Desire Is A Strange Engine is a new site-specific work by STEAMROLLER Dance Company that looks at the ritual of gay cruising and these sites as spaces of queer radical potential. The performance draws inspiration from burlesque, Bob Fosse, overtly sexual imagery and the company’s trademark physicality. This new work uses desire to scramble the categories by which we organize our lives, like race, sexuality and gender.

Desire Is A Strange Engine is a new site-specific work by STEAMROLLER Dance Company that looks at the ritual of gay cruising and these sites as spaces of queer radical potential. The performance draws inspiration from burlesque, Bob Fosse, overtly sexual imagery and incorporates the company’s trademark physicality. This new work uses desire to scramble the categories by which we organize our lives, like race, sexuality and gender.

In 1993, a group of artists came together to create guerrilla performances addressing HIV/AIDS in marginalized communities. The company currently under the direction of Jesselito Bie has presented work in the 1997 Bay Area Dance Festival, the In the Street Festivals, the SF Lesbian and Gay Dance Festivals, Asian American Dance Performances, Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, Summer Performance Festival, San Francisco Trolley Dances, the DIRT Festival, the first Queering Dance Festival and the 2016-2019 SF International Arts Festivals.

Jesselito Bie (Artistic Director)
Jesselito Bie moved to the Bay Area in 1992 to dance with the High Risk Group and has since performed with Scott Wells and Dancers, Kulintang Arts. Jesselito is currently Artistic Director of STEAMROLLER Dance Company, established in 1993 to create guerrilla performances addressing HIV/AIDS in marginalized communities. He has received awards for his choreography from the SF Bay Guardian and the 360 Award from CSUEB Outstanding and Outrageous Queer Dance Work. He was a participant in ODC’s Sandbox program. He was selected to participate in 2019’s The Feedback with Joe Goode as well as Margaret Jenkin’s CHIME residency program. He is currently a resident at SAFEhouse Arts as well as associate director.

Sawako Gannon (Dancer)
Sawako S. Gannon is a freelance dancer based in the San Francisco Bay Area from Japan. Upon moving to San Francisco from Tokyo, Gannon graduated with a B.A. in Dance from San Francisco State University. She trained with Ray Tadio and Cathleen McCarthy, as well as academic instruction from Yutian Wong. She is a sought-after dancer and had the privilege to work with choreographers such as Anna Harris’s Driven Arts Collective, Jennifer Gerry, Joselyn Reyes and Joe Landini’s dog+pony. Currently, Gannon works with Raissa Simpson’s PUSH Dance Company as a Pathway program dancer as well as numerous artists.

Kevin Wong (Dancer)
Kevin Wong has been dancing for seventeen-years in Chinese Folk with the Flying Angels Chinese Dance Company. He gained his BA from UC Riverside while directing Collective Faction Hip Hop Dance Company and performing with the Gluck Contemporary Dance Ensemble. Wong is currently dancing for Project M, an all male Hip Hop Dance crew, an AIRspace fellow under SAFEhouse Arts, and teaching Hip Hop and Zumba throughout the Bay Area. His artistic dance practice is based around experimenting by asking questions, reflecting on different approaches, and offering time and space for others to explore.