Event Schedule
(pssst! save these to your phone for quick reference)
Saturday class Menu
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Angela Heyun & Amanda Oyao
12pm SaturdayLet’s explore a range of possibilities in micro, from slow suspenseful waves to precise angular rhythmicality! We’ll practice somatic solo movement/massage, breathwork, wavy vs. angular micro to deepen connections with our own body, our partner, and the music.
No experience needed. Comfort with standing closed or close embrace is recommended.
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Jay & Tasha
1:15pm SaturdayHave you ever led with the backs of your knees or odd body parts you’ve forgotten about? Inspired by moves from tango, kizomba, and contact improv, Jay and Tasha will teach you how to safely incorporate unconventional connections and dynamics into your dance repertoire. Come & expand your meat selection with us!
Expect to explore connection outside of typical frame posture. While both roles will have agency, please choose to either lead or follow for this class. There will not be weight sharing. We welcome people who want to engage with these ideas with one partner for the whole class, and/or seated. Time will be allotted for people to negotiate in partnerships where they are/are not comfortable experiencing touch.
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Malik Delgado & Eleanor Chen
2:30pm SaturdayMake art with a friend! In this class, Malik and Eleanor will guide you through the process of developing, creating, and refining an improvised dance performance. Together we’ll explore theme, story, and character to help identify the kind of duet you’re excited to create.
Students can find a partner in class or bring their own; the pair will work together for the duration of class to create a one to three minute long performance piece. There will be an opportunity to perform, but sharing your piece is not required.
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Ale Vientós Del Valle & Josh Morton
5pm SaturdayPlay stupid games, win stupid prizes. Break your dance and scoop out the creative insides. Learn to use constraints to create new spaces to play with your partners. Flail your way out of that rut. Surprise your partner. Surprise yourself. Surprise your therapist.
There will be opportunities to move a lot, and not just in dance modalities. This class is all levels, though will be more rewarding if you are already comfortable with some forms of embrace and dance connection. It will also be more rewarding if you are willing to get a bit silly and not take yourself too seriously.
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Alex Cabaluna
8:30pm SaturdayAn all levels accessible Micro class using our creative minds to guide our dance. Dance is art, so express yourself with every line, brushstroke, and color in your movement. This class will turn your partner connections into a collaborative canvas to play with. We will establish the foundational dance skills necessary to begin your artistic journey, such as connection, tone, and isolations, and explore creative ways to move in partnership, regardless of the type of connection.
Sunday class Menu
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Tali Nayun & Jonathan Liu
12pm SundayWhen the beat drops out, we don’t have to stop dancing! In this class we’ll learn how to create stretchy, gooey connections within silence and use principles of opposition to make pauses full of dynamic energy. With these tools we’ll discover how silence can be full of musical opportunities for creative lead-follow conversations.
This is an intermediate level class and we expect dancers to be able to lead or follow a basic sendout/pass in open connection with healthy frame (if you have questions, please ask the instructors before class starts).
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Jaesic Wade
1:15pm SundayIn this class, we will explore play and improvisation by finding syncopated beats in a variety of music genres. Through trumpet legend Clark Terry’s framework of “Imitate, Assimilate, Innovate,” you will leave our time together feeling empowered and inspired to make the familiar feel new, reinvigorating your fusion dancing with a jazzy mentality.
You can take this class standing or sitting, alone or in partnership. There may be times where the room is louder than normal due to clapping. This class will help prepare you for the jazz jam on Sunday.
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Gracie Johnson & Bonnie Hodul
2:30pm SaturdayJoin us in a playful space where we explore the possibilities of creating sharp and fluid movements. What makes one movement sharp, and what makes another fluid? How do we manifest these types of movements in our bodies, and how are they different or similar? Can we communicate and receive these types of movements with comfort, ease and clarity both solo and in a dance partnership?
You should be comfortable in one or more connection style(s) with a partner, and have experience in any style of partner dance that has given you a set of moves you can execute intuitively. You will be dancing solo for part of the class, and partnered for part of the class, where you will have the opportunity to lead, follow or switch roles and rotate partners (you may stay with one partner if needed).
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Alison Skjeie White & Reuben Dubester
5pm SundayIn this class, we will focus on groundedness as a core foundation of creativity. We will start by focusing on the feet as our main grounded connection point, and then build on that through solo movement into partnered connection to explore how trust in our own bodies translates to trusting partnerships. You will walk away more familiar with your feet than ever and with new tools to support you in building your somatic trust and creativity over time.
