WHO WE ARE
Donna Sternberg & Dancers (DS&D) is a laboratory/studio integrating contemporary dance and science. Founded in 1985 the company has worked at the forefront of collaborating with scientists from a wide range of fields. Science inspires our work, and rather than literally trying to interpret it we focus on the transformative process of discovery. The studio is our laboratory, where we percolate ideas and explore them through movement.
DS&D presents compelling live performances and educational programs to audiences that are diverse in age, culture, economic class, ethnic background and gender. Through our life-long learning program, we seek to educate and involve audiences by presenting lecture/demonstrations, panel discussions with scientists and artists, teaching classes and workshops and conducting post-performance discussions. The company performs in site-specific locations such as parks, galleries, empty lots, libraries and on the beach as well as in traditional theaters.
DS&D has been presented throughout Southern California, in the San Francisco Bay area and at Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico where it performs and teaches classes annually. The company has participated in adjudicated dance festivals such as Dance Kaleidoscope, Festival of Solos and Duets and Dance Moving Forward in Los Angeles, California Choreographer’s Festival in Laguna Beach, Summerfest in San Francisco, Spector Dance Festival in Monterey as well as Flight Festivals I and II at the California Science Center.
DS&D has performed extensively in schools and for children in venues such as the California Science Center DS&D has been featured in Dance Magazine, Dance Spirit, on KUSC’s Arts Alive Program, on KCET's Life & Times program. As part of the company’s on-going “science series” dances have been choreographed around the themes of orbital mechanics, the history of flight, quantum mechanics, quantum entanglement, string theory, plant biology, memory, perception, environment, and race and gender issues in the scientific community. In 2016, DS&D collaborated with LeeMundwiler architects to perform "Breathing with Chill" at the Venice Biennale.
Ranging from 5-7 members, Donna Sternberg & Dancers is a dynamic, emotionally vibrant contemporary company. The diverse repertoire is composed of vigorous, technically demanding movement that is alternatively edgy, sensuous and lyrical. Permeating the movement is a dramatic and emotional intensity.
The company has collaborated on projects with artists from other disciplines including poet Alice Walker, percussionist Steven Schick, multimedia artists Michael Masucci and Kate Johnson, visual artists Kathi Packer, Gwen Samuels, Doni Silver Simons and Meredith Tromble, photographer Moses Hacmon and composers Ken Christianson, Matthew McBane, Donald Knaack, Craig Kupka, Bobby Matos, Eric Ruskin, Wesley Flowers, Riley Smith, Ari Frankel and Rima Snyder .