ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the work of choreographers who are inspired by social activism, community and neighborhood history, and the process of change. The choreographers surveyed include Joanna Haigood, Jo Kreiter, and Ana Tabor-Smith, who all work in the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California. These three women are contemporaries with intertwined histories of their own and with a shared interest in peeling back the layers of public life in San Francisco. The chapter focuses on a range of choreographic approaches employed within a subgenre of site dance work that is both historically and socially oriented. Like a historical diorama, this subgenre, which referred as 'social-historical site dance' (SHSD), takes documentary materials as its starting point. Throughout the work, Tabor-Smith challenged the audience to feel the gravity and seriousness of loss and urban change, while simultaneously giving space for wonder and discovery by celebrating the life of a creative community anchored around the life of one man.
