Terrain, a Dance and Performance Collective

UPCOMING TERRAIN EVENTS

Terrain presents Dance-A-Rama

May 4, 2008 (Sunday), 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
2525 Eighth Street (at Dwight Way), Berkeley
Wheelchair accessible

Celebrate National Dance Week with an afternoon of FREE performances.

Terrain 2008 Season
October 25-26, 2008 (Saturday-Sunday)
November 1-2, 2008 (Saturday-Sunday)
Western Sky, 2525 Eighth Street (at Dwight Way), Berkeley
Wheelchair accessible

Photo Gallery (Coming)

Members
  Jim Beatty
  Ruth Botchan
  Minoo Hamzavi
  Treve Johnson
  Aileen Kim
  Mary Reid
  Ann Swigart

PAST EVENTS
  Dance-A-Rama 2007
  WinterDances 2007
  Dance-A-Rama 2006

ABOUT US

Terrain was started in 1997 as a project of the Choreographers’ Performance Alliance, for choreographers to support one another in the creation and performance of their work. A group of choreographers who had been loosely associated with the Performance Alliance, mainly by participating in Works in the Works, the low-tech series that the Performance Alliance has sponsored for the past twenty-five years, came together to talk about how they could help one another. They concluded that performance opportunities were their highest priority and greatest need, and decided that they could provide that for themselves by sharing the work and expense of putting on a show.

The first concert was produced in November of 1997, which was the first concert to be given in the new Western Sky Studio. Western Sky, together with the Eighth Street Studio in the same building in West Berkeley, have become Terrain’s performance home. Western Sky is managed by Terrain member Ruth Botchan and Eighth Street Studio by Terrain member Jim Beatty. Having access to these two performance spaces contributes to the stability and longevity of the group. In the process of this collaborative effort, the group found that it worked well and easily together, and though the group has grown and changed somewhat since its start (five out nine of those currently active in Terrain are founding members), this is still the case.

For the first three years of our existence (1997, 1998, and 1999), one season of performances was produced every year. In 1999, the first year of Bay Area Celebrates National Dance Week (BACNDW), Terrain organized Dance-a-Rama, an innovative and free open studio performance event at the studios in the Eighth Street Complex, and has done so every year since then. Dance-a-Rama gives performance opportunities to other artists as well as Terrain members, draws an audience from the surrounding community and was listed as a Marathon Event in the 2005 BACNDW schedule. Dance-a-Rama has continued to be produced every spring, and a performance season is produced every other year.

In 1999, critic Ann Murphy wrote in the East Bay Express that "the emotional intelligence of the evening was ... straightforward and unpretentious, ... the rich thoughtfulness and solid craft of the dances by Terrain."