Detour Dance centers the prismatic experiences of queers and people of color. We are committed to creating bold performance that promotes intersectional justice through collective storytelling.

Founded in San Francisco in 2009, by Co-Artistic Directors Eric Garcia and Kat Gorospe Cole, Detour Dance is a devised dance-theater ensemble that creates bold performances deeply rooted in community-based creative processes. Contemporary dance often relies on queer, Black, and brown bodies to execute the visions of white creatives and predominantly white institutions. Detour is led by queer people of color, creating work that radically questions and amplifies urgent issues facing our communities. Our immersive and amorphous productions uplift outwardly visible representations of queerness while actively engaging audiences as more than just spectators.

Detour presents a home season every two years with challenging works like Beckon, which was nominated for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Best Choreography. Additional programming includes ongoing professional development workshops and Clutch the Pearls, a monthly performance cabaret for experimental dancers and drag artists. Recent accomplishments include the Margaret Jenkins’ CHIME Award, a Dancers’ Group commission to re-imagine Pina Bausch’s iconic Nelken Line, and a curatorial commission from McEvoy Foundation for the Arts to present an evening of live performance and dance film at Roxie Theater. Additionally, Detour founded and presented the Tiny Dance Film Festival which prioritized films that challenge dominant narratives, embodied the concept of dance with the camera, and embraced brevity. This festival of short films ran for ten years in San Francisco. Our current major productions, Quake, and Up On High, were delayed by the Coronavirus but are now set to premiere in 2022.