About the Dance

Lizz Roman & Dancers inhabit a two story home located near Ocean Beach in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset with home salon performances. "SUNSET DANCES", Architectural Meditations II is Lizz Roman & Dancers (LR&D) latest site collaboration, performed in multiple locations simultaneously with viewers at each location migrating throughout the home performance environment.

“SUNSET DANCES” offers audiences a deeply immersive site experience, watching from 3 different perspectives simultaneously. Viewers peer inside and outside windows, doorways, down stairwells and enter into rooms with dancers, musicians and films as the dance moves from room to room, from up to down, from outside to inside, watching one dance from varying perspectives. Using windows, doorways, stairs, walls and furniture to frame their architectural story, performers and audience move together between the indoor and outdoor sites.

2019 Press Release

Capturing the Movement

Filmed and produced by Pete Litwinowicz

Capturing the Moment

Photography by Lydia Daniller

Meet the Dancers

The local talent that makes it all possible.

Becky Robinson-Leviton

Becky graduated from CSULB with a BA in Dance, and performs and choreographs throughout the Bay Area. She’s performed as Clarice in West Side Story at Berkeley Playhouse, toured internationally with Tim Rubel Human Shakes, and is the founder and co-artistic director of the dance/clown duo, The Phenomenal Anomalies with Hannah Westbrook. Becky has been dancing with Lizz Roman & Dancers since 2017, performing in the original Sunset Dances (Izzie award-winning) and Moments, Memories, and Amazing Grace at Animate Dance Festival. Check out more of Becky’s ventures.

Chris Black

Chris has been dancing with and for Lizz Roman for over 25 years.

Clarissa K. Ko

Clarissa K. Ko has worked with Lizz Roman as her Company Manger since 2016. Clarissa is thrilled to be performing with Lizz Roman & Dancers for the first time. Clarissa graduated with a BA in Performing Arts and Social Justice (Dance), with a minor in Health Studies, from the University of San Francisco and has a MSEd Learning Design and Technology from Purdue University. Through her dance company, Five Feet Dance, she has presented work at CounterPulse, Little Boxes Theater, SAFEhouse for the Arts, and The Asian Art Museum.

Colin Epstein

Colin is a dancer, acrobat, clown, and wears many other hats at various times. He is frequently seen on stage with 13th Floor, Tara Pilbrow Dance, and directing Twisted Oak Dance Theater; and is absolutely delighted every time he gets to dance with Lizz Roman & Dancers.

Gizeh Muniz

Gizeh, Mexican artist and pedagogue educator, believes that creation through the body  is the best path to generate consciousness and empathy in the world. She has performed as a dancer and creative collaborator with Sara Shelton Mann, Kathleen Hermesdorf and Lizz Roman & Dancers Company in San Francisco, CA; Silla Danza and Teatro de León in Baja California; Ocho Proyecto Gato in Mexico City as well as personal projects with tours in Mexico, United States, Europe and Central America. She also has collaborated with various organizations of social impact in Mexico and in the United Sates.

Jamie Nakama

Jamie’s diverse movement background includes training in modern, butoh, hula, aerial dance, Afro-modern, and capoeira.  She has performed with numerous artists in Hawaii over the past 20 years, including IONA Contemporary Dance Theater, Tau Dance Theater, Wai Company, Samadhi Hawaii, and Kealoha (slam poet).  This is her third project with Lizz Roman & Dancers. Besides her love of dance, Jamie has been dedicated to the field of environmental education for nearly 2 decades in Hawaii and continues the work as Youth Initiative Manager at LandPaths in Sonoma County. She also teaches anthropology at Diablo Valley College and is a yoga instructor in her spare time!

Jenny McAllister

Jenny is a movement artist, actor, and director/choreographer. She is the Artistic Director of 13th Floor, and also performs with Epiphany Dance Theater, Twisted Oak, and Deborah Slater Dance Theater. She loves to explore the places where dance and theater intersect, and also doing site specific work. This is her 4th show with Lizz Roman and Dancers.

