Smith/wymore disappearing acts

Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts (SWDA) is a dance/theater company led by Lisa Wymore and Sheldon Smith. SWDA’s performances are often as funny as they are physically provocative, intellectually stimulating, and deeply, beautifully human. SWDA works collaboratively with other dancers, actors, filmmakers, composers, technologists, designers, and media artists to develop uncompromisingly original work. Finished pieces always include a range of artistic modes as well as text and technological interventions. SWDA’s performance style draws from the postmodern tradition of dance making that calls for a new paradigm on the stage -- an aesthetic of everyday movement that draws on a full array of movement, gesture, form, and experimentation within a rigorous practice. Originally a Chicago-based company, SWDA moved to the Bay Area in 2004, and has been presenting work locally and nationally ever since.

Sheldon

Sheldon B. Smith has made dances, music and video art for over 30 years in both the Midwest and California. Originally trained in ballet and french horn, his interests have since shifted. A lot. Upon discovering electronic music, modern dance and video art at Colorado College back in the early 80’s, he realized that he was an experimentalist at heart. That continues to this day with current research on how AI could act as a creative assistance tool in the generation of choreography, text, music and scenic design. This work is explored as both a solo artist and with Lisa and SWDA.

Over the decades he has also collaborated on projects with many significant local and international artists including Kathleen Hermesdorf, Scott Wells, Jess Curtis, Bob Eisen, Carey Perloff, Meg Stuart and many others. He also continues to make music for various projects and enjoys accompanying dance when given the opportunity.

Currently he is the Chair of the Dance and Theater Studies Dept. at Mills College Northeastern where he has taught full-time for the last 14 years and was recently awarded the Mary Metz Chair for Excellence and Creativity in Teaching.

He has a BA in Dance from Colorado College and an MFA from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.

Lisa

Lisa Wymore has an MFA in dance from the  University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, where she was awarded a Creative and Performing Arts Fellowship, an Outstanding Achievement Award, and a Moe Family Award for her creativity. She was a faculty member within the Northwestern University Dance Program from 2000 to 2004. Wymore is now an Associate Professor at the University of California Berkeley in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. She teaches classes in choreography, dance technique, pedagogy, improvisation, and performance. Wymore started a multi-disciplinary project called The Resonance Project in 2005, which has evolved into the Z-Lab UC Berkeley – a site for interactive real time collaboration. This project involves choreographers, computer engineers, and visual/sound artists who are investigating interactivity within live and media based performance. For more information follow the Z-Lab blog: http://zlabucb.blogspot.com. Wymore is a Certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst from the Integrated Movement Studies program. She regularly teaches workshops and classes in this system.

Recent work

Our most recent evening length piece was back in 2017-18 and it was called Six Degrees. We loved this piece and wish our lives made it easier to keep working with the team we had for that show. But life has thrown us various challenges.

We do a lot with our students these days.

Here are a couple of things from 2022

In Search of an Outcome is a piece we did in the winter of 2022 on students at UCBerkeley. We collaborated with the students, production team and videographer Ben Estabrook on the creation of the work. Most of the music is by Sheldon.

While this piece, Dancers Move, was written and choreographed by my student Faith Alexis, I made the music for it and I share it as it powerfully speaks to the frustration of losing dance at Mills.

donate

We are always in need of funds and use them almost exclusively to pay our collaborators, performers and technicians

If you feel moved to donate, feel free to reach out: sh.smith@northeastern.edu

Pictured here—James Graham and the late beloved Kathleen Hermesdorf in one of our rehearsals.