This class is for all levels and will be equally tailored to both follows and leads. Energy requirements for this class are low and you will probably only spend about half the time in partnered connection.
young blood djs
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Natalie started her dance journey in 2016 with Waltz & Irish Ceili before stumbling upon Fusion and falling in love with all it could offer. She was encouraged to DJ after a few long time community members heard some of her library and it's become a passion alongside dance ever since. Natalie creates eclectic sets that bring people in, finding new ways to entertain the floor, and taking dancers on a musical adventure.
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Growing up in a Filipino family, music has played a constant in Amanda’s life; from ceaseless karaoke singing, playing instruments, or making sure tunes are in the background whenever possible. Starting from Sacramento’s Firehouse 5, every set she pulls from a diversity of genres/cultures but especially for bass-driven rhythms in Latin, Blues, and R&B. She strives to create moments to experience a range of familiarity and energy.
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Jonathan is a musician-dancer with decades of experience playing the piano and singing in choirs. His first introduction to social dancing was through his college West Coast Swing club, and ever since then he has been hooked. Nowadays he primarily dances swing, tango, and fusion.
As a DJ, he approaches fusion dance as the ultimate palette for musicality and loves creating seamless arcs through the night to take the dance floor on a magical adventure across soundscapes. He strives to highlight music from a wealth of diverse sources in order to craft a dance experience that is fresh, genuine, and most importantly – fun!
old hat djs
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As a little dancer in Colorado, Leah DJ’d the living room for her sister and eventually whole-house parties in the Pacific Northwest in 2010. For nearly 15 years she’s DJ'd fusion and blues events across the so-called U.S. and Europe, drawing out the room's deepest groove, curating sets that are luscious and heart-opening.
She enjoys showing the historical links between genres as bridges between songs — and the challenge of placing a song so it feels like hearing it for the first time. With sets steeped in sensual trip-hop and the blues-jazz-soul spectrum, she shapes a space of release, tapping into the attunement, emotional and somatic longings of the room — to crack open the party like a glow stick.
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Having danced up and down the west coast since 2016, Eleanor's approach as a DJ comes from years of dancing the whole night straight with no breaks. She aims to give the floor what it needs, no shame, and it shows: her sets have been described as “transformative,” “absolute bangers” with “no maybes.”
Her music spans across multiple genres, aiming to nourish the energy of the room and keep you in the groove all night long.
Expect to be musically engaged and emotionally compelled. With musician ears and dancer intuition, Eleanor is here to make magic happen.
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Kenya Soul, a Bay Area native, draws deep inspiration from hip hop, Lindy Hop, blues, and occasionally anime. Kenya's focus is improvisation, connection, and musicality – which allow him to bring storytelling to life through movement. He seeks to build bridges between divergent communities through shared artistic language, which is how he found his home in Fusion. His Black-experience-centered philosophy sits at the heart of all of his music.
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this bish plays mUSIC
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rose (they/them) is a trans non-binary movement artist and DJ based in the Bay Area, CA. A social partner dancer for over the last decade, they are known for bringing both bangers and subtle beats to various local, national, and international fusion events since 2015.
From the roots of the Mendocino Woodlands to the rooftops of Valencia, Spain, they love to create soundscapes that invite dancers to explore self and shared expression, intimacy, and trust.
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Mark Henry got started in blues at San Luis Obispo in 2009, and thank god for that
community events
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Saturday @ 8pm
Songs are submitted ahead of time, and dancers are instructed to dance as hard (and as musically) as they can. They must DIE DRAMATICALLY if they cannot stay musically engaged.
The song to “kill” the most people wins.
(this is a must-watch event)
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Saturday 3:45pm – 5pm
Free & open to the public! Open floor for whatever calls to you. Come practice your moves with 1:1 tips from some of our instructors.
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Sunday 2:30pm – 3:30pm
Bring your own instruments and cause a ruckus! Noise noise noise!
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Sunday 2:30pm – 5pm
Bring your own meat and slap it on our grill! Free & open to the public, so bring your friends!
Carl has graciously agreed to be our grillmaster – your meat will be well tended.
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Sunday @ 8:30pm
Pent up stress this year, gee, I wonder why.
Take it out on your closest friends. Seriously, beat the fluffy, feathery, f*** out of each other. The Athletic Playground is full of big squishy crash pads, so how could we not have a pillow fight? Bring your own pillow (BYOP).