PREVIEW In the second of ODC Theater’s Local Heroes summer series, Yannis Adoniou, Manuelito Biag, and Alex Ketley are taking over Theater Artaud. Over the past decade or so, each has developed a profile of making dances that leave impressive individual footprints. Choreographically speaking, Biag is the youngest. His work is emotionally and physically boiling with the dark, complex currents that swirl inside relationships, yet he manages to create an odd beauty out of these struggles. Ballast, created for SHIFT Physical Theater, is his newest excursion into that thorny territory called home. A former ballet dancer and a cofounder of the Foundry (with Christian Burns), Ketley often works with a small number of dancers. But for the 2006 WestWave Dance Festival, he set Careless on 10 advanced ballet students from the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance. With the premiere of Monument, performed by 14 dancers, he continues his interest in larger-scale ensemble choreography. He also demonstrates his penchant for juxtaposing live and virtual dance. This memorial for a friend incorporates video, movement, and music. In the 2005 Less-Sylphides, Adoniou (a former ballet dancer as well) pays tribute to Michel Fokine’s 1909 pointe-shoes-and-white-tulle Les Sylphides, which is considered the first abstract ballet. It’s a highly creative take and radical in both senses of the term — deeply rooted while still a complete departure from the original.
LOCAL HEROES/BIG PICTURE WEEK 2 Thurs/17–Sat/19, 8 p.m. Theater Artaud, 450 Florida, SF. $18–$25. (415) 863-9834, www.odctheater.org