Courageous Dance. Rooted in Care.
Air BetWeen Us
Program
Photo by: Nino Fernandez, of Saharla Vetsch, Megan Lowe, and Rose Huey
Air Between Us
Presented by
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
A Vertical Dance Experience by Megan Lowe Dances
May 15-17, 2026
Friday, May 15 at 7:00pm
Saturday, May 16 at 2:00pm (with Audio Description by Gravity Access Services)
Saturday, May 16 at 7:00pm (with ASL Interpretation)
Sunday, May 17 at 2:00pm
Run Time: 1 Hour, 15 Minutes
YBCA Galleries and Forum Building
Director's Note
I keep returning to breath. The air we share—fragile, necessary, unevenly held.
In this work, dancers rise and fall, assist and resist, giving shape to something invisible but constant. A pulse. A reaching. A reminder that even in distance, we are bound to one another.
Making this piece now, in a city still marked by pandemic, wildfires, and inequity, breath feels urgent. Political. Tender. What we take in, what we release, what we protect.
This work asks: can the space between us hold not just separation, but care?
I am profoundly grateful to the dancers, riggers, designers, and the YBCA team—this piece lives because of you. And to you, the audience: thank you for being here, for breathing with us.
- Sincerely, Megan
About MLD
Megan Lowe Dances (MLD) creates courageous multidisciplinary dance works rooted in care. They transform spaces with dynamic place-making, playful partner-work, and daring aerial/vertical dance, paying particular attention to stories from AAPI, BIPOC, and mixed-race communities. MLD’s recent work has been presented at Legion of Honor, ODC, Fort Mason, de Young, and 500 Capp Street, as well as in United States of Asian America Festival, APAture, SF Aerial Arts Festival, SF Trolley Dances, CAAMFest, and on KQED Live. MLD also offers invigorating workshops that empower movers to take risks, embrace strengths, and support one another. Through collaboration, creative exploration, and collective learning, their public programming builds supportive communities and reimagines what dance can be and where it can happen.
Thank you for supporting Pacific Islander and Asian American arts. Let’s work together to keep the San Francisco Bay Area a place for Asian Pacific Islander art to thrive. Please email your district supervisors and tell them why this arts community is important to you and why you want them to continue supporting AAPI art.
Artistic Team
Artistic Direction by:
Megan Lowe
Choreography and Dance by:
Gabriele Christian, B Dean, Rose Huey, Megan Lowe, Roel Seeber, and Saharla Vetsch
Music by:
William Cenoté, in collaboration with Megan Lowe, featuring flute by Rabiah Kabir
Set Concept/Design by:
Megan Lowe, Dave Freitag, Roel Seeber, and Sean Riley
Rigging Design by:
David Freitag
Show Rigging by:
Caelan Barbour and David Freitag
Lighting Design by:
Ray Oppenheimer
Stage Management by:
Heather Romanowski
Rehearsal Assistance by:
Rose Huey
Audio Description by:
Clarissa Dyas of Gravity Access Services, supported by a generous grant from the Ford Foundation
Artistic Director
Megan Lowe
Megan Lowe (she/they) is a Chinese and Irish American dance maker, performer, teacher, singer-songwriter, and Artistic Director of Megan Lowe Dances. She is known for her bold physicality and her affinity for site-specific dance, contact improvisation/dynamic partnering, and aerial/vertical dance. Megan’s is a two-time Izzie Award winner for Outstanding Achievement in Performance. She has performed with many esteemed dance organizations, including Flyaway Productions, Lenora Lee Dance, and Dance Brigade. Megan is a teaching artist for Joe Goode Performance Group, BANDALOOP, Flyaway, and her alma mater Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, where she works as the Program Associate. She regularly teaches contact improvisation, vertical dance, site-specific dance, and contemporary dance for organizations, schools, universities, and dance festivals around the Bay Area and California, and has also taught in Singapore, Ireland, and Japan.
