“The Foundry drew interest from its start for its emotionally cool mix of skewed classicism, postmodern fragmentation, and stunning video projections.”
“The Foundry is at the vanguard of American dance.”
No Hero (Trilogy)
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"Alex Ketley is both choreographer and explorer, artist and humanist. His work dips a toe into the realm of anthropology, using dance as the connective tissue to examine, without affectation or expectation, the diversity that is America and the human race."
- The Sarasota Herald/Tribune
To Color Me Different
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"With one clean swipe Alex Ketley broke a longstanding taboo. His shockingly ferocious To Color Me Different wiped off the table Pollyannish ideas about able bodied and disabled people always getting along just fine. In this duet for Axis Dance Company’s Rodney Bell and Shonsherée Giles, the dancers hit the stage in the middle of a knockout fight. The confrontation left both of them shaking with exhaustion. Whatever the source of this conflict was, they fought it out as equals."
- Dance View Times
"Alex Ketley’s To Color Me Different came fast and furious in this year’s West Wave Dance Festival which limited all entries to under five minutes duration. That was more than enough time for Ketley to deliver this searing duet for Sonsherée Giles and Rodney Bell from AXIS. The constant shifts for dominance by the dancers seemed almost transgressive. Unforgettable."
- Voice of Dance
Terra Incognita, Revisited
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"An atmosphere of casual collegiality pervaded the crowded ODC Theater on Monday night as the Bay Area dance world gathered for the 26th Annual Isadora Duncan Awards, affectionately known as the Izzies. Alex Ketley, Kara Davis, Katie Faulkner and Manuelito Biag, whose collaborative effort Terra Incognita, Revisited, which debuted last year on a WestWave program, took home top choreographic and company performance honors."
- San Francisco Chronicle
"The Foundry drew interest from its start for its emotionally cool mix of skewed classicism, postmodern fragmentation, and stunning video projections."
- San Francisco Chronicle
Syntax
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"Ketley devised an elaborate dance vocabulary analogous to verbal language in which each move had its syntactical correspondence. The loosely structured “Syntax”—appropriate to Snow’s assemblage of poetry—was beautifully performed by two ODC dancers, the gorgeous Andrea Flores and Justin Flores. It proved to be an engrossing, eminently playful experience. You witnessed the mind at play, bodies at play. The piece skimmed over the top of its elaborate substructure like a dragonfly over a sun speckled pond."
- Dance View Times
Monument
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"The theory that dance can express the inexpressible has rarely been so adeptly illustrated."
- Voice of Dance
Swan Lake: Recalibrated
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"I was immediately struck by the exploration of the blurred lines between movement and language. “Bodies” didn’t even come to mind as they normally do when I watch dancers move; it seemed as if human ties dissolved entirely into a unique kind of motion."
- Stanford Arts Review
No Hero (Trilogy)
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"With Ketley's eye for pictures as well as choreography, the hour-long work is visually stimulating throughout. But No Hero isn't so much about aesthetics as it is about humanity. Ketley's genuine interest in and reverence for his subjects and his generosity of spirit — qualities that are reflected back by his subjects — are the compassionate glue that make this more a towering achievement than a mere research experiment. In the end, No Hero stands as an engaging and enduring testament to the power of dance to connect even the most disparate among us."
- The Sarasota Herald/Tribune
Silt
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"Alex Ketley’s mesmerizing Silt expressed more about the human condition than most playwrights achieve with two hours of text."
- Broad Street Review
Lost Line
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"Lost Line’s appeal - structurally simple with good timing as it was - came from the theoretical questions Foundry projects often raise. Can we bridge different realities? What role do scale and context play in our perceptions? How do we make that leap from one imaginative realm into the next? Of course, no answers were forthcoming except for the ones you provided yourself. That’s the fun of this kind of program: well formulated intriguing questions create their own reward."
- Dance View Times
Current Form
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"By far the most intriguing is The foundry, Alex Ketley and Christian Burns' young company (less than a year old), which does wonderfully imaginative work with video and live dance. It's newest piece, Current Form is even more fun and fascinatingly mysterious than last fall's Salt Flat Pieces. They are beautiful dancers, and there is no one else around who even comes close to their sophisticated intertwining of kinetic and visual imagery."
- San Francisco Bay Guardian
Please love me
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"Please Love Me offers a depiction of human sensitivity at its finest."
- The Daily Californian
"When words fail, a turn of a cheek or small shift in stance can signify a world of meaning. Choreographer, dancer, and director of the Foundry Alex Ketley is hyperconscious of the subtle secrets our bodies both hide and reveal. This consciousness allows him to deconstruct and reconstruct movement in such a way as to capture the emotional unknown that lies beyond words."
- San Francisco Bay Guardian
The Fleshing Memory
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"The Foundry is onto something that feels both real and true."
- Dance Magazine
"Burns and Ketley created “The Fleshing Memory” as Yerba Buena’s Wattis artists in residence, and in the process made a persuasive argument for this sort of visionary funding of emerging artists: This is the Foundry’s most impressive work to date."
- San Francisco Chronicle
Arena
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"Throughout Arena we examine self and that self in relation to others, whether it be as part of a group or in our personal relationships. How much, if any, of our personal exploration do we need to give up in order to completely trust? The intensity of emotion and tenderness are what I came away with. These are things that can only be experienced with complete trust."
- Leipzig Zeitgeist
Imprint
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"The phrasing throughout is amazingly extended and supple; the performers resemble silken threads that seem to double back on each other. And the tone, while intense, never seems combative, or even mildly hostile. A sense of teamwork, of uncommon trust, of shared goals dominates. You can’t take your eyes off them."
- Voice of Dance
Salt Flat Pieces
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"In the case of Salt Flat Pieces, the quality of the stage and the filmic choreography was equally strong, the two media contributing to a consistent mood. The film component emphasized the kinesthetic aspect of the movement, while the live dancing drew out the sparse visuals of the film: a gorgeous thing."
- San Francisco Bay Guardian
Kid Thunder
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"Best of 2002: Top Ten Dance Performances - The Foundry in Kid Thunder at the Headlands, September. Christian Burns and Alex Ketley may be the most original dance artists in the Bay Area."
- San Francisco Chronicle
“The Foundry, fear is something to be embraced, failure a new challenge, exposure a means to redraw the boundaries of the dance experience. ”