DanCe IMPROVISATION FEST

Artist Bios

Dance Artists

Chris Aiken
Angie Hauser

The Architects

- Katherine Ferrier

- Lisa Gonzales

- Jennifer Kayle

- Pamela Vail
Rebecca Bryant
Ray Chung
Suzy Grant
Daniel Halkin

Matthew Griffin

Benjamin Law
Nadine Lollino
Jessica Marasa
Bebe Miller
Nancy Stark Smith

Donnell Williams

JulieAnn Graham

Julia Mayer

Carly Czach

Music Artists

Ty Burhoe

Ensemble V

- Nelson Caldwell

- Anthony Santor

- Barry Ries
Jesse Manno

Dan Mohr

Don Nichols

Mike Vargas

Josh Berman

Carol Genetti

Quin Kirchner

Ensemble V

Interdisciplinary Artists

Jeff Carter

Christopher Furman
Every house has a door

Kevin Rechner

Nathan Ruyle
Synapse Arts' Factor Ricochet Ensemble

- Adriana Durant

- Rachel Damon

- Michael Rioux

- Ni'Ja Whitson

- Marc Macaranas

Photo by Chris Randal

Chris Aiken

Chris Aiken is a leading international teacher and performer of dance improvisation and contact improvisation. Over the past two and a half decades his work has evolved through ongoing investigations of performance, composition, movement technique and design. His work has been significantly influenced through the somatic practice of the Alexander Technique, ideokinesis, yoga and the work of Ida Rolf.Chris has performed and collaborated with many renowned dance artists including Steve Paxton, Kirstie Simson, Nancy Stark Smith, Peter Bingham, Andrew Harwood, Patrick Scully and Angie Hauser. He has received numerous awards for his artistic work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Bush Foundation Fellowship, funding from the Jerome Foundation and commissions from the Walker Art Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop, Bates Dance Festival and the National Performers Network.

http://chrisaikenangiehauser.wordpress.com/

Check out festival events with Chris Aiken:

Workshop -- Frameworks: Dance Improv and Design (6/13 & 6/14)

Chicago Dancemakers Forum Salon (6/15)

Performance -- Utopia Parkway (6/18)

Angie Hauser

Angie Hauser is a dancer and teacher. Her work is grounded in improvisation and performance reflecting the influences of contact improvisation, postmodern choreography, ballet and Butoh. Since 2000, Angie has been a member of the Bebe Miller Company, where she contributes to the creation of award winning dance works that are performed throughout the United States. In 2006 Angie was awarded a BESSIE (N.Y. Dance and Performance Award) for Creation and Choreography for her work with Bebe Miller. As an improviser she collaborates with many gifted artists including Chris Aiken, Kirstie Simpson, K.J. Holmes, Darrell Jones, Andrew Harwood and Kathleen Hermesdorf. She has also danced with the companies of Elizabeth Streb, Liz Lerman and Poppo Shiriashi. She has taught contact improvisation, improvisation and dance throughout North America as well as Switzerland, Germany, France and Scotland. Angie received her MFA in dance from the Ohio State University and holds a BA in Art History from University of South Carolina.

http://chrisaikenangiehauser.wordpress.com/

Check out festival events with Angie Hauser:

Workshop -- Frameworks: Dance Improv and Design (6/13 & 6/14)

Chicago Dancemakers Forum Salon (6/15)

Performance -- Utopia Parkway (6/18)

Ty Burhoe

Ty Burhoe has been a disciple of the great tabla maestro, Ustad Zakir Hussain, since1990. Known for his inspired accompaniment in both classical and in fusion settings, Ty is internationally recognized for being instrumental in creating unique collaborations that weave tabla with other world traditions, and also for his extensive experience as a recording and live concert producer. He has been featured on many soundtracks for film and DVD, including the academy award winning documentary, "Born into Brothels." He opened his own Indie label “Tala Records" in 2004. Ty works with a broad range of artists including Ustad Zakir Hussain, Art Lande, Krishna Das, Kala Ramnath, Curandero (Miguel Espinoza), Ustad Sultan Khan, Bela Fleck, Walter Becker (Steely Dan), Steve Gorn, Mamadou Diabate, Rick Alan (Def Leppard), Howard Levy, Kitaro, Bill Dougals, Jon Anderson (Yes) and many more. Ty has performed in prestigious halls all around the world including Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House and Royal Festival Hall. On the side, he is the tour assistant for his teacher Zakir Hussain, touring, producing and managing concerts worldwide. Ty also teaches “Sound & Spirit” workshops focused on the spiritual nature of sound, as well as tabla intensives throughout the world.