Photo by: Nino Fernandez
Performers
GABRIELE CHRISTIAN
Gabriele Christian (they/them) is a Oakland-based conceptual artist and descendent of stolen folk experimenting within somatic practices, language, performance composition, video production and community arts facilitation to locate and center BlaQ (Black and Queer) experience, vernaculars and aesthetics as wellsprings for radical futurity. Gabriel is currently a co-director of GRAVITY, and a founding member of Bay Area performance collectives and land projects RUPTURE, OYSTERKNIFE, and BlaQyard. They’ve presented and collaborated with NIC Kay, jose e. abad/fugitivity labs, LXS DXS, Sherwood Chen, Lenora Lee Dance, SAMMAY, Skywatchers, and more. They strive to excavate oral tradition and movement as conduits for urgent and equitable conversations around belonging, spirit, desirability, abundance, and care. This is Gabriele’s first project with MLD.
Photo by: Nino Fernandez
B Dean
B Dean (they/he) is an earthbound and airborne dancer, white transboy, and queer world builder based in unceded Ohlone territory (the Bay Area) for 15 years. They perform with Zaccho Dance Theater, BANDALOOP, Sean Dorsey Dance, Joe Goode Performance Group, Flyaway Productions, gizeh muñiz vengal, and Circo Zero. Under their dance project, BODYSTORM, B centers queer/trans experiences in site-specific physical thinking experiments highlighting the intelligent technology of nature and body. They are an Artist in Residence at Zaccho Dance Theater and serve as President of the Board for GRAVITY. This is B’s first project with MLD.
Photo by: Nino Fernandez
Rose Huey
Rose Huey (they /she), is a third generation Chinese-American multidisciplincary artist living on occupied Lisjan Ohlone land. Rose believes in the pivotal role of artists as social change agents. She is a company dancer, teaching artist, and former Director of Education with the vertical dance company BANDALOOP. Rose has collaborated with Bay Area choreographers including Nina Haft, Hope Mohr, Blind Tiger Society, Mixd Ingrdnts, Kim Ip, Fog Beast. Rose co-directed Destiny Arts’ Elders Project, and is a founding member of Asian Babe Gang, a collective centering queer voices of the Asian Diaspora. They were a 2021 CAC Emerging Artist and a Bridge Live Arts Board Member. Rose and Megan recently co-created the vertical dance film JINSHAN: Seams of Gold, and co-produced the 2nd SF Bay Area AAPI Dance Film Festival.
Photo by: Nino Fernandez
Roel Seeber
Roel Seeber (he/they/any) is an Oakland based artist who graduated cum Laude from Purchase College, State University of New York, and holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Washington. From 2008-2020, Roel was a company member of vertical dance organization BANDALOOP, dancing, performing, stage directing, and teaching with them. Roel currently works with BANDALOOP in performance projects and as a Lead Teacher. As a solo artist, Roel collaborates with other vertical dance artists, including a creative partnership with Magalie Lanriot in Lisbon Portugal. He has taught workshops for Il Posto, Vuela, Danza Area, Dimegaz, Sparrow Dance, and Gravity & Levity. From 2001 to 2008, Roel danced with The Límon Dance Company. Roel and Megan started exploring vertical dance partnering together in 2023, and they have created/performed 4 gravity defining duets since then, including in MLD's Just a Shadow, which they won an Izzie Award for.
Photo by: Nino Fernandez
Saharla Vetsch
Saharla Vetch (she/her) is a Somali American multidisciplinary artist rooted in the Bay Area. Saharla earned a degree in Performing Arts and Social Justice from the University of San Francisco. Her focus is on movement storytelling using elements of vertical dance, drag, and spectacle. Saharla’s teaching and performances encourage and celebrate the intersecting identities that make up who we are. She does this in the spaces of queer nightlife entertainment, multigenerational dance education, and through collaborative dance performances. She creates work that fosters community and connection using physical comedy, high-camp energy, and infectious joy. Saharla strives to be a beacon of self-expression, harnessing the liberating power of dance to ignite the same sense of freedom in others. This is Saharla’s first project with MLD.
Photo by: Nino Fernandez
Additional
Collaborators
William Cenote
William Cenoté (he/him) is a composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and visionary artist, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is best known as the creator and performer behind the Luminescent Grand, the world's first synesthetic grand piano. In a confluence of all his abilities, he brought a special musical experience of original compositions, sound design, and improvised instrumentations to MLD's Legions & Legacies at the Legion of Honor Museum, and has composed an original sound score for Air Between Us.
