Dana Lawton’s work is sublimely magnificent. What this group offers is a glimpse at the rich multiplicity of human lives.

- Santa Barbara Independent

Review: The Farallonites

The Farallonites, a full-length dance piece by Dana Lawton Dances, transports audiences to an otherworldly place and time: the Farallon Islands off San Francisco in the late 19th century. It’s an ethereal piece of movement-based storytelling that captures the isolation and strenuous physical nature of life on the Farallons, and celebrates the kinship between the few families that subsisted on the island, keeping the lighthouse ablaze in the fog. From the first moments of powerful ocean noise washing over the audience, the Lobero Theatre transformed into the windswept, rocky shores of the Farallons. The colors and shapes felt dreamlike, recalling the grays and blues of the sea. The choreography swayed and swelled like waves, creating a romanticized and beautiful vision of the simple, rugged lifestyle of those people willing to brave the toil and remoteness of maintaining the lighthouse. Read the full review >

— By Maggie Yates for Santa Barbara Independent (2023)

Review: The Farallonites

Dana Lawton and her company have brought a valuable and exciting dimension of dance/theater to Bay Area audiences. The Farallonites is not only a beautifully staged, danced and produced theater event, it presents an opportunity to learn California history and geography. Lawton has accomplished a production that should travel to California schools and audiences throughout the state. It is a reminder that we all need to know: that even in isolation (as we have recently experienced), we can find intimacy, courage and even joy. Read the full review >

— By Joanna Harris for Bay Area Stinger (2022)

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Article: Dana Lawton Dances to present ‘The Farallonites’

On its face, hauling whale oil up a steep hill in the middle of the night during an ocean-driven rainstorm has little to do with the crisp choreography and graceful machinations of dancers in Berkeley-based Dana Lawton Dances. Nonetheless, led by Artistic Director Dana Lawton, the unlikely association between lighthouse keepers on the Farallon Islands in the mid-1800s and dancers in 2022 swirling, spinning, cavorting and counter-balancing is made clear with The Farallonites showing Sept. 16-18 at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco’s Fort Mason. Emerging after a rare, four-year research-and-development period and originally scheduled to premiere in March 2020, then postponed to November of that year, Lawton said in an interview that the long incubation is a gift. Read the full article >

— By Lou Fancher for the East Bay Times (2022)

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Article: Look Around You This Fall for These Bay Area Dance Events

The most compelling dance performances challenge the audience experience, whether with atypical stages or by blurring lines between genres. All the better if the performance carries an urgent story. The Bay Area dance events selected in this year’s fall preview extend beyond the black box theater, whether by activating waterways or scaling building facades. “Fortitude and resilience.” That’s how the multidisciplinary performance group Dana Lawton Dances describe the lives of the lighthouse keepers and their families who lived on the Farallon Islands from the mid-1850s to the early 1900s. Their upcoming work The Farallonites, weaves dance with an original musical score, spoken word and visual art to build a world of “harsh physical conditions, repetitive hard labor and near total isolation.” If you’ve never considered the human spirit of lighthouse keepers and their loved ones, this performance is sure to make you think the next time you hear San Francisco’s fog horns. Read the full article >

— By Justin Ebrahemi for KQED Arts (2022)

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Article: Dana Lawton Dances’ Debuts Evening-Length Work The Farallonites

“We never stopped rehearsing, just did it outside in parks, at the beach in people’s backyards. What also came to light (no pun intended) was a sense of responsibility for others’ safety. The lighthouse keepers put their lives at risk on the island to help Mariners sail into the Golden Gate safely. We, as a community, sacrificed our routines to keep ourselves and others safe from the virus. Protecting people we would never meet. Another theme is tenacity, regardless of the hardships they/we faced they still found community, joy, ritual and human connection despite the challenges and they/we thrived in ways we would not have known otherwise.” Read the full article >

— By Taya Zoormandan for News from Cal Institute of the Arts (2022)

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Article: Catching up with Dana Lawton Dances and The Farallonites

One can see direct parallels with our current situation. Threads of seclusion. Quarantine. Protection. Remoteness. And underlying it all is a profound theme: individual sacrifice for the greater good. Nine months ago, Lawton explained it like this:

“In the mid-1800s, the beacon was constructed on the Farallons to protect ships from crashing into the Islands, and so a few families moved there to run the lighthouse. The conditions were so treacherous and inhospitable – supplies would only arrive every six to nine months; when outside, their children had to be tied to boulders for protection against the water, wind and fog – and yet they were willing to navigate such a reality to provide light, saving people they would never meet.” Read the full article >

— By Heather Desaulniers for In Dance (2021)

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Article: Dana Lawton Dances Takes East Bay Dance to Thailand

For 10 days in August, Dana Lawton Dances (DLD) embarked on a tour of Bangkok, Thailand. A multi-generational East Bay dance company with members ranging in age from 27 to 70, DLD is a company in residence at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley. Its founder, Dana Lawton, has been involved in the East Bay dance scene for over twenty years. A tenured professor at Saint Mary’s College of California, Lawton is also a faculty member at Shawl-Anderson and is the co-director of the Enchanted Ridge Dance Retreat. She established DLD in 2007 with a mission to celebrate social diversity and develop meaningful collaborations with other artists. Read the full article >

— By Michael Lupacchino for In Dance (2018)

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SF Bay Area Dance Roundup: October 2017