http://www.tyburhoe.com/

Check out festival events with Ty Burhoe:

Performance -- Utopia Parkway (6/18)

Photo by Mike David

Jesse Manno

Jesse Manno received classical musical training and a BA in Asian studies from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has served for fifteen years as music director of the CU Boulder Theatre and Dance Department.This New York native began composing and performing professionally in 1982 and has since received well over 100 commissions- 25 for evening length works. Commissioning/presenting entities include the Bates Dance Festival, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Lazer Vaudeville, David Taylor Dance Theatre, Ohio PBS, Denver PBS, Turning The Wheel Inc., The City of Denver, The Museum of Outdoor Arts, and Desperate Figures Dance Theatre (Germany), among others, with support from the NEA, National Guild of Organists, Colorado Council on the Arts, Montgomery Watson, Henckell Trocken, Swire Properties ltd., and others. He has received three project grants from Meet The Composer, Inc. His work has been presented in all states of the Continental U.S., The Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland, the U.K., Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia at a wide variety of venues including the John Houseman Theater and Lamb’s Theater (Off Broadway NYC), the Joyce Theatre (NYC), the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Scotland), Pacific Place (Hong Kong), Denver Auditorium Theatre, and The Kennedy Center (Washington D.C.). Recent collaborators include designer Lonnie Hanzon, theatrical director Robert Cohen, and choreographer Michael Foley. He has also collaborated with musicians Robert Een (Meredith Monk), Beth Quist (Bobby McFerrin, Cirque Su Soleil), Ty Burhoe and Kitaro, and has appeared as a guest studio musician on over 30 different albums. He has released 8 CDs, which are sold and licensed by Magnatune.com, ASimpleSound.com, and jessemanno.com. He sings in Turkish, Greek and Arabic and plays a variety of lutes, flutes, keyboard and percussion instruments, sometimes playing 2 or 3 simultaneously, in styles ranging from electronica and musique concrete to classical and rock with a strong interest in world folk musics. He has worked extensively with NY based Morrocan musician Rachid Halihal and with Istanbul based Turkish Sufi singer Latif Bolat, in addition to being a founding member of the Boulder based “Sherefe”.

Check out festival events with Jesse Manno:

Performance -- Utopia Parkway (6/18)

Photo by Alfiya Rakhamanova

Nancy Stark Smith

Nancy Stark Smith first trained as an athlete and gymnast, leading her to study and perform modern and postmodern dance in the early 1970s, greatly influenced by the Judson Dance Theater breakthroughs of the 1960s in NYC. She graduated from Oberlin College with a BA in Dance and Writing. Nancy danced in the first performances of contact improvisation in 1972 and has since been central to its development as dancer, teacher, performer, writer/publisher, and organizer. She has traveled extensively throughout the world teaching and performing contact and other improvised dance work with Steve Paxton and many other favorite dance partners and performance makers, including Julyen Hamilton, Ray Chung, Andrew Harwood, Peter Bingham, Karen Nelson, and musician Mike Vargas. She co-founded Contact Quarterly, an international dance and improvisation journal, in 1975 which she continues to coedit, produce, and publish along with other dance literature. Her writings appear in the book, Taken By Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader, and her first book, Caught Falling: The confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and other moving ideas,came out in 2008.She lives in western Massachusetts.

http://www.nancystarksmith.com/start.htm

Check out festival events with Nancy Stark Smith:

Workshop -- Contact and Music: Listening to Each Other (6/15 & 6/16)

Chicago Dancemakers Forum Salon (6/15)

Performance -- Collaborations... from Scratch (6/17)

Workshop -- The Underscore (6/17 & 6/18)

Photo by Thomas Haentzschel

Mike Vargas

Mike Vargas began playing music in 1959.  His curiosity and love of collaboration have led him through many contexts and cultures, from cocktail lounges in Indonesia to New York's Lower East Side,from cancer wards to the Kennedy Center.  He started specializing in music for dance in 1978.  He works as a freelance composer across the USA and internationally, performing, teaching, recording, and improvising.  For the last 11 years he has been teaching and performing with Nancy Stark Smith.  He teaches on the faculty of the Smith College dance department.  He has released 9 CD's.

