces of joy, of new body movement, humor and skill, with story and beauty� This project is pulling together 20 years of my life's work.'

Friday, May 18, 8 pm
Saturday, May 19, 2 and 8 pm

City College Saville Theatre
14th and C Street, Downtown San Diego