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Free Runway Dance Festival to Showcase Bay Area Dance

The Runway Dance Festival at RADIUM Runway is sure to be a family favorite

For hardcore dance fans, curious adventurers, and casual drifters, the Runway Dance Festival on May 4-5 offers two days of dance, music, and the opportunity to discover leading Bay Area professional and youth companies. The Alameda Post met with Tara Pilbrow, Festival Artistic Director and Vice President of the Board of RADIUM Presents, to discuss the event’s creation, participants, challenges, and what she’s looking forward to. Following are excerpts from the interview.

Alameda Post - three dancers perform onstage
Tara Pilbrow Dance performs “Breathe.” Photo Tara Pilbrow Dance.

What motivated the festival’s creation?

The Runway Dance Festival is a project of RADIUM Presents (RADIUM), whose ultimate goal is to build a performing arts center at Alameda Point for local and international artists presenting music, opera, dance, theater, and literary arts. The idea came from realizing that many companies in Alameda and the region have no place to call home in terms of performing space. The festival represents a preview of what is to come and a way of building a network of dance companies and an audience invested in this location.

How did you choose the participants?

I wanted to showcase a variety of dance forms of really excellent quality. I was also looking for companies with strong community connections representing the present and future of Bay Area dance in terms of professional and youth dancers.



From Alameda, we have my modern dance company, Tara Pilbrow Dance. We produce live performances, films, and community events to weave dance into the fabric of the community. We also have Alameda Ballet Academy, which has brought classical ballet to Alameda for over twenty years, particularly through their associated company, Alameda Civic Ballet, with its annual Nutcracker.

Alameda Post - photos of two of the dance troupes to perform at Runway Dance Festival
Left: Alameda Ballet Academy Dancers will perform excerpts from La Bayadere at Runway Dance Festival. Right: Embodiment Project dancers perform onstage. Photos courtesy RADIUM Presents.

From Berkeley, we have Post:ballet, a contemporary ballet company that does incredible work and is the official company of the Berkeley Ballet Theater School. From San Francisco, we have Embodiment Project, a hip-hop based company with strong theatrical elements that partners with several dance schools.

I also invited two other pre-professional youth groups I have worked with, Shawl-Anderson Youth Ensemble of Oakland and Roco Dance of Mill Valley, who will perform modern dance. I like the diversity of companies performing and the fact that we’re building a Bay Area network.

Alameda Post - a male and female dancer perform together
Post:ballet dancers Babatunji and Moscelyne ParkeHarrison in Magma, choreography by Moscelyne ParkeHarrison. Photo Natalia Perez.

What has been challenging, and what are you looking forward to?

They’re interrelated. It’s been a challenge to craft the festival in a way that works for different audiences, from hardcore dance fans to casual drop-ins. Plus, dancers work best in an atmosphere of quiet concentration. So we’re straddling a fine line between accessibility and rigor. Mostly we want all to feel welcome and we look forward to developing fans for these troupes.

To create a festival atmosphere where the audience can move around, get engaged, and watch performances, we’re breaking up blocks of performing with “intermedlies,” improvised interludes in and around the space. Expect jugglers, hula-hoopers, and games of improv roulette to demonstrate the creative process.

The latter will involve audience members picking dancer names out of a hat, and the dancers will get to choose whether they will improvise dance to music or spoken word text. I’m excited about this — and a bit terrified. Anything improvised can be magical, but you never know until it happens.

What are your hopes for the future?

RADIUM plans on continuing to present programming at RADIUM Runway, our outdoor events venue, until we break ground on the performing arts facility and get to do all of this indoors with useful things like walls and lights. Our goal is to activate the area as a performing arts venue and educate the community on the arts through accessible programs.

Alameda Post - an aerial view of RADIUM Runway
RADIUM Runway opening night. Photo Maurice Ramirez.

How can those who are interested participate?

The festival is free! Come to RADIUM Runway with its distinct murals on shipping containers on Saturday and Sunday, May 4-5, from 2 to 5 p.m. View the schedule of family-friendly performances on the festival website. While you’re there, dine from the Locos Only Fusion Food Truck and grab drinks and snacks from the Radium Bar.

RADIUM Runway is on the former taxiway between the Seaplane Lagoon Promenade, with its stunning bay views, and the Naval Air Museum. Ample free parking is at the Seaplane Lagoon Ferry Terminal parking lot. Also, the site is at the western terminus of the Cross Alameda Trail and has plenty of bike parking.

Runway Dance Festival is part of Bay Area Dance Week and is sponsored by Almanac Beer Co., Alameda Ballet Academy/Civic Ballet, and the New England Foundation for the Arts.

Contributing writer Karin K. Jensen covers boards and commissions for the Alameda Post. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at https://linktr.ee/karinkjensen and https://alamedapost.com/Karin-K-Jensen.

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