http://mikevargas.net/

Check out festival events Mike Vargas:

Workshop -- Contact and Music: Listening to Each Other (6/15 & 6/16)

Chicago Dancemakers Forum Salon (6/15)

Performance -- Piano Salon (6/16)

Performance -- Collaborations... from Scratch (6/17)

Workshop -- The Underscore (6/17 & 6/18)

Photo by Theodora Litsios

Ray Chung

Ray Chung is a performer, teacher, engineer, and artist who has a passion for dancing which he likes to share with other people. His main focus is improvisation and he has worked with Contact Improvisation since 1979 as part of improvisational performance practice and integrates other movement forms into his work, including martial arts, bodywork and Authentic Movement. Ray has worked with the leading proponents of Contact Improvisation and regularly collaborates with dancers, musicians, and other artists. His work has been featured at numerous national and international festivals and venues. Currently based in San Francisco & Sweden, Ray regularly teaches abroad.

http://www.kinetic-designs.net/

Check out festival events with Ray Chung:

Performance -- Collaborations... from Scratch (6/17)

The Architects

The Architects were born out of collaborations between Katherine Ferrier,
Lisa Gonzales, Jennifer Kayle, and Pamela Vail, dating back to the late 1980s at Middlebury College. For 20 years, the quartet has been engaged in celebrating composition through their commitment to collaborative movement research. The Architects have presented their work in such venues as the Improvisation Festival/N.Y.; Improvised and Otherwise Festival of Sound and Movement, N.Y.; Big Range Dance Festival, Houston, Tex.; The Fringe Festival, Minneapolis, Minn.; The Flynn Theatre in Burlington, Vt.; Movement Arts Thorne’s in Northampton, Mass.; the University of Iowa; and Franklin & Marshall, Middlebury, Muhlenberg, and Keene State Colleges. They were the company in residence at Work in the Performance of Improvisation from 2001-2005 at Bennington College; in 2007 they toured to Helsinki, Finland and St. Petersburg, Russia to teach and perform. Performances in 2009 include Epiphany Dance Experiment in Chicago, and Jazz Fest, Burlington, Vt. (in collaboration with Ensemble V, directed by Arthur Brooks). In their professional and life-long devotion to choreography, improvisation, and teaching, The Architects bring a holistic and ferocious intelligence to the dialogue of dance-making and teaching, process and product, individual voice and ensemble composition, crafting, and opening to the unknown.

Check out festival events with The Architects:

Workshop -- The Architects Workshop (6/17)

Chicago Dancemakers Forum Salon (6/15)

Performance -- Collaborations... from Scratch (6/17)

Katherine Ferrier

Katherine Ferrier is an independent dance artist/educator, poet and visual artist who has been improvising and making dances since the late ‘80s. She earned her B.A. in dance and women’s studies from Middlebury College, and M.F.A. in dance and performance from Sarah Lawrence College. A co-founder of The Architects, she is also the founder and Artistic Director of Immediate Theatre, an ensemble of movers, musicians, video and visual artists, lighting and set designers, collaborating together to create spontaneous dance theater works. Guest artist positions include those at Durham School of the Arts, Meredith and Muhlenberg Colleges, Wesleyan University, and Movement Research/NYC. An improviser at heart, Katherine delights in composing in the moment, be it with fabric, found objects, words or bodies in motion, and her various forms of creative research continue to inform and provoke each other, becoming quantum partners in a life-long practice of paying attention.
Collaboration is a cornerstone of her work, and she thrives on the exciting alchemy of working with a variety of artists. Recent collaborators include: The Architects, George Manupelli, Christina Soriano, Courtney Greer, Miguel Gutierrez, Marcus Godwyn (England/Russia), Sini Haapalinna (Finland), Cinzia Fiaschi (Italy) and Nina Gasteva/Iguan Dance Theatre (Russia). Occasional observations on teaching, dance-making and collaboration show up on www.reportsfromthefield.wordpress.com and her writing has been published in Contact Quarterly.

