For Immediate Release Contact: Cid Pearlman April 3, 2012 [email protected] 831-332-4956 www.cidpearlman.org

The San Francisco International Arts Festival presents: Cid Pearlman/Performance Projects This is what we do in winter Saturday and Sunday, May 19 (9PM) & 20 (5PM), 2012

Choreographer Cid Pearlman’s This is what we do in winter features dancers from Estonia and the United States, performing to an original score by composer (). Starting as strangers – foreign bodies in the same room – this international collaboration reflects on the process of getting to know each other during the long dark Estonian winter. San Francisco is the company’s second stop on a mini-tour of California. Performances at the San Francisco International Arts Festival are May 19, 9:00pm, and May 20, Sunday, 5:00pm, Marines’ Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter Street, San Francisco, 94102. Tickets: $12-$30, http://www.sfiaf.org. Also on the program are Post Ballet (USA) and Susanna Leinonen Company (Finland).

Pearlman’s “…intelligent, sensual choreography…” (SF Bay Guardian, 2011) foregrounds the individuality of the performer. Estonian dance critic Tiit Tuumalu writes:

…This is what we do in winter continue(s) to haunt me...the simplicity of its culmination, brightness, impressionistic mood, soft humor, unconstrained-ness and dynamics were in beautiful harmony with the music by Jonathan Segel. (Postimees, 2010)

During the 2009-10 academic year Pearlman was a Fulbright Scholar in Estonia, teaching at Tallinn University and collaborating with Estonian dance artists. One of the highlights was working with an extraordinary group of dancers – Rain Saukas, Tiina Mölder, Helen Reitsnik, Alexis Steeves and David King. Together they experimented with performance and embodiment, thinking about how to create environments in which the dancers could be wholly themselves, while simultaneously working with the choreography that they created together. Out of these experiments came This is what we do in winter.

What: This is what we do in winter Who: Cid Pearlman/Performance Projects Where: San Francisco International Arts Festival, Marines’ Memorial Theater Address: 609 Sutter Street, San Francisco, 94102 When: Saturday, May 19th, 9PM, Sunday, May 20th, 5PM Tickets: $12-$30, http://www.sfiaf.org/2012Festival/artists/Cid-Pearlman.html www.marinesmemorialtheatre.tix.com/ Photo downloads: http://cidpearlman.org/presskit.cfm Photo credits: Pearlman1 – Reio Aare, Pearlman2 – Beau Saunders

These performances are made possible in part by Eesti Kultuurkapital, the Fulbright Program of the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy/Estonia, and the many donors who contributed to our USA Projects campaign. Artist Biographies

Cid Pearlman’s choreography subtly disrupts traditional notions of desire, gender, and friendship. Her work has been presented by numerous venues including Joyce SoHo (New York City), Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Tallinn, Estonia), the Getty Center (Los Angeles), Theater Artaud (San Francisco) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (San Diego). From 1991-1999 Pearlman was the artistic director of San Francisco’s critically acclaimed Nesting Dolls. In 1999 she relocated to Los Angeles, establishing herself as an independent choreographer and producer. Her most recent collaborations have been with composers Joan Jeanrenaud, formerly of Kronos Quartet, and Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven. In addition to her own works, Pearlman has choreographed for film, opera and theater. Her evening length dance, High Fall, won the 2002 Lester Horton Award for Visual Design, and 2006’s small variations was nominated for two Horton Awards.

