Photograph of dancers from SFMOMA's collection

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) · SoMa

Feel the Beat: Dance in Photographs

In corso16 maggio 2026 – 28 febbraio 2027·30 $

From packed nightclubs to choreographed stage performance, photographs from the collection that capture the energy of dance.

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In 1968 Tatsumi Hijikata, the founder of Butoh, went back to the rural Japan of his childhood and moved through it, says SFMOMA's assistant curator Shana Lopes, "as if he were a spirit from a local myth, startling farmers and children along the way." Eikoh Hosoe photographed him, and that series, Kamaitachi, anchors the show's middle room.

It's about 80 photographs, mostly from SFMOMA's own collection, in three galleries on Floor 3. You start in the Bay Area with 14 Irving Penn pictures of Anna Halprin's San Francisco Dancers' Workshop, plus ephemera from the group's 1970s performances at SFMOMA. Around Kamaitachi, trained dancers face the lens, including Imogen Cunningham's 1931 Martha Graham and Robert Rauschenberg's Merce. The last room leaves the stage for parties: Malick Sidibé in 1960s Bamako, with Nan Goldin, Larry Fink and Weegee nearby.

Entry is included with general admission ($30, free for 18 and under), with no separate ticket. SFMOMA is closed Wednesdays and open until 20:00 on Thursdays.

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Hijikata in Kamaitachi
Look for the Butoh founder in Hosoe's 1968 series, moving through the Japanese countryside like a figure from local myth and startling farmers and children.
Irving Penn's Dancers' Workshop series
Fourteen mid-1960s photographs of Anna Halprin's San Francisco company, dancers the curator says look strong and graceful without seeming posed.
Malick Sidibé's Mali Twist
Young people claiming the dance floor at 1960s parties in Bamako, including a Christmas night at the Happy-Club.
Nan Goldin's birthday party
In the closing room, Twisting at my birthday party, NYC (1980) catches guests doing the twist at Goldin's own party.