Check out festival events with Katherine Ferrier and The Architects:

Workshop -- The Architects Workshop (6/17)

Performance -- Collaborations... from Scratch (6/17)

Lisa Gonzales

Lisa Gonzales is an independent choreographer and improviser. She moved to
New York City in 1999 where she was based until 2004 and presented work in such venues as Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace at St. Mark’s Church and Joyce Soho among others. She has also shown her work in cities and spaces around the United States and internationally in Taiwan, Russia, Finland and The Dominican Republic. She credits many artists with whom she has worked as being influential to her own art making including Peter Schmitz, Penny Campbell, Susan Sgorbati, Andrea Olsen, Deborah Hay, Angie Hauser, Darrell Jones, Peter Carpenter, Chris Aiken, Paul Matteson, K.J. Holmes, Amy Chavasse, Deana Acheson, Pam, Jen and Katherine of the Architects, musicians Michael Chorney and Arthur Brooks, and others. She currently lives in Chicago and is full-time faculty at Columbia College Chicago.

Check out festival events with Lisa Gonzales and The Architects:

Workshop -- The Architects Workshop (6/17)

Performance -- Collaborations... from Scratch (6/17)

Jennifer Kayle

Jennifer Kayle is associate professor at the University of Iowa, and an independent choreographer, dancer, and improviser. In 2011, Kayle accepted commissions from University of Utah, and from 37 por las Tablas, a Movement/Theatre Company in Santiago, R.D. In 2010, Kayle co-created “Virtually Yours,” a meditation on the poetry and politics of crossing the border, presented at Highways, Los Angeles, and El Centro Leon in Santiago, Dominican Republic. She also continued her collaboration with composer Burton Beerman, presenting work at Symphony Space, NYC, and in Ohio at the 31st International New Music Festival. In 2009, she performed with Katherine at The Body/Word Festival in St. Petersburg Russia, and in 2008, premiered works in Chicago, Colorado, and in her first Joyce SoHo season in New York City. Other venues include the Minnesota Fringe Festival, Jacob’s Pillow’s “Inside/Out,” Big Range Dance Festival (Tex.), venues in Russia, Finland, Puerto Plata, D.R., and in the repertories of companies such as New ARTiculations (Tucson) and The Dance COLEctive (Chicago). Recent teaching
adventures include Bates Dance Festival/Young Dancers Workshop 2009, co-creating an interdisciplinary improvisation course for dancers, musicians, and actors at U.Iowa, and co-teaching with Lisa at Links Hall, Chicago, and the Fort Wayne Dance Collective in Indiana. Jennifer is grateful to all her teachers, and also to continue her main improvisational research with The Architects, including designer Kathy Couch.

Check out festival events with Jennifer Kayle and The Architects:

Workshop -- The Architects Workshop (6/17)

Performance -- Collaborations... from Scratch (6/17)

Pamela Vail

Pamela Vail is a choreographer, performer, improviser, and teacher. She is
currently assistant professor of dance at Franklin & Marshall College. Before
moving to Lancaster, she spent 8 years living and dancing professionally in New York City. In addition to being a co-founding member of The Architects, Vail is a founding member of critically acclaimed New York City-based Yanira Castro + Company (now a canary torsi). Vail has also had the pleasure of working with and being inspired by such artists as Terry Creach, Peter Schmitz, Penny Campbell, Andrea Olsen, Susan Sgorbati, Heidi Henderson, and of course The Architects, among others. She continues to perform her own choreography nationally and internationally, most recently at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. She holds a B.A. from Middlebury College and an M.F.A. in dance from Smith College, and has been dancing since she was six years old.

Check out festival events with Pamela Vail and The Architects:

Workshop -- The Architects Workshop (6/17)

Performance -- Collaborations... from Scratch (6/17)