Pearlman received her MFA in Dance from the University of California, Los Angeles. After completing her graduate studies in 2006, she moved to Santa Cruz, where she teaches at UC Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College. Her choreography has received support from the Fulbright Program of the U.S. Department of State, The U.S. Embassy/Estonia, the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the San Francisco Art Commission, the Zellerbach Family Fund, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the American Composers Forum and the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County. In January of 2013 Pearlman will premiere Your Body is Not a Shark, an evening length interdisciplinary performance in collaboration with composer/cellist Joan Jeanrenaud and poet Denise Leto, at ODC Theater in San Francisco. www.cidpearlman.org

David King is a dancer, choreographer, durational installation artist and movement educator. Since 1992 he has been a principle dancer and choreographic collaborator with Cid Pearlman/ Performance Projects (San Francisco/Los Angeles/Santa Cruz/Estonia). In addition to his work with CP/PP, he has performed with choreographers Eric Stern, Liam Clancy and Carmela Hermann, among others. In 1991 he earned a BA in Theater Arts/Dance from UC Santa Cruz and completed a four-year Feldenkrais practitioner training. In 2001 he received an MA in Dance from UCLA. King is Co-Chair of the Dance Department at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz County.

Tiina Mölder is an Estonian dance maker who works both independently, and as a member of an Estonian dance company United dancers of ZUGA. As a dancer she has worked with different choreographers, including Kaja Kann, Jarmo Karing, Katrin Essenson, Taavet Jansen, Thomas Lehmen, Jenni Kivelä, and Cid Pearlman. As a choreographer with ZUGA, she likes to work as a co-author, creating in collaboration with other Zugans dances that have been performed on stages, in houses, in trams and parks, both for adults and children. Their work has toured to Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Russia, Germany, England, Sweden and United States. In 2003 ZUGA was invited to the Central Station festival in San Diego to perform their Walking home solo. www.zuga.ee

Helen Reitsnik graduated from University of Tallinn in 1997 with a degree in choreography. She has participated in numerous performances by Estonian choreographers, and has worked with a variety of companies, including Zuga, Fine 5, Zick and Von Krahl Theatre. She has worked with many choreographers, including Yoshiko Chuma, Tommi Kitti, Sasa Pepeljajev and Cid Pearlman. Helen teachers creative dance, improvisation and stage movement for children. She also likes hiking and taking photos in the nature.

Alexis Steeves is a contemporary dance artist living between Tallinn, Estonia and the United States. Alexis has been teaching dance technique, yoga and various movement and massage workshops at the Tallinn University and elsewhere since 2009. Alexis has choreographed collaboratively with her fellow Bard College alums, dubbed 10Queens, since 2001. Their collective works have enjoyed support from Judson Church, DanceSpace Project and BRIC in NYC. She has also danced for Daniel McCusker, Susan Osberg, Onye Ozuzu, Beth Simons, Bryan Hayes, Noemie LaFrance and Cid Pearlman.

Rain Saukas is a contemporary dance and graphic artist from Estonia. Rain trained intensively with Fine5 Dance Theater as well as Jyrkki Karttunen, Carolyn Carlson, Jane Comfort and Noemie LaFrance among others at several international dance festivals. Rain became a performing member of Fine5 Dance Theater in 2004, touring throughout Estonia and in Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Vitebsk, Warsaw, Yerevan and Busan, Korea. Among many applauded productions Rain participated in Fine5's original five-time production of Carmina Burana, conducted by Carl Orff at the Birgitta Music Festival of Estonia and "Phases" which won the 2009 Estonian Theater Award for Best Dance Production.

Jonathan Segel has been a principal composer for Cid Pearlman/Performance Projects, and her former company Nesting Dolls, since 1992. He has composed music for film and dance and has toured throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan by himself or with a number of bands, most notably Camper Van Beethoven, and Cracker, and with avant-garde musician Eugene Chadbourne. Segel plays several instruments, including the guitar, bass guitar, violin, viola, mandolin, keyboards and computer. He has also composed music for Curt Haworth's Dance Company, and Maxine Moerman Dance Theater and the Deborah Slater Dance Theater, including the 2006 month-long run of “Hotel of Memories” at CounterPulse in San Francisco and 2007-2009 runs of “The Desire Line” on both east and west coasts. Segel runs a small record label called Magnetic which has produced many of his own CDs as well as those of other San Francisco- based artists. http://www.magneticmotorworks.com/

This is what we do in winter, Kanuti Gildi SAAL, Tallinn, Estonia, 2010