Sonya Smith

For Sonya, creating with Lizz Roman and Dancers is a delicious space to investigate the joy of intelligently physical dancing, unusual ways to get off the ground, and inspiring collaborators. Smith treasures her past opportunities to study and perform, including stints with Zaccho Dance Theatre, Flyaway Productions, BANDALOOP, Sara Shelton Mann, Michelle Ellsworth, Dance Brigade and Gesel Mason. She teaches an eclectic mix of bungee dancing, Pilates and GYROKINESIS around the bay and beyond.

Creative Collaborators

Designers, Musicians, and Filmmakers

Jerome Lindner

Musician/Composer

Jerome is a San Francisco Native. He began playing guitar at 13 years old. Soon after, he began to accompany Lizz Roman’s dance classes throughout the city. He then went on to compose and perform for Lizz Roman & Dancers, where he won his first Izzy. In 2014 he graduated From Ex’pression College with a Bachelor's Degree of Applied Science. Over the past 7 years Jerome has also been composing, recording and arranging music for San Jose recording artist Andrew Bigs. The two are currently working on their 2nd studio album as well as 2 side projects. The two are planning to release new music throughout 2020.

Malcolm Lee

Percussionist

Malcolm is a San Jose based music producer, engineer, MC and drummer. He has drummed with San Jose's Akoma Arts for 5 plus years, Studied Afro-Brazillian rhythms and movement with Capoeira Irmandade for 7 plus years, and has operated recording studios for 10 years. Malcolm's drumming style is rooted in the traditional West African, Afro-Cuban and African American rhythms of the 60's. Malcolm is also a respected teacher in the community hosting many youth classes for drumming, and music production and recording all throughout the Bay Area. Malcolm currently runs the Roosevelt Community Center Music studio for youth, as well as his own Wholesounds studios both in downtown San Jose. Malcolm's music can be found on all major platforms.

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Tasmin Black

Vocalist

Tamsin is a student at Mission High School. She has trained at the Bandaloop studio and the Zaccho Center. She was a collaborating performer in Chris Black's Phantom, Shadow, Specter, Wraith.

Clyde Sheets

Lighting Designer

Clyde is theater educator and designer. He has designed works for Theatre, Ballet, Opera, and Contemporary Dance over the past 25 years in the SF Bay Area and the mid west. Clyde began working with Lizz Roman & Dancers in 2000 on their work 81/2 X 11 at ODC Theater. This began a run of designing the next 6 shows for Lizz, also doing music for 4 shows (with Alex Kelly and later Jerome Linder). These shows earned critical acclaim, an Izzy Award for the company and a place for CS in the Prague Quadrennial in 2011 for the lighting design of the 2006 show Blue Floor Reflections. Clyde designed the companies work Sunset Dances in 2017.

Other work by CS includes Boys in Trouble and The Missing Generation for San Francisco’s Sean Dorsey Dance Company both of which won Isadora Duncan Company Performance awards in 2015 and 2019. Clyde received Isadora Duncan Dance Awards for Deborah Slater’s Hotel of Memories at CounterPulse in S. F. and a Bay Area Circle Critics Dramatic Production award for Metamorphosis at Aurora Theater in Berkeley CA. in 2011 and in 2012 for Shotgun Theaters production of Woyzeck, both directed by Mark Jackson.

As an educator CS has taught dance lighting/collaborative process at Mills College in Oakland California, Grand Valley State University and Interlochen Arts Academy and was the Production Manager for the Theater Arts at San Francisco State University, where he earned an MFA in Design in 2010. Clyde is now the Director of Comparative Arts, an interdisciplinary art program, at Interlochen Arts Academy.

Pete Litwinowicz

Filmmaker

Pete is a choreographer and filmmaker who concentrates on combining both disciplines. Pete co-owns RE:Vision Effects, Inc, a visual effects software company, and works as visual effects software developer and artist for the motion picture and video industries. Pete has won several awards including an Academy Award©; an Ars Electronica Golden Nica (Austria); and an Imagina Award (Monaco) for Best Visual Effects and Visual Innovation. Pete worked as co-artistic director of Dance Continuum SF from 2007-2012, and danced for Company Chaddick from 1996-2006. Pete has also served on the faculty at San Francisco Dance Center and at Western Ballet, among several other schools.