AIDS and dance -- a pas de deux we can't ignore
Rachel Howard, Special to The Chronicle

In 1990, "one AIDS death" (the reality, not the performance) was occurring every 10 minutes, and HIV was taking a lasting toll on the dance world. As a gay man and as a former dance critic for this and many other Bay Area publications, Gere found himself in the midst of devastation and its artistic aftermath. The "choreographic response" as defined by Gere, now an associate professor at UCLA, took many guises: ACT UP demonstrations, AIDS quilt unfurlings, and yes, proscenium stage dances. Gere trains his sharp eye on all of these, and though his methodology is academic, his voice is personal, impassioned and sometimes pointedly provocative.