GO: The Oakland Dance Festival

Foot contributor Paul Parish sent me this email from the other coast, a de facto recommendation:

The Oakland Dance Festival has got another weekend.

It's a little like going to the Oakland Ballet used to be. There are kinda long waits between the numbers, but all the performances are full of energy, sincere, and they've got ideas....

I saw ODC last night, on a mixed bill put together by Charlie Anderson's Company C "contemporary ballet." ODC looked amazingly good seen out of context, and the piece, based on "Streetcar Named Desire," was just incredible. I think [ODC artistic director] Brenda Way did it for Dance Theatre of Harlem. It's technically amazing but SO inherently dramatic, and her dancers have the idiom in their bones. It's just amazing to see a company who know what they're doing and why and what it means....