ODC - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Artistic Director
- Founder
- Artistic Director & Founder, She / Her
- Brenda Way Founder, Artistic Director
BRENDA WAY (Founder and Artistic Director) received her early training at The School of American Ballet and Ballet Arts in New York City. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of ODC/Dance and creator of the ODC Theater and ODC Dance Commons, community performance and training venues in San Francisco's Mission District. Way was instrumental in forming an inter-arts department at Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music in the late 1960's before relocating to the Bay Area in 1976.
She has choreographed more than 100 pieces over the last 53 years. Among her commissions are Unintended Consequences: A Meditation (2008) Equal Justice Society; Life is a House (2008) San Francisco Girls Chorus; On a Train Heading South (2005) CSU Monterey Bay; Remnants of Song (2002) Stanford Lively Arts; Scissors Paper Stone (1994) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Western Women (1993) Cal Performances, Rutgers University and Jacob's Pillow; Ghosts of an Old Ceremony (1991) Walker Art Center and The Minnesota Orchestra; Krazy Kat (1990) San Francisco Ballet; This Point in Time (1987) Oakland Ballet; Tamina (1986) San Francisco Performances; Invisible Cities (1985) Stanford Lively Arts and the Robotics Research Laboratory. Her work Investigating Grace was named an NEA American Masterpiece in 2011.
In 2024, Way was inducted into the California Hall of Fame and is being featured in the NY Public Library's Jerome Robbins' Dance Division Oral History Project. Her work was selected by the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2010 to represent the US in a tour of Southeast Asia, as part of the inaugural DanceMotion touring program sponsored by the US Department of State. She is a national spokesperson for dance, has been published widely, has received numerous awards including Isadora Duncan Dance Awards for both choreography and sustained achievement, and 40 years of support from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a 2000 recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2009, she was the first choreographer to be a Resident of the Arts at the American Academy in Rome, and in 2012, she received the Helen Crocker Russell Award for Community Leadership from the SF Foundation. She is currently involved in helping to reimagine the future of the San Francisco Arts institute campus. Way holds a Ph.D. in aesthetics and is the mother of four children.
Way and Nelson team up with acclaimed New York-based choreographer Kate Weare in this unprecedented collaboration designed to shake up their creative process and explore new artistic territory. The inspiration for this work came from a rare original edition of Euclid's Elements, perhaps the most influential work in the history of mathematics. This highly physical, insightful, and emotive work moves from the formal elegance of geometry to its human implication: from triangles to threesome, from lines to connections, from the page to the heart.
Job Titles:
- Director of Finance & Administration, He / Him
Job Titles:
- Director of School Programming
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Executive Director, She / Her / Hers
Carma Zisman recently served as Director of Institutional Advancement at The Walt Disney Family Museum, where she set strategy for and directed the museum's comprehensive fundraising efforts, membership programs, and marketing and communications. While at the museum she also oversaw business development, guest experience, and the museum's robust volunteer program.
Previously she served as the Vice President of Development at the World Affairs Council of Northern California, and prior to that, as Development Director of the College of Liberal & Creative Arts at San Francisco State University. As an independent consultant and in various roles at Stanford Jazz Workshop, the Amador County Arts Council and the Labor Archives, Zisman has worked collaboratively and successfully with artists, educators, business and operational teams, entrepreneurial leaders, and community members. She is an alumna of Leadership SF and holds a BA from San Francisco State University.
Job Titles:
- Creative Director, She / Her
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Costume Design
- Lighting Supervisor
Job Titles:
- Director of Development, She / Her
Job Titles:
- Chief of Staff, He / Him / His
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- Marketing & Digital Content Manager, He / Him
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Annual Fund & Donor Events
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
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- Facilities Director, He / Him
Job Titles:
- Marketing & Communications Contractors / Consultants
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Artistic Planning
Job Titles:
- Marketing Associate, She / They
Job Titles:
- Audience Services Manager
Job Titles:
- Founding Member
- Kimi Okada School Director, Associate Choreographer
- School Director & Associate Choreographer, She / Her
- School Director, Associate Choreographer
Kimi Okada is a founding member of ODC. Her work includes more than 30 choreographies for ODC/Dance, as well as commissions and collaborations with Geoff Hoyle, Bill Irwin, Julie Taymor, and Robin Williams. She has choreographed productions for the American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco, Yale Repertory Theater, the New Victory Theater in New York, the Children's Theater Company in Minneapolis, Theatre for a New Audience in New York, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the American Music Theater Festival, the Santa Fe Opera, Los Angeles Music Center Opera, Los Angeles Theatre Center, the Pickle Family Circus, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
She was nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway production of Largely New York, which she co-choreographed with Bill Irwin. She received a 2014 Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Choreography for ODC's Two If by Sea. Since 1996, Kimi has served as director of the ODC School, which she has brought to the forefront of international and national dance education for youth and adults. She has been honored with a California State Legislature Assembly Resolution for choreographic and community contributions. She also directs one of ODC's two teen companies, the ODC Dance Jam.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Program Associate, She / Her / Hers
"Once, there was a velveteen rabbit ... and in the beginning he was really splendid, fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be, and on Christmas morning the little boy loved him best of all."
ODC/Dance brings Margery Williams' classic tale of a well-worn stuffed rabbit to life through music, dance, and a splendid narration by actor/comedian Geoff Hoyle. Brimming with wit, festive costumes, and endearingly madcap characters, this production incorporates eight local children, and is a holiday treat and evergreen classic.
Job Titles:
- Youth & Teen Program Coordinator
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- School Operations Manager, She / Her / Hers
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- School Administrative Associate, She / Her
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
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- Health Initiatives Program Director, She / Her / Hers
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Sally X. Yu - Chief Investment Officer
Job Titles:
- Theater Associate, Outreach Coordinator, They / Them
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Director of Marketing and Communications, She / Her
Job Titles:
- Costume Design
- Director of Production
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Director of Institutional Giving, He / Him, They / Them
Job Titles:
- Human Resources Manager, She / Her