Maica in Lotta's Opera, San Francisco, 2006

Bio

Maica Folch studied theater, circus technique and aerial performance in her native city of Barcelona before moving to San Francisco in 1992. Maica blends circus skills and street theater with contact improvisation and clowning. She has studied dance and a variety of performance disciplines with Theresa Dickinson, Terry Sendgraff, Keith Hennessy, Kim Epifano, Kathleen Hermesdorf, KJ Homes, Ron Estes, Simone Forti, Ruth Zapora, Carol Shawn, Jess Curtis and Moshe Cohen, among others. She has completed the Improvisational Mind and Performance studies at Moving On Center. Her work has been presented at many different venues in the Bay Area, including Lorraine Hansberry Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Cell Space, New College of California, ODC Theater, SOMArts, Counterpulse, Zeum, Mission Cultural Center, Dance Mission and Berkeley Community Theater. Last summer she presented a site-specific event "Quiet i Net" in Catalonia, Spain, directing more than 30 community members in collaboration with local artists. Maica is a lover of Dia De los Muertos for which she has presented altars and performances at various locations in the Mission District over the last ten years. Maica is a co-founding member of ZaZa Dance Theatre, a resident dance group at New College of California. She has performed with the Medea Project, on "Food Taboos in the Land of Dead" and "A taste of Somewhere Else at the Table" directed by Rhodessa Jones. She has collaborated with Keith Hennessy in "The Pink Party." Since 2002 Maica has taught dance and physical comedy to children around the Bay Area including the San Francisco School and the Buena Vista Elementary School. Currently Maica teaches aerial dance and performance art for children at the Marsh Youth Theater, a program directed by Emily Klyon. For three consecutive years she directed a youth summer circus program in Spain. She is a member of Clown Conspiracy, a group directed by Moshe Cohen. In 2006 Maica performed in Kim Epifano's Lotta´s Opera, a piece commemorating the centennial of the 1906 earthquake. Maica resides with her husband and two children in the Bernal Hill neighborhood of San Francisco.