Photo by: Gary Sexton
Dave Freitag
David Freitag is an aerial rigging designer who is somehow lucky enough to still be based in San Francisco. Dave has spent the past 20 years (and hopefully the next 20 more) striving to perfect his craft as a rigger, and making his peace with Sir Isaac Newton. Along the way, he has held the honor of being one of the lead riggers on a wide range of site specific dance productions performing on walls and theaters both internationally and across the Bay Area, including Sens Productions, Zaccho, Capacitor, Flyaway, and Printz Dance Project. Dave spent 8 years touring internationally as lead rigger for Cirque Mechanics USA, and currently bides his time between aerial gigs as the house rigger at the Masonic Auditorium on Nob Hill. A master's graduate of UC Santa Barbara and SFSU, Dave holds rigging certifications in SPRAT, ETCP, and is a journeyman member of IATSE Local 16. When not holding the other end of the circus ropes, he can be found pursuing his habits of of off-beat adventure, exploring new places to climb, sea kayak, camp, fish, build treehouses, or soak in a remote hot spring. Currently, Dave is looking up, and always stands under his work.
Photo by: Roel Seeber
Ray OppenHeimer
Ray Oppenheimer is a San Francisco Bay Area based lighting designer, educator, scenographer, technologist, and creator who has been bringing his boundless curiosity, chimerical aesthetic, and Sisyphean perseverance to performance design and education since 2005. Ray graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Arts with an emphasis in lighting design from San Francisco State University in the Fall of 2017. He also is an active company member with Mugwumpin and Shotgun Players. As a lighting designer, Ray has worked with Word For Word, Z Space, piecebypiece productions, ACT, The Magic Theatre, Mugwumpin, Shotgun Players, Center Rep, New Conservatory Theatre Company, Crowded Fire, Santa Cruz Shakespeare Company, Debutants and Vagabonds, David Herrera's Dance Company, and Red Rooster. He has created the original lighting designs for the world premieres of A Tale of Autumn by Christopher Chen, Grandeur by Han Ong, Pen Man Ship by Christina Anderson, Bad Jews by Joshua Harmon, The Virgin with 10k Arrows by Jason Tremblay, Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World by Yussef El Guindi, and Blockbuster Season and In Event of Moon Disaster by Mugwumpin.
YBCA
About YBCA
Opened to the public in 1993, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts was founded as the cultural anchor of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Gardens neighborhood. Our work spans the realms of contemporary art, performance, film, civic engagement, and public life. Centering artists as essential to social and cultural movement, YBCA is reimagining the role an arts institution can play in the community it serves.
Vision
To be a catalyst of creative exploration, expression and innovation that empowers artists, inspires community and drives lasting social change.
Mission
To be a gathering space for creative expression that fosters meaningful connection for all.
Program Notes
All music for this show was created by William Cenoté, in collaboration with Megan Lowe. The sections unfold as follows:
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Invitation to Breathe performed by Saharla Vetsch.
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JUXT / Shared Atmosphere performed by Megan Lowe and Roel Seeber.
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Breath Went Shallow performed by Gabriele Christian, B Dean, Rose Huey, Megan Lowe, Roel Seeber, and Saharla Vetsch.
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Where Connection Finds Us performed by Gabriele Christian and Roel Seeber.
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Split Perspectives performed by B Dean, with Gabriele Christian, Rose Huey, Roel Seeber, and Saharla Vetsch, and Megan Lowe singing live.
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Compression performed by Gabriele Christian, B Dean, Rose Huey, Megan Lowe, Roel Seeber, and Saharla Vetsch.
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The Held Moment
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What Holds Us Down performed by Rose Huey, with Megan Lowe.
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Who Gets the Air performed by Gabriele Christian, with B Dean, Rose Huey, Megan Lowe, Roel Seeber, and Saharla Vetsch.
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Breath Under Threat performed by Rose Huey and Megan Lowe.
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Collective Lift performed by Gabriele Christian, Rose Huey, Megan Lowe, and Saharla Vetsch.
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Strength in Listening performed by B Dean and Roel Seeber.
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Because Someone Was There performed by Saharla Vetsch, with Gabriele Christian, B Dean, Rose Huey, Megan Lowe, Roel Seeber, and Saharla Vetsch.
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JUXT / A Return to Earth performed by Gabriele Christian, B Dean, Rose Huey, Megan Lowe, Roel Seeber, and Saharla Vetsch.
