You Me Us: In Community

how did we arrive here?

OCTOBER 2019 | LAFAYETTE PLAZA PARK

about you me us: in community

This themed work is a culmination of our 2019 Art Moves Project. You Me Us: In Community is a collaboration of visual artist Charmaine Koh, musician/composer Kyle Athlayde, and choreographer Yukie Fujimoto with dancers from No Strings Attached Dance Company, curiously questioning, How did we arrive here?

You Me Us: In Community is an exploration of how we arrive into our environment and become part of a community, much like the plants that surround us. AMP explores the ecosystems of native and non-native botanical communities, observing our stories of arrival, the assumptions and views we bring with us, and how they change over time. Through an exploration of a dance, visual and sound experience, we question: What can we learn about ourselves as individuals in community through the flowers and trees in the hills that surround us, or from the weeds in the cracks of our sidewalks? How do their stories reflect our own? How do these plants arrive, assimilate, integrate, resist, and persist?

about the artists

Charmaine Koh, Visual Artist

Charmaine Koh is a visual artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area, working primarily in video, painting, and writing. Her work explores place and place-based identity, landscape tropes, and the role of nature in consumer culture. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts and an MA in Visual & Critical Studies from California College of the Arts, and has exhibited in the Bay Area and her country of origin, Singapore.

Kyle Athlyade, Musician & Composer

Kyle Athayde is a Bay Area based composer, arranger, performer, teacher, and bandleader. A native of Orinda, Kyle primarily plays vibraphone, piano, trumpet, and drums, as well as bongo, congas, timbales, string bass, bass clarinet, sousaphone, and vocal percussion. He is the leader, conductor, and writer for the San Francisco/New York based big band, “Kyle Athayde Dance Party,” a group acclaimed for its versatility in the wide scope of styles it performs. He is also a keyboard, trumpet, and percussion player for the Bay Area collective “Jazz Mafia.”

Yukie Fujimoto, Choreographer

Yukie was a former dancer with ODC/Dance, former Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Mills College and currently, an American Ballet Theater certified ballet instructor. She is a dance educator, arts advocate and choreographer who is deeply invested in social justice issues. She founded ALL THE RIGHT MOVES, a dance program that offers free dance classes at the Boys & Girls Club of Oakland.

No Strings Attached Dance Company

Directed by Lissa Resnick, a Harkness award-winning choreographer, the company was founded in Los Angeles and expanded to the SF Bay Area in 2013. Lissa links ballet technique with contemporary dance and theater. The company’s work has been featured throughout California including at ODC PUSHfest, where they received the 2018 Audience Choice Award, Djerassi’s Women Ballet Residency Program, Z Space, sjDANCEco, North Hollywood’s El Portal Theater, and named LA Weekly’s “Top Five Dance Shows This Week.”