Blossoms of Poetry & Dance at Mary Sano Studio/Duncan Dance

8 pm Saturday March 31
245 Fifth St. #314, between Howard & Folsom
$14 w/reservation, $16 at door
info@duncandance.org or (415) 357-1817

Mary Sano is celebrating the 10 years of her studio's activity with BLOSSOMS OF POETRY & DANCE, featuring Mary herself and guest dancer Junko Sodeyama, Merrill Collins on keyboard and Hideo Sekina on bamboo flute, and poetry by Kaori Annan, with video & photographic images by Yvon Chausseblanche.

The studio was founded just South of Market on Fifth to teach, practice and perform the dance style of pioneer Isadora Duncan, who was born a few blocks away in the late 19th century, the avatar of what would become modern dance around the world.

Mary is one of Isadora's most luminous followers, in her teaching, the book she wrote in her native Japan, her choreography and in her own exquisite performances.

But--just as important--her studio has served as a venue for many artists of diverse styles, in a time of academic and aesthetic provincialism. Her annual Dionysian celebrations--of Isadora's birthday in the spring and a festival in the fall--and other, sometimes impromteau events, gather surprising arrays of talent under the same roof, with an at-home hospitality and friendliness: from Duncan Dance to Butoh, the tragedy of Japanese Noh and the spare intensity of its music to the improvisations of performance art, modern dance and movement, popular song, Indian classical dance, Korean drumming and calligraphy, Chinese brush painting ... there's no telling what you'll see, what mood will be created.

So celebrate with Mary what she's done for the past decade, that's become a San Francisco institution, but remains in its own, original way a well-kept secret, a constant discovery.