Epiphany Productions sonic dance theater is a performing arts company that erases the traditional boundaries between dance, theater, and music and fuses together different themes in innovative and surprising ways to tell stories on the stage and in the street.

Our mission is to develop dynamic, cutting-edge work that is accessible, relevant, and engaging, and that communicates through dance, theater, music, emotion, and intellect. In addition to providing low-cost public access to live art, we strive to expand and educate audiences for dance and to foster inter-cultural communication through artistic collaboration. Epiphany Productions is known for the excellent quality and highly theatrical nature of its work and for its commitment to building community through art-making.

Company History

Artistic Director Kim Epifano founded Epiphany Productions in 1997 to aid her work in “sonic dance theater,” a genre-bending blend of dance, theater, and vocalization in which dancers, musicians, aerialists, and actors work together to weave a story onstage. Epiphany Productions’ programs include an annual Home Season; San Francisco Trolley Dances (SFTD), a free annual festival featuring site-specific works by Bay Area choreographers along the City’s trolley lines; and educational outreach activities locally and around the world. The company’s artistic focus is on large-scale multi-disciplinary collaborations, and since its inception, Epiphany Productions has produced 20 major large-scale works. The company’s work has been seen all over the world, including a recent U.S. State Department-supported tour to Tunisia, North Africa in March 2010 as the featured performers at an international dance festival hosted by Mad’Art Carthage. Epiphany Productions’ work has been recognized by several Isadora Duncan Dance Awards (IZZIES) and nominations, received the SF Weekly’s Black Box Award for Best Dance Ensemble, and placed first in Mexico’s Bi-National Competition. Epiphany Productions has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Walter and Elise Haas Fund, San Francisco Arts Commission, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, California Arts Council, and others.

Cross-cultural collaboration is an important factor in many of the 20 major works created by Epiphany Productions. Recent examples include Speaking Chinese and Fears of Your Life. Speaking Chinese brought together a team of internationally renowned Chinese and American artists, and was developed in Shanghai, Beijing, and San Francisco. It premiered in the San Francisco International Arts Festival at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Fears of Your Life was a two-year collaboration with the developmentally disabled community, Creativity Explored, author Michael Bernard Loggins, and the physically integrated AXIS Dance Company; and was supported by the Irvine Foundation, Dance/USA’s Dance: Creation to Performance program and the Creative Work Fund. Epiphany Productions’ repertoire reflects the artistic director’s exposure to different perspectives on community art-making and diverse cultural norms from her dance-making experiences with villagers in Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, and Nicaragua, as well as her interest in exploring the role of community in artistic expression.

GRANTS AWARDED

In 2010, the Foundation supported SF Trolley Dances 2010, the commissioning of 6-7 choreographers and 40+ performers to create outdoor, site-specific work, to be presented in 16 performances along the N-Judah MUNI line from Duboce Park to Golden Gate Park.