After the show, if you are curious to see transcripts of the lyrics sung and text spoken during Air Between Us click the button below. We would recommend doing this post show, vs. before/during the show.
Audience Survey
Thank you for attending Megan Lowe Dances presents Air Between at YBCA, May 15-17. We had such a wonderful time dancing and sharing this performance, and we are so grateful for each and every one of you.
Surveys like this help us apply for grants, better understand who our art is serving, and improve our future programming. We are excited to hear from you!
You could choose to remain anonymous if you wish, and all sections are optional. If you are able to forward this survey to others in your party that attended Air Between Us with you, that would be so appreciated. We want to hear from everyone!
If you would like to share your responses in a more free form way, you can also send an email over to megan@meganlowedances.com.
Thanks for your time and consideration!
Special Thanks
Special Thanks
Flyaway Productions: for uplifting Megan Lowe Dances in the community in a significant way
Circo Zero: for generously helping MLD navigate insuring aerial dance
Joanna Haigood / Zaccho Dance Theatre: for moderating our post-show Q&A / talkback
Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center and the United States of Asian America Festival: for promoting MLD’s work over the past six years.
Nino Fernandez: for beautiful promotional photos for the show.
Urban Jazz Dance: for outreach to the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
Debby Kajiyama: for ASL Interpretation.
Gravity Access Services: for outreach to the Blind and visually impaired community.
Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley: for being a home base an supportive community for MLD.
BANDALOOP: for discounted rehearsal space since Megan has been teaching with you since 2016.
YBCA Staff: Jodi Cobalt, Chris Griffin, Bert Hebbert Castillo, Cori Lucas, Lauren Macmadu, Amelia Maffin, Chris Royalty, Michael Starobin, Brooke Vlasich, and Zaid.
Air Between Us Supporters (for generous assistance in various meaningful ways): Paul/Mike/Susan Dier, and Gary/Donna/Madeline/Jackson Lowe.
Air Between Us Community Partners: API Cultural Center, CAAMFest, Circo Zero, Dancers' Group, Flyaway Productions, KH Fresh Festival, KULARTS, Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, and Zaccho Dance Theater.
Land Acknowledment
MLD acknowledges that we are gathering on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone, the original inhabitants and ongoing stewards of the San Francisco Peninsula. We recognize that we benefit from living and creating on their traditional homeland, and we honor the ancestors, elders, and current members of their community. We encourage you to learn more about the Indigenous land where you reside, and to consider supporting local Indigenous communities through land tax contributions. You can learn more at native-land.ca
Funders
Air Between Us is promoted by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center in the 29th Annual United States of Asian America Festival. In addition, Megan Lowe Dances general operating is also currently supported by San Francisco Arts Commission, and San Francisco Grants for the Arts. MLD is a Fiscally Sponsored project of Dancers' Group. Special thanks to Keith Hennessy, Alley Wilde, and Circo Zero for generously helping MLD navigate the bureaucracy of insuring aerial dance, and Jo Kreiter and Flyaway Productions for connecting Megan Lowe Dances to YBCA for this dream project!
Upcoming in the Community
GRAVITY
OUT / OF | THE \ FOG
May 18 - August 16, 2026
Multiple Days and Times
Multiple Locations
San Francisco, CA
OUT/OF|THE\FOG features classes, workshops, performances, parties, and an archival gallery in collaboration with ROT Festival and Fort Mason.
Photo by: Chani Bockwinkel of Gabriele Christian
About MLD
With an affinity for dynamic places and partners, Megan Lowe Dances (MLD) shifts your perspective. Directed by a choreographer of Chinese and Irish descent, MLD explores complex identities and experiences by tackling unusual physical situations and inventing compelling solutions, opening up the imagination to what is possible. Since 2013, MLD has been creating dances that demonstrate the "intensely-physical, curiously-playful, delightfully-weighty rigor of physicality” (Life as a Modern Dancer) in the San Francisco Bay Area, situated on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land. MLD’s recent choreographic works and commissions have been seen at de Young Museum, Legion of Honor Museum, Fort Mason, ODC, 500 Capp Street Foundation, and Joe Goode Annex, as well as in SF Aerial Arts Festival, SF Trolley Dances, CAAMFest, United States of Asian America Festival, and on KQED Live. MLD deepens connections with their Asian American Pacific Islander communities through relationships with organizations such as API Cultural Center; the creation of public art in SF/Oakland Chinatown as part of efforts to revitalize these communities during the pandemic; and choreographic commissions celebrating Asian influences on American culture/s.
