Originally published in The Voice of San Francisco in July 2025
BANDALOOP, a dance company pioneering vertical performance, presents Somewhere to Oakland – a month of free vertical dance on the walls of Oakland City Hall and the Rotunda. Through July 26, the performances will include live music, talks and community ritual featuring more than 50 local artists and partners.
BANDALOOP Studios
Based in West Oakland, CA, the company creates work for its local and global audiences. Touring performances, education and outreach are an intrinsic part of the company’s mission. The organization has deep roots in activism, championing support and sustainability of the two crucial pillars of their work: nature and people.
Founded in 1991 by Amelia Rudolph, a love for performance-as-ritual and rock climbing grew into a different kind of dance practice. Rudolph has a background as a dancer and choreographer, and studied comparative religion at Swarthmore College and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Her combined experiences created a desire to celebrate natural spaces, and to create a different kind of dance company based on kindness and adventure. Safety was built into the aesthetic, with braking belay devices and other features creating security in rock climbing, rappelling and rope-acrobatic activities. The dancers need the freedom to move their hands, and also control and limit the fall distances as part of their choreography.
Dance Pushing the Limits
BANDALOOP had its first live performance at a climbing gym, City Rock in the San Francisco Bay Area, in 1991. Additional performances in the Sierra, in the Buttermilk boulders, and on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley dovetailed into groundbreaking performances on the Space Needle in Seattle and at the “Power of Houston” festivals, drawing nationwide attention. The act of dancing vertically on surfaces instantly changes the perspective of the history of dance, and what dance can do. BANDALOOP’s dedicated dancers push the limits of how people view their relationships with the environment and each other.
Education and outreach are intrinsic parts of BANDALOOP’s mission. Uplifting and amplifying the voices of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ voices at home has been a sustained evolution organizationally; when the pandemic began in 2020, this effort emerged publicly with the short film #ResistanceIsBeautiful.
Taking flight in Frank H. Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza, Somewhere to Oakland will transform the iconic Jack London Oak Tree, the Rotunda Building, and Oakland City Hall into a flyaway for vertical dance, community singing, and social art practice. This intergenerational project uplifts community voices through embodied storytelling that interweaves bird and human migration.
Melecio Estrella, BANDALOOP Artistic Director, says “As a 23-year resident of Oakland, I see this project as a love letter to the city my family calls home. I am deeply concerned that Oakland lives into its beauty, and that the many cultures that migrate and land here vibrate with belonging.”
Calendar of Free Events
During the duration of Somewhere to Oakland, writing workshops, musical performances, art making, and other events will be included free of charge to the public. A complete listing of free events related to this performance can be found at Bandaloop.org
Though Somewhere to Oakland is a free community event, registration is highly encouraged due to capacity limits. BANDALOOP acknowledges sharing personal information may not work for everyone and supports unregistered attendance as possible in the spirit of shared belonging.