Richmonder’s film of dancers 30 feet up in redwoods is playing atop SF’s tallest building

Not everyone is able, or even allowed, to witness the majesty of Northern California’s giant sequoias and towering redwoods, many of which live their long quiet lives on private lands, their locations kept secret to protect their fragile ecosystems from trampling visitors.

But this month, if you just look up at the tallest building in San Francisco, you’ll see these natural wonders having a Hollywood-esque moment thanks to a Richmond choreographer whose short film, Sequoia Spirits, is streaming nightly at the tippy top of the Salesforce Tower.

And it isn’t just trees you’ll see. Cherie Carson’s forte is aerial dance, the art of putting live dancers in the most unimaginable places, seemingly defying gravity (and any fear of heights) to perform. In Sequoia Spirits the viewer witnesses graceful, muscular acrobatic dancers suspended 30 feet in the air against a backdrop of the solid trunks and gentle green boughs of some of the world’s tallest trees.

The film, an award-winning collaboration between Carson’s UpSwing Aerial Dance Company, which for 18 years has operated out of Berkeley’s historic Sawtooth Building, Novato-based Symmetricity Films, Jim Campbell’s Studio and BXP, can be viewed from midnight to 1 a.m. daily through February. If you’re not a night owl, additional viewing hours are scheduled for Feb. 21, 22 and 23 from sunset until 1 a.m. (Catch a trailer on Carson’s social media, where you’ll also hear the soulful plucks of the cello soundtrack by Okorie “OkCello” Johnson, an Atlanta-based cellist-composer. The music can’t be heard when watching the film at Salesforce.) 

“The trees are part of our existence, part of our connection, and bringing art with that, to me that is the ultimate. Art and our environment — it’s a delicate balance,” Carson told Richmondside. “Since it’s best not to bring an audience into that space, we bring the nature to people who can’t always get out there.”

The 12-minute film is garnering some notice on the film festival circuit, winning honors at events including the Florence Film Awards, Paris Film Awards, New York Movie Awards, Hollywood Gold Awards, New Orleans International Film Awards, Paris Lady MovieMakers Festival, Vesuvio International Movie  Awards, and Best Choreography at the Experimental Dance and Music Film Festival.

From dancing in the air to settling in Richmond

Carson said she’s been a dancer her whole life. She was living in Houston when she saw an aerial performance called “Sleep” by San Francisco choreographer Joanna Haigood.

“I was blown away by this idea of dancing in the air,” Carson said.

She started taking circus classes and eventually got to perform that same dance in Atlanta.

Carson said she became a choreographer because she was drawn to the three-dimensional, sculptural aspect of the medium. She eventually settled in Oakland, living there for 20 years before moving to Richmond during COVID, when she and Marin County filmmaker David Creech began working together.

“Luck brought me to Richmond,” she said, explaining that she was already familiar with the city’s vibrant arts community, including its artists’ studio tours and robust local galleries. “I love my neighborhood (the North and East), I love my neighbors. It’s amazing. We all know each other, we all support each other.”

Filmed in the redwoods of Mendocino

At a time when so much of filmmaking happens on a computer, this film was made on location.

Creech, Carson and their trio of dancers, Helium Valentine of San Francisco, Kiran Satellite Haithcox of Oakland and Chris Spiteri, who recently moved from Oakland to New Orleans, perfected the acrobatics at the Berkeley studio, which has extra high ceilings, and then trekked to Mendocino to film the dance high in the trees as the cello soundtrack played.

The dancers each represent an important forest role of fire, earth and water. The “Fire” character (Valentine) emerges from a dark burned stump on the forest floor, followed by “Earth,” played by Haithcox, and then Spiteri as “Water,” arising from a sunlit pond.

“Those three elements give the forest life,” Creech said, explaining that he had to get creative to capture the dancers, who at one point can be seen from directly below, two of them looking like a mirrored image spinning horizontally mid-air between the trees. He said he laid on the forest floor beneath them and used ladders and drones. They only had two on-site rehearsals before shooting the final cut.

Getting a spot on the monthly midnight Salesforce Tower artists’ rotation was a win, Carson said, given that it’s a competition to have work displayed via an 11,000-LED facade on the 61-story obelisk.

Though the top of the tower is supposedly visible 20 to 30 miles away, Carson and Creech have been busy scouting out the best viewing spots in San Francisco. They suggest visitors try North Beach’s Columbus Avenue or any of the small parks around the Embarcadero and Ferry Building. Many of the city’s rooftop bars also have a view of the skyscraper, such as The View Lounge atop the Marriott Marquis hotel or the Starlight at the Beacon Grand hotel in Union Square.

Ultimately the creative duo hopes Sequoia Spirits fosters a deeper appreciation for California’s natural beauty and a greater awareness about the fragility of nature.

“It’s to get people interested in supporting and taking care of our environment and taking care of these beautiful trees that are integral to so much of our land,” Carson said.

Creech said he was attracted by the dance element of the project, especially given the healing powers of movement. 

“To be able to be a part of a team that can make this healing art form shareable for the masses brings me joy as well,” Creech said. “The colors are vivid, and people are going to stop and go, ‘What the heck is that?’ and it’s going to bring them a moment of joy in their daily life.”