Led by a choreographer of color, MLD empowers movers of color, and we’re committed to making creative spaces with a BIPOC majority, in both our hiring practices and the participants of movement classes we lead. With specific outreach, discounts, and scholarships to our workshops, we create a space of dance study where BIPOC aren’t the minority, de-centering normative white/eurocentric experiences and cultivating diversity in Bay Area dance. A previous workshop participant wrote, “The safe container empowered me to try new things and go beyond my usual notions of what I can and can't do. I appreciated the presence of many POC helping me feel less like an outlier.” Our artistic process thrives via collaboration, prioritizing creating relationships of respect, generosity, and gratitude. This culture of magnanimity is harnessed in the dance classes/workshops MLD leads for movers of all different ages, experience levels, body types, races, cultures, and socio-economic statuses—building community and connection.
B DEAN /BODYSTORM
TRANSMARSH
June 25, 2026 at 7pm: Preview Performance with the Tenderloin Museum — trans history walking tour, Skywatchers performance, and Oaklash Block Party at Timbri Hotel.
June 26, 2026 at 8pm: Performance follows the SF Trans March rally at Turk and Taylor.
Timbri Hotel at Turk and Taylor
San Francisco, CA
TRANSMARSH is a free outdoor vertical dance performance celebrating trans existence as a vital part of our ecosystem. B Dean/BODYSTORM, Pangaea, and tome perform on the Taylor Street facade of the Timbri Hotel.
Photo by: Brooke Anderson of B Dean
Megan Lowe + Roel Seeber
Meandering Urbanite
at San Francisco Aerial Arts Festival (SFAAF)
August 7-9, 2026
Exact Times TBD
Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture
2 Marina Boulevard (at Buchanan Street), San Francisco, CA
Meandering Urbanite builds on the natural landscape themes explored in our previous SFAAF collaboration, From the Clouds to the Earth. Inspired by the wilderness of the urban landscape, the work transforms skyscraper canyons and train-tunnel caves into terrain for human movement and flow. We contrast the scramble of modern life with a meditation on the ghosts of the wild land beneath Fort Mason, listening for what still echoes there.
Photo by: Austin Forbord of Megan Lowe and Roel Seeber
About MLD
With an affinity for dynamic places and partners, Megan Lowe Dances (MLD) shifts your perspective. Directed by a choreographer of Chinese and Irish descent, MLD explores complex identities and experiences by tackling unusual physical situations and inventing compelling solutions, opening up the imagination to what is possible. Since 2013, MLD has been creating dances that demonstrate the "intensely-physical, curiously-playful, delightfully-weighty rigor of physicality” (Life as a Modern Dancer) in the San Francisco Bay Area, situated on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land. MLD’s recent choreographic works and commissions have been seen at de Young Museum, Legion of Honor Museum, Fort Mason, ODC, 500 Capp Street Foundation, and Joe Goode Annex, as well as in SF Aerial Arts Festival, SF Trolley Dances, CAAMFest, United States of Asian America Festival, and on KQED Live. MLD deepens connections with their Asian American Pacific Islander communities through relationships with organizations such as API Cultural Center; the creation of public art in SF/Oakland Chinatown as part of efforts to revitalize these communities during the pandemic; and choreographic commissions celebrating Asian influences on American culture/s.
Led by a choreographer of color, MLD empowers movers of color, and we’re committed to making creative spaces with a BIPOC majority, in both our hiring practices and the participants of movement classes we lead. With specific outreach, discounts, and scholarships to our workshops, we create a space of dance study where BIPOC aren’t the minority, de-centering normative white/eurocentric experiences and cultivating diversity in Bay Area dance. A previous workshop participant wrote, “The safe container empowered me to try new things and go beyond my usual notions of what I can and can't do. I appreciated the presence of many POC helping me feel less like an outlier.” Our artistic process thrives via collaboration, prioritizing creating relationships of respect, generosity, and gratitude. This culture of magnanimity is harnessed in the dance classes/workshops MLD leads for movers of all different ages, experience levels, body types, races, cultures, and socio-economic statuses—building community and connection.