"The Foundry is at the vanguard of American dance." San Francisco Chronicle, 2003

 

History
Director Bios
Affiliates
Contributing
Press
Repertory

HISTORY:

The Foundry is a contemporary dance company founded in 1998 by choreographers Alex Ketley and Christian Burns as the repository for their collaborative and individual projects. Based on their varied artistic interests, the company works on a per project basis and since its inception has produced numerous live performance, video installation, and single channel video pieces. The work is informed by an extensive background in classical and contemporary ballet combined with a deep interest in the fine arts, improvisation, and collaborative process. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the company's experimental work is considered at the forefront of movement-based performance and video installation.

For specifics on seeing The Foundry, please visit our calendar page.

2009

•  The Foundry and the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance move into their permanent home. Two beautiful studios located in the heart of downtown San Francisco.

•  Alex Ketley and media-artist Les Stuck are Awarded a prestigeous Gerbode Hewlett Commissioning Grant to create the new work Theater Irrelevant. For details regarding this project visit the calendar page on this website.

•  Alex Ketley is awarded a choreographic fellowship at the Maggie Alessee National Center for Choreography in Florida

2008

•  Alex Ketley creates For You... for Groundworks Dance company in Cleveland Ohio.

•  Alex Ketley creates Vessel in collaboration with poet Carol Snow for AXIS Dance Company's 20th Anniversary. The duet from this work is considered one of the "Top Ten Dance Events of the Year" by Voice of Dance and wins an Isadora Duncan Award.

•  Alex Ketley creates If Ever (an Ocean) Relinquished, for DanceWorks Chicago. He also concieves of a national composer competition relative to the new piece. For more information click here.

•  The Foundry presents Monument for the ODC Local Hero's Festival. The piece is directed by Alex Ketley in collaboration with a diverse range of dancers from many different disciplines. Voice of Dance reviews the piece and comments: “The theory that dance can express the inexpressible has rarely been so adeptly illustrated.”

•  The San Francisco Conservatory of Dance is the first summer dance program in the nation to similtaneously offer the work of choreographers William Forsythe, Ohad Naharin, and Jiri Kylian.

•  Alex Ketley creates the double duet Duo for ARC Dance in Seattle. It is reviewed as being an "evocative piece... representing some of the most tender moments of the evening."

•  Alex Ketley creates To Color me Different for AXIS Dance company. The duet is the first full piece he creates for dancers who have disabilities.

•  Ballet Nouveau Colorado awards Alex Ketley second place in their inaugural 21st Century Choreography Competition for his work This Act of Three Collissions. In addition to the choreography Alex also created the video projection.

2007

•  The Foundry collaborates with The Translation Project's director, Niloufar Talebi, on a new multimedia work exploring contermporary Iranian Poetry. It connects the myth of Icarus with the migration of Iranians, and the solitary journey of the artist/migrant in the search for artistic freedom. Video and choreography were created by Alex Ketley, and the original score was created by composer Bobak Salemi. It premiered November 15 in San Francisco.

•  Christian performs as a guest artist with The Forsythe Company in Dresden on a new performance Installation created by William Forsythe titled EQUIVALENCE.

•  Alex Ketley creates the quartet Drift for Ballet Met as part of their 30th Anniversary Season. It premiered August 23 in Columbus, OH.

•  The company premiered Imprint, May 10-12 at ODC Theater in San Francisco. The creation and presentation of Imprint has been generously supported by the Santa Fe Art Institute, ODC Theater, the Ucross Foundation, CASH and Zeelrbach Grants, as well as a James Irvine Foundation Dance: Creation to Performance Grant.

•    Alex Ketley premiered a new work for San Francisco State University in March and another for Stanford University in May.

•  The company was in residence at ODC Theater in San Francisco to create Imprint. This work will look at The Foundry's entire seven year video history through video artists Anthony Dicenza and Torsten Zenus Burns - with music by former Ballett Frankfurt composer Leslie Stuck.

•  Alex Ketley created a new work for AXIS Dance Company through the Maggie Allessee National Center for Choreography's "Free to Rep" program in Tallahassee, Florida.

•  The company was in residence for the month of March at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming to prepare for the San Francisco premiere of Imprint.

•    Alex Ketley was awarded a yearlong CHIME Grant/Residency to mentor with veteran artist Charlie Moulton. Ketley will explore older undeveloped ideas regarding text, as well as an interface with the movie "Battle in Heaven", by mexican director Carlos Reygadas.

•    Christian Burns created and premiered a new work for the advanced students at Mt. Holyoke College.

2006

•    Chris Burns created a new work for the advanced students at the Laban Center in London, England. He created this wortk in collaboration with Kirstie Simson.

•    Alex Ketley presented Careless in January for the opening night of the American College Dance Festival. During the festival his new his new work for San Francisco State University will also be performed.

•  October - The company was in residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute to explore and develop initial performance ideas for Imprint.

•  Alex Ketley presented Careless for two sold out shows at the 2006 West Wave Dance Festival, July 27-28 at Theater Artaud in San Francisco.

•  February 24, 25, 26 (2006) Alex Ketley presented Lost Line at Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA. This work was a performance piece working with video shot during 2005 exploring California, and was generously underwritten by an Irvine: Creation to Performance Grant.

•  Alex Ketley is appointed Resident Choreographer at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance.

2005

•  Alex Ketley received an inaugural Princess Grace Award for Choreography to create The Marking of Apology for Robert Moses' company KIN.

•  Ketley and Burns collaboratively created two new works for the advanced summer students of the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, which will premiere this summer at the Regency Center in San Francisco. One of which was the systemic work Hedda Stern.

