Skip to main content
← All works

2019 · Dance – stage work

UNRAVELED

Archive folder: Unravelled

Alyssandra Katherine Wu (Alyssandra Katherine Dance; Alyssandra Katherine Dance Project at the time of the premiere)

An evening-length ensemble work for five performers that combines dance, spoken word and film projection to examine dependency, addiction and isolation. Its text draws on the performers' own stories and on interviews with people in recovery at San Francisco's Center for Open Recovery.

Recollections

“Unravelled was a pretty unflinching look into a lot of the things we all struggle with. We did lots of interviewing the performers and built this score mainly out of their voices.

Working with real people's voices brings some unique challenges to the composition process. It can be tricky to walk the line between honest expressiveness and exploitation.”

Ben
Premiere
2019-04-11
Venue
ODC Theater
Where
San Francisco, CA
Performances
Earlier/related showings listed on the company site during the 2018–19 season (Veterans Building Green Room, ODC B. Way Theater, Salvatore Capezio Theater). An excerpt (the section using Center for Open Recovery interviews mixed with dancers' voices) was presented at Peridance's APAP Showcases (Salvatore Capezio Theater, New York) on January 11–12, 2020, the company's first APAP showing; Ben re-edited and extended that track from about 6:20 to about 8:00 in November 2019.
Credits
Choreography/direction: Alyssandra Katherine Wu. Original music: Ben Juodvalkis (additional recorded music by Grischa Lichtenberger & Senking). Dancers: Kelsey Gerber, Tayler Kinner, Jan Matthew Sevilla, James Washington, Erin C. Yen. Film/projection design: Clare Schweitzer. Acting direction: Rachel Ann Kaplan. Lighting design: Delayne (Del) Medoff. Prop design: Tom Stucke. Technical director: Keagan Chipp. Press: John Hill. Promotional photography: Kofi Kumi (Amoa Photography). Community partner: Center for Open Recovery (SF).

Photographs

A shirtless male dancer in black shorts crouches on one foot against a pale seamless backdrop, arms wrapped over his bowed head, criss-crossed by taut white strings.

Kofi Kumi

Dancer Jan-Matthew Sevilla, shirtless in black shorts, hunches forward with clenched hands against a white background as blurred white strings cross the frame.

Kofi Kumi

Ephemera

A slightly creased printed arts-guide page. A photo shows a barefoot dancer in a torn, stained tank top lunging among taut white strings, above a listing for Alyssandra Katherine Dance Project's “Unraveled,” Apr. 11–13, ODC Theater.

Found in the SF/Arts guide that came with my New York Times.

Close-up of a hand in a bright yellow sleeve reaching toward a railing of white vertical bars, with a concrete building and trees beyond.

Stills from Clare Schweitzer's duet film for the show.

A blonde woman in a yellow sweater and a polka-dot skirt stands at a rooftop railing of white bars, looking out over the city on a sunny day.
Filmed close up, a woman in a yellow sweater and a man in a dark green shirt hold each other tightly, faces pressed together.
Square promotional graphic reading “APAP Showcases at Peridance” in large teal and tan letters, over two dancers in nude costumes arching backward under a spotlight.

Peridance's poster for the 2020 APAP showcase. Not our dancers.

Aly's text the morning after the premiere.

Alyssandra: Thank you for coming last night. I think the people from Center for Open Recovery were really happy about what you did with the interviews

Ben: Thank you for inviting me into your vision!

Alyssandra: Well it wouldn’t have turned out so well with out your music

Press

“Because of the interplay between dance episodes and text-based scenes, Unraveled had great variety in dynamics, intensity and atmosphere.”

“Alyssandra Katherine Wu made anxiety disorder manifest in a piece called Unravel, set to a soundtrack that featured voice recordings of women describing the physical and mental ravages of the illness.”

Elsewhere

Ben Juodvalkis © 2026