About Christine// CALI & CO

Christine Cali (They, She)

Cali is all about values-based leadership, teaching and art-making ---  by seeking to hold collaboration, transparency, accountability, humility, and relationship-building at the forefront. In their leadership roles, they seek to center antiracist and intersectional approaches focused on removing obstacles and reducing harm. It is their hope that by engaging in the world in this way and cultivating spaces that center care, they may offer an opportunity for people do the same – be who they are, build their agency, show up fully with their intersectional identities centered and honored. There are many ways of being, learning and becoming, and Cali seeks to foster that in their classrooms, work and life.

Cali has been active as dance professional in the SF Bay Area and beyond for 25-years, nationally, and internationally as a performer, educator and activist-artist. Presently, they are the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance Chair and Co-Director of the Dance Program at Sonoma State University. They hold an MFA in Dance from Hollins University/American Dance Festival 06' where they were granted a Teaching Fellowship, and BFA in Dance with honors from Ohio University 97'. Cali directs CALI & CO dance in San Francisco in collaboration with musician and music director Matt Langlois, and they have taught at culturally and professionally significant SF Bay Area dance and theater institutions, such as Alonzo King’s LINES, ODC School, The American Conservatory Theatre (ACT), Dance Mission Theatre, The SF Conservatory of Dance, ROCO Dance & Fitness, and more. Through this ongoing work, Cali has been named “one of the most ferocious, spell-binding dancers I’ve seen in this city (San Francisco)” by SF Chronicle Dance Reviewer Rachel Howard, nominated as “Best Dance Class” in SF Magazine’s “Best of 2015”, commissioned for the San Francisco Asian Art Museum’s  Divine Bodies Exhibit (2018), commissioned by SF’s Raw Dance for the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival (2021), Yerba Buena Nights Festival (2019), The San Francisco International Arts Festival (2015, 19, 21), and consistently receives grants, commissions and invitations to speak, teach and perform. Cali has taught and created work through a myriad of residencies at universities and colleges nationally and internationally, including a two-year Visiting Professor Residency at Sung Kyun Kwan University in Seoul, South Korea. Cali’s creative work and pedagogy, rooted in intersectional practices and embodied knowledge-sharing, is researched and developed through community-building practices that engage their training in antiracism, equity, access and inclusion to support centering ones' identity, lineage, ancestral-knowledge, gender fluidity, and culture in the study and practice of the arts. 

Since 2017 Cali has been a collaborator and student of the renowned Black feminist, Brooklyn-based, social justice, change-making dance company, Urban Bush Women (UBW). From 2019 to 2022, Cali performed with the company in their touring work, Hair & Other Stories, a dance-theater work that explores race, identity, and ideas of beauty through the lens of Black women’s hair. Cali has continued to cultivate their relationship with UBW, having coordinated and co-taught with the company for CSU Summer Arts 2023 Dance and Identity with UBW. They are eternally grateful for the incredible knowledge-building and exponential growth process from working with UBW!

Cali’s DEI, Access and Belonging work continued during and in response to covid shutdowns, where they offered SIP (Shelter in Place) Somatic Dance & Wellness Community Classes via ZOOM, with donations going to support SF Bay Area BIPOC artists and non-profit organizations. 

Cali has a vast residency and performance portfolio that includes the University of San Francisco, Sacramento State University, Scottsdale Community College, Niagara County Community College, Modesto Community College, University of Nevada/Reno, CSU Long Beach, University of Wyoming, University of South Florida, Mendocino College, Ohio University, Arizona State University, Hollins University, SungKyunKwan University/Seoul, S Korea, Alonzo King’s LINES BFA program, A.C.T. MFA Acting program, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, ODC Dance School, SF City Dance, The Branson School, The Marin School of The Arts, The Ambrit School/Rome, Italy, ROCO Dance, Lewiston Dance Center, The American Dance Festival/ADF @ Duke University, and more. 

Their creative work has been performed at The Cowell Theatre/Fort Mason, ODC Theatre, Z-Space, Venue 9, The Garage, Safehouse for the Arts, Dance Mission Theatre, Little Boxes Theatre, The Joe Goode Annex, The Supper Club, The Exit Theatre, Dancer’s Group/Foot Works, Brady Street Theatre, Marin Convention Center, ArtQuest Santa Rosa, 848, CounterPulse, Jon Sims Center for the Arts, SSU’s Evert B. Person Theatre, Putnam Theatre @ Ohio University, SF West Wave Dance Festival, SF Summer Performance Festival (SPF7), The SF International Arts Festival (2015, 19’ 21’), Saeng Saeng Festival (2007), Seoul International Improvisation Festival (2008), The Asian Art Museum/Divine Bodies Exhibit (2018), The American College Dance Association (ACDA 1997, 14’, 17’) and more.