•  Alex Ketley created Field Effect / The Wish for Even Ground for North Carolina School for the Arts and Hubbard Street 2.

•  In May The Foundry: Alex Ketley, Christian Burns, and Kirstie Simson presented Capacity from Shallowness for the San Francisco International Arts Festival.

•  Alex Ketley, as a recipient of the 2005 Choo San Goh Award for Choreography, created Second Memory for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, collaborating with former Frankfurt Ballet composer Les Stuck.

•  Alex Ketley presented his new work Syntax at ODC Theater in San Francisco. This systemic work was a 45 minute duet based on the mechanics of language created by California poet Carol Snow.

•  For October, Alex Ketley and Christian Burns traveled to Taiwan as artists in residence at the Taipei Artist Village to participate in a festival investigating inprovisation.

2004

•  In collaboration with Kirstie Simson, Christian Burns creates a new work at the Laban Center in London, England.

•  The Foundry's video piece "Joygame" is screened at the Moving Pictures Festival in Toronto, Canada.

•  Christian Burns receives a Choo-San Goh Choreography Award to create his new work Zenas for the James Sewell Ballet in Minneapolis, MN.

 

•  Alex Ketley receives a Creative Work Fund Grant to create Syntax with San Francisco poet Carol Snow which will feature Foundry dancer Andrea Flores and her husband Justin Flores.

 

•  Chris and Alex collaboratively create Dallas for the advanced students of Alonzo King's LINES Pre-professional Summer School.

 

•  Alex Ketley wins a top award at the International Choreographic Competition of the Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur in Quebec, Canada

 

•  The Foundry's video piece Jealous Guy (1998) is presented in the group show Transmit and Transform at the Santa Fe Art Institute (SFAI) along with the work of artists including Gary Hill, Sharin Neshat, and Jenny Holzer. For September both Chris and Alex travel to SFAI as artist in residence to begin the creation of a new work.

 

•  As a choreographer representing Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Alex Ketley contributes his work Trace Fulfillment (2001) to the repertory of Florida State University.

 

2003

•  Chris Burns collaborated with Kirsti Simson to create Untitled Spaces for the advanced students at the Laban Center in London England.

 

•  Alex Ketley completed his second commission Fragments (Repeat Forever) for Hubbard Street 2, which premiered for the main company's Inside/Out Program.

•  Alex and Christian created and presented their first evening length video work, Joygame, at Headlands Center for the Arts.

•  The Foundry's Alex Ketley, Christian Burns, Maurya Kerr, Nicholas Yagoda, and Andrea Flores created Within Once as a company in residence at The Yard, a colony for performing artists in Chilmark, MA.

•  The Foundry's Alex Ketley, Christian Burns, Marina Hotchkiss, Nicholas Yagoda, Andrea Flores, and Summer Lee Rhatigan present The Fleshing Memory as the culminating piece of their Wattis Artist Residency at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The company is reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle as being “at the vanguard of American dance.”

2002

•  The Foundry's Alex Ketley and Christian Burns are Wattis Artist in Residence at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA. While in residence they create, with the rest of the company, a three channel video installation and an evening length performance work for the center's Bay Area Now Festival.

 

•  Dance Magazine announces The Foundry as one of the Top 25 Dance Companies to Watch.

•  The Foundry's Alex Ketley, Christian Burns, Nicolas Yagoda, Andrea Flores, Marina Hotchkiss, Ansuman Biswas, and Anthony Luensman create and present Kid Thunder at Headlands Center for the Arts. This show is reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle as being one of the Top Ten Dance Events of the Year.

2001

•  Alex Ketley and Christian Burns are artists in residence at Headlands Center for the Arts where they create their performance installation Capacity from Shallowness . This is reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle as being one of the Top Ten Dance Events of the Year as well as being the impetus for the front-page article titled Foundry Takes Bay Area Dance to the Next Stage .

 

•  Alex Ketley wins the Hubbard Street 2 National Choreography Competition.

 

•  Chris Burns wins the Paula Citron Choreography for Camera Award, from the Moving Pictures Festival of Dance on Film and Video, in Toronto, Canada.

 

 

2000

•  Alonzo King commissions Alex Ketley and Christian Burns to create Sea Green and Blue Already Rising for his LINES Ballet spring season.

 

•  Alex Ketley creates Tar.JMB for a festival of new composers at the Marin Civic Auditorium.

 

•  The Foundry's Alex Ketley, Sandra Stringer, and Derek Powell perform Salt Flat Pieces (1998) at the gallery 111 Minna.

 

1999

•  The Foundry: Alex Ketley, Christian Burns, Derek Powell, Eric Lee, Sandra Stringer, Jennifer Herbert, Don Ketley, and Simon McCourt present Park as part of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts outdoor performance series.

 

•  The video Jealous Guy (1998) is presented at the Impakt Festival and on ALMANAC Art for Television, both in the Netherlands.

 

•  Alex Ketley, Christian Burns, and Sandra Stringer create their performance video work Current Form for Dancers' Group's Edge Festival.

•  The JennJoy Gallery presents the performance installation Saltwater in their downtown San Francisco space.

•  Salt Flat Pieces (1998) is presented for Venue Nines Q Cabaret.

1998

 

•  Their first piece, Salt Flat Pieces, is performed for no more than 50 people at San Francisco's Shotwell Studio. This first piece is reviewed by the San Francisco Guardian as being: “A gorgeous thing.”

•  Artists Alex Ketley and Christian Burns come together to create and co-found The Foundry.

School