About

Strong Behavior is a collaborative performance-making project, led by Jesse Hewit. We are interested in the sociological body as a wild and disastrous site of façade, determination, and grace. Our pieces are movement-based studies that  attempt to identify and interact with the increasingly mechanistic nature of human states of being, and we work to create a provocative relationship with our audience that  yields curiosity, visceral reflexivity, and a faint but steady tenderness.

Jesse Hewit Jesse Hewit is a San Francisco and Brooklyn based artist and performer. He holds a BFA from NYU/Tisch/Experimental Theater Wing, under the training of Steve Wangh, Mary Overlie, and Raina Fernandez-Von Waldenburg. His work is also heavily influenced by his graduate studies in sociology, and he holds an MA in Human Sexuality Studies from SFSU, where he worked primarily under the mentorship of Rita Melendez and Amy Sueyoshi. Since his move west, Jesse has had the rich privilege of collaborating on work with Jorge De Hoyos, Miguel Gutierrez, Jess Curtis/Gravity, Catherine Galasso,  the Erika Chong Shuch Performance Project, Monique Jenkinson/Fauxnique, Keith Hennessy/Circo Zero, Sara Kraft/Kraftywork, Taylor Mac, and Big Art Group. His original work has been curated and produced in the Bay Area by numerous spaces and presenters including CounterPULSE, Kunst-Stoff, Dance Mission Theater, Z Space, and YBCA. He has held residencies at Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory (Summer 2009 Resident Artist), and CounterPULSE (Summer 2010 Artist Residency Commissioning Program), and is currently working in a technical residency at Z Space, where he will premiere Strong Behavior’s newest work, Dog, in December of this year. As a curator, he co-produced and facilitated for Dancer’s Group/CounterPULSE’s 2nd Sundays monthly choreographer’s salon for two years, and is in his 2nd year of curating various dance and performance events for the National Queer Arts Festival, including his acclaimed THIS IS WHAT I WANT. This year, Jesse was proud to be selected as a YBCA Bay Area Now 2011 artist, a recipient of the New Stages For Dance pilot season, and the winner of the SFBG Goldie Award for Performance.