MOVER

aman kızım

Photo: Allina Yang

have you heard the one about the woman who drank cold water? the woman who sat in the crossbreeze? who walked barefoot on tile? aman kızım is dedicated to our lost and our stolen. for you we haunt. for you we hunt. together, a new lore.

Choreography: Rana San | Dancers: Zeynep Ertugay, Aylin Önalan, Beril Özhan, and Rana San | Original sound score: Samuel Joseph Kim

thank you fernanda ricaud, bianca goyette, Anadolu Turkish Folk Dancers, TACAWA, and 4Culture for your generous support.

reSET aims to cross pollinate Seattle’s dance and theater communities by expanding our artists’ audiences and platforms, as well as experiment with resources, inspiration, and unique ways in which choreographers can create new work. The program reSET is centered around a low-stakes, high-risk mentality that encourages experimentation, creativity, and play.

Sep 2025 | Washington Ensemble Theatre at 12th Ave Arts | Seattle, WA

Anadolu Turkish Folk Dancers

Photo: Christopher Nelson

The Anadolu Turkish Folk Dance Group, co-founded by Yasemin San and Serhad Atakturk, has been active since 1980. We are a multigenerational ethnically diverse group of new, seasoned, and trained dancers teaching and performing dances from Türkiye year-round throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Incorporating authentic and contemporary movements, rhythms, and styles of Turkish folk dances on the stage, we perform at two major annual festivals with appearances at many other community festivals and gatherings. Our Turkish showcases at Northwest Folklife feature a vibrant program of dance, live music, singing, and storytelling highlighting regional traditions, ceremonies, and celebrations across Türkiye.

May 2012—Present | Northwest Folklife | Seattle, WA
Oct 2001—2010, 2024—Present | TurkFest, Seattle Center Festál | Seattle, WA

9 Steps with Samuel Joseph Kim

9 Steps is a collaborative performance created for the opening of Hayv Kahraman: Look Me in the Eyes at Frye Art Museum, using a 9/8 time signature, which appears across cultures and contexts to convey the rhythm of nature and is suggestive of a heartbeat. The sounds are designed as constantly evolving, surprising, and dancing, paralleling the energy of the movement. The video features eco-prints developed as part of Rana’s research on floral migration.

In celebration of the opening, 9 Steps is available as a single by Samuel Joseph Kim on streaming platforms everywhere.

Oct 2024 | Frye Art Museum | Seattle, WA

Lights Dance Festival with Samuel Joseph Kim

Photo: Courtesy of Lights Dance Fest

Opening Night performance to “Disappear” from Samuel Joseph Kim’s album Edges. The festival is inspired by the arduous yet enriching journeys of rediscovery, awakening, and transformation that not only reignite our sense of purpose, but also breathe new life into our relationships and creative praxis.

Nov 2023 | Northwest Film Forum | Seattle, WA

Base Residency with NEVE

Photo: Michelle Smith-Lewis

Through a panel process led by community curators NEVE and Rana San, six artists and small collectives (including the curators) researching traditional and indigenous dance and movement practices connected to their ancestry received a two-week residency between September 2022 – August 2023.

NEVE and Rana discovered their shared love of the ancient, ritualistic, and folkloric dances of their respective and related peoples during NEVE’s Wildest Dreams class at Velocity Dance Center in 2018. Together they responded to the oft-cited phrase “I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams” through dance improvisation, composition, collaborative experimentation, storytelling, and dream interpretation. Rana came to class curious to examine how the Anatolian folk dances and traditions passed down through generations found embodiment and expression in her waking and sleeping dreams. NEVE was just beginning to explore the ritual dance Zar which has roots in their native Sudan, Rana’s native Turkey, as well as Egypt, Ethiopia, and Iran. For NEVE and Rana, it was love at first dance. They subscribe to the notion of a global indigeneity, of which they are a part.

Feb 2023 | Base Experimental Arts + Space | Seattle, WA

WATCH Residency Open House!

DOUBLE CLEAR by E.T. Russian

Image: Artwork by E.T. Russian

DOUBLE CLEAR is an interactive exhibition of animation, sculpture, and poetry that follows gargoyle apparitions as they fly over cemeteries, bridges, land, and water, and experience a series of surreal events. This installation is a meditation on choosing what to live for. The multi-sensory video comic installation by Seattle-based artist and author E.T. Russian was on view at Seattle University’s Hedreen Gallery December 7, 2019 – March 1, 2020.

On Jan 9, 2020, regional artists working in sound and movement performed live in the exhibition space with DOUBLE CLEAR as the backdrop. This event featured Rana San, Neve Kamilah Mazique-Bianco, Seema Bahl, Wynne Greenwood, and Claire Barrera as well as storytelling and poetry by Anne Riley, Jaye Sablan, and LL Gimeno.

Jan 2020 | Seattle University’s Hedreen Gallery | Seattle, WA

Property of Opaqueness by Takahiro Yamamoto

Photo: Korat Özturan

The collaborative dance performance Property of Opaqueness is the first iteration of choreographer Takahiro Yamamoto’s project under the umbrella title Opacity of Performance. This multi-year project investigates visibility and the physical and emotional effects that performers and viewers undergo when acts of looking, moving, and paying attention vary over an extended duration. When does visibility/invisibility validate the performer and when does it negate them? What are the social consequences of looking at a performing body today?

This iteration of Property of Opaqueness featured Portland filmmaker Roland Dahwen Wu and Seattle artist Rana San, performing alongside Yamamoto. In partnership with Velocity Dance Center on the occasion of the Henry Art Gallery‘s exhibition Carrie Yamaoka: recto/verso.

Oct 2019 | Velocity Dance Center | Seattle, WA

WATCH excerpts of Property of Opaqueness!

Manifesto by Ilvs Strauss

Photo: Tim Summers

Manifesto is a Dance Narrative performance that employs a marine invertebrate, a California Red Sea Cucumber to be exact, as a vehicle for exploring the topic of womanhood. No set, minimal costumes and a few handmade, larger than life props create the backdrop for a subtle, detailed dance set to the tune of a clear, concise voice over narrative directed at the audience.

Topics of womanhood (what it takes to be a woman, what it means to be a woman who does not want children, what to do with those creative energies) and intertidal invertebrates (Strauss has a long standing fascination with marine life) interweave, taking audience members on an engaging, genre blending stroll thru personal ruminations and aspirations.

Jun 2017 | Firehouse Performing Arts Center | Bellingham, WA
May 2015 | Velocity Dance Center | Seattle, WA

WATCH Manifesto!

Flamenco with The Family Crest

The Family Crest invites musicians and artists to join their “Extended Family” by collaborating with them in various ways for live performances and recordings. This collaboration involved a rhythmic flamenco dance accompaniment to Sell Yourself Lightly.

2012 | Stern Grove Festival | San Francisco, CA
2012 | Tractor Tavern | Seattle, WA

Flamenco with Flamenko Evi

Flamenco instruction, choreography, and performance.