photo: Sharon Green
FTPG has developed a unique style of physical storytelling operating just beyond the limits of normal. These performance collages create an environment in which the audience become tourists, seeing with fresh eyes. The work carefully charts human interactions, the place of the individual in society, power and image. Fellow Travelers is committed to creating performance merging the entire spectrum of theater and dance with other art forms in physical explorations of ordinary madness.
Over the years, FTPG has challenged how and where dance is presented, creating work in fields, forests, climbing gyms, barns, buildings and sculptures. These forays remove dance from the traditional realm of the theater, accessing new audiences and opening up the possibilities of environmental influence in narrative. FTPG is interested in creating interactive less passive experiences.
FTPG was formed in 1992 by artistic directors Ken James and Cynthia Adams. Since that time, they have created 32 pieces, taught nationally and internationally, and performed in over 26 curated programs, including the TIMARA Festival (2007), West Wave Festival (2002, 2004, 2006), Yerba Buena Gardens Choreographers Festival (2002, 2004, 2006), House Special (2002), 2000 Women - Vancouver, B.C. Canada (2000), Oakland Arts Festival - (2000), CSUS Festival of the Arts - (1997), Dancing on the Edge Festival, Vancouver, Canada (1996) and the E! Festival at Dancers’ Group/Footwork (1995).
In 2007, Ken James along with Chris Black received the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for choreography for the Adventures of Cunning and Guile. Choreographers Ken James and Cynthia Adams have each been awarded multiple residencies at the Djerassi Artist in Residency Program (CA), as well as residencies at the Farm ( Teaching/ creating -Wisc. 2004), Art Farm ( Creating - Neb. 2003) and the ODC Theater ( Creating, performing - San Francisco 2002, 2004).
As a “micro-producer”, Fellow Travelers has produced over 100 local artists in showcases and festivals including the Month of Sundays and The Women on the Edge Festivals.
Fellow Travelers has also taught across the US and Canada. They have tought at Mills College, The University of Wisconsin, Madison, Cabrillo College, The University of California, Berkeley and San Jose Stage University, as well as numerous studios and workshops. Their teaching centers on the familiarization with the potential of improvisation and movement for dancers and choreographers as a tool for expressing precise meaning(s) of human emotion and thought and is designed to promote fearlessness and joy in the act of creation; to remove creative blocks and inhibitions; and to encourage the use of the body in innovative ways. Our goal is to accessing a more human expression: to promote expressivity in movement; and as a tool for extending the choreographic possibilities of devising more expressive movement.
Our programs have benefited many people. We support the varied arts scenes in Oakland and San Francisco from community arts programs, butoh and ethnic dance classes to contemporary dance and theater through our fiscal sponsorship programs, teaching and performances. Our Women on the Edge Festival, started in 1996, broke ground for the numerous series which now provide women with increased performance opportunities. Our salons and performance series A Month of Sundays have provided over 90 artists of all disciplines ways to interact and share audiences.
Fellow Travelers has received generous funding from the Zellerbach Family Fund, Clorex Foundation, Puffin Foundation, W.A. Gerbode Foundation, W. and F. Hewlett Foundation, CA$H, among others. In addition to producing their work throughout the Bay Area, Fellow Travelers Performance Group is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization, acting as a fiscal sponsor for other Bay Area dance companies and organizations.