During the month of October, Dance Up Close/East Bay has been in celebration mode, hosting three weekends of performances in honor of a significant milestone – Dana Lawton Dances’ tenth anniversary. Each weekend’s program from the Bay Area-based troupe (a company-in-residence at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center) was distinct with different repertory and different musical collaborators. While I wasn’t able to catch every weekend, closing night was an experience of layered textural depth, marrying a broad, diverse swath of Dana Lawton’s choreography danced by ten company artists, original music by Jon Lawton and lighting design by Linda Baumgardner. The program was structured and curated like an intimate artistic salon, with a series of solo music offerings and dance/music collaborations unfolding in the studio space. Special moments abounded throughout the evening, but I think what struck most is that this is a group of artists who truly delight in one another. Read the full article >

— By Heather Desaulniers for Critical Dance (2017)

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Article: Dana Lawton Finds "Home" At Saint Mary's

Dana Lawton has been a member of the Saint Mary’s dance community for almost 20 years. First hired by Director of Dance, CatherineMarie Davalos, to teach ballet, Lawton became a tenured professor in 2012. Courses Lawton teaches at Saint Mary’s include Modern Dance, Yoga, and Dance Pedagogy. And since July 2014, Lawton also serves as the chair of the Performing Arts Department. Read the full article >

— By Michael Lupacchino for the St. Mary’s College News (2017)

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Review: Dana Lawton Dances Delights at San Francisco International Festival

An outstanding solo, danced and costumed by Jerry Lin, entitled “Dream of the Cherry Blossom,” was beautifully performed. Lin has an elegant lyrical quality that wound and unwound across the stage in smooth long phrases that offered a satisfying opening number. Read the full review >

— By Joanna Harris for Explore Dance (2016)

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Review: Dana Lawton Dances at Center Stage Theater

What this group offers is a glimpse at the rich multiplicity of human lives — and bodies and stories and joys and sorrows. In a context where difference rather than sameness is the norm, moments of connection between performers come as unexpected thrills: tiny triumphs of the human heart over the distances that separate us. Read the full article >

— By Elizabeth Schwyzer for the Santa Barbara Independent (2014)

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Preview: Dana Lawton Dances Comes to S.B.

Lawton’s late start as a dancer has translated into an interest in dancers of all ages; her company members range in age from 23 to 60. “I appreciate the athleticism and go-get-it attitude of young dancers,” she explained, but “older dancers live in their bodies in a really intelligent way that’s thoughtful and grounded.” As she sees it, asking older and younger dancers to work together brings “a depth to the younger dancers, a qualitative softness … and the older dancers step it up a little in terms of technique, too.” Read the full article >

— By Elizabeth Schwyzer for the Santa Barbara Independent (2014)

Article: Reveling In Dance

It began with a generous offer of a ride to dance rehearsal 17 years ago. Fresh out of graduate school at Mills College, Dana Lawton caught a lift with Catherine Marie Davalos, who at the time was putting together the dance program at Saint Mary’s. After discovering that Lawton had an M.F.A. in dance, Davalos offered her a job. Lawton accepted right away, and immediately began teaching ballet—using a boom box. Seventeen years later the boom box is gone, but Lawton remains on campus blazing new roads for dance at Saint Mary’s. Read the full article >

— By Holland Enke for the St. Mary’s College News (2014)

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Article: Dana Lawton Embraces Big Moments

For every choreographer the prospect of presenting his or her first full evening of work represents a thrilling and terrifying creative milestone. This month choreographer Dana Lawton “takes the plunge” with the premiere of her first self-produced show at the Ashby Stage in Berkeley. A beloved dance educator who has inspired and nurtured countless young artists through her teaching at St. Mary’s College and Shawl Anderson Dance Center, Lawton is also an accomplished dance maker whose work has been seen at the San Francisco International Arts Festival, West Wave Dance Festival, Women on the Way Festival, and numerous other local venues. Bringing together a dynamic team of collaborators and dance artists, she is creating a piece that is both a culmination and new beginning. Read the full article >

— By Janice Garrett for In Dance (2013)

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Review: Dana Lawton Dances “Who Is She?”

In response to the question “Who is she?” Lawton’s work offered moments of mystery, questions of birth, an adventure in dressing and movements of play, all aspects of women’s world. The group entered carrying lanterns and slowly proceeded to four upstage platforms, which served as both resting places and a surface for low crawling movement. During the “dressing” episode, Lawton emerges from the platform in black shorts and bra and is dressed, caressed and tumbled by her fellow dancers, perhaps as a bride both cared for and humiliated. The four dances were especially effective in the playful section, when all cavorted together with long swings followed by easy falls, floor rolls and rebounds. The group ended as they began, with a slow walk downstage, a mesmerizing effect. Read the full article >

— By Joanna Harris for Culture Vulture (2010)

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Review: Fresh “Horses”

Some choreographers pack enough material into an hour of dance to leave you more satisfied than those who take twice as long and say less. Such was the case with “18 Virgo Horses” (Sept. 16-18), a double-bill by Dana Lawton and Jia Wu, who earn their rent money teaching at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga. The old saying that inspiration wedded to craft makes for good art came to mind as I watched Lawton and Wu’s four pieces at CounterPULSE last week. The evening made me glad that the dance season has started again. Read the full article >

— By Rita Felciano for the SF Bay Guardian (2010)

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Review: Winter Dances, Women on the Way Festival

Lawton’s solo “Coasting” seen in the Bay Area last year, was even more exciting with good lighting (designer not noted) within the small containing space. Lawton comments that the piece explores the concept that “movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable”. It realizes her intention; she moves along one line, down left to up right, carefully and slowly focused on the line and time. It is a very rewarding piece to see. Ms. Lawton’s skill and concentration are remarkable. Read the full article >

— By Joanna Harris for Culture Vulture (2010)