Rebecca Bryant

Coming from a visual art background, Rebecca Bryant creates performances that combine movement with sound, text, video and objects. Known for work that is “politically charged, yet humorously staged” (Jennifer DePoyen, San Diego Union Tribune), Bryant is committed to crossing disciplines in order to address current societal phenomena. In addition to solo projects, she creates work as a member of the Lower Left Performance Collective (dance/theater) and co-founder of the Past Modern Performance Duo (dance/percussion/new media). Bryant brings dance to the community by performing in traditional theaters as well as site-specific locations, including art galleries, fountains, abandoned electrical factories, public parks, rusted spiral staircases, mall escalators, swimming pools and cliff sides. She has performed nationally and internationally in her own work and work by renowned and emerging choreographers Wally Cardona, Victoria Marks, Nina Martin, Shelley Senter, Lionel Popkin and Manuelito Biag – performance locations include Berlin, Barcelona, Stockholm, Oslo, Buenos Aires, Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Houston, among others. Bryant is a recipient of multiple choreographic grants as well as residencies at Sushi Performance and Visual Art (San Diego, CA), Djerassi Resident Artist Program (Woodside, CA), Marfa Live Arts (Marfa, TX) and Guapamacátaro Art and Ecology Residency (Central Mexico). She holds a BA in Visual Art from UC San Diego, where she specialized in photography, painting and installation, and an MFA in Dance from UCLA. In addition to teaching workshops around the US and abroad, Bryant is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at Purdue University where she teaches modern/postmodern technique, dance fundamentals and solo/ensemble/contact improvisation.

Check out festival events with Rebecca Bryant:

Performance -- Duet with Piece of String (6/16)

Rachel Damon

Rachel Damon creates, designs, and manages live performance. She has performed and presented internationally, as Artistic Director of Synapse Arts and as a former company member of both The Anatomical Theater and Breakbone Dance Co. A 2010/2011 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Labg Artist, she is currently creating the project Factor Ricochet, which premiers in October of 2011. Begun during her tenure as a Links Hall Artistic Associate in 2009, Rachel co-curates the ongoing improvisation series collision_theory with her CROSSCUT collaborator, Dan Mohr. Featured in Dance Spirit Magazine for her self-made career that bridges onstage and backstage, Rachel currently works as Production Stage Manager and Lighting Designer with eighth blackbird and Links Hall, and as a Teaching Artist with Chicago Moving Company. A native of St. Paul, MN, Rachel loves action movies and eats dessert every day. More info at www.synapsearts.com

Check out festival events with Rachel Damon:

Performance -- collision_theory (6/13)

Improv Jam in the Park (6/15)

Performance -- Duet with Piece of String (6/16)

Photo by William Frederking

Adriana Durant

Adriana Durant has a MFA in Choreography from The Ohio State University and a BFA in Performance from Emerson College in Boston. She performs professionally as an improvisational dance artist, dancer for independent choreographers, and as a member of Mordine and Company Dance Theater. She is also an Artistic Associate/Teaching Artist with Striding Lion Performance Group and the Chicago Dance Institute. Adriana also performs and teaches nationally as a member of Like You Mean It, an improvisation trio focusing on group composition in performance. Her choreography has been performed in Chicago, NYC, Boston, Washington DC, Columbus and Athens Ohio, where she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Ohio University, teaching ballet, modern, composition, and improvisation from 2008-2010.

Check out festival events with Adriana Durant:

Performance -- Duet with Piece of String (6/16)

Ensemble V

Check out festival events with Ensemble V:

Workshop Accompaniment -- The Architects Workshop (6/17)

Performance Accompaniment -- Collaborations... from Scratch (6/17)

Nelson Caldwell

Nelson Caldwell grew up in New York City, where he studied cello with Ruth McGregor and Nellis DeLay. From 1995 to 2005, he was a member of the Vermont rock outfit Construction Joe; they released two albums, Construction Joe and Cry Uncle. One of the band’s principal songwriters and vocalists, Nelson was also known for his frenzied electric-cello technique and improvisational guitar leads. His playing continues to be inspired by sounds, creatures, plants and people. Nelson has been with Ensemble V since 2007.

Check out festival events with Nelson Caldwell and Ensemble V:

Workshop Accompaniment -- The Architects Workshop (6/17)

Performance Accompaniment -- Collaborations... from Scratch (6/17)

Suzy Grant

Suzy Grant is a dancer and improviser whose solo work examines the intersection of text and movement in relation to identity/appearance, race, and gender. She has studied improvisation since 1996 and graduated from Columbia College Chicago in 2008. Her work has been seen in Chicago, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. When not on stage, Suzy provides freelance production support to the Chicago dance community.

Check out festival events with Suzy Grant:

Performance -- Duet with Piece of String (6/16)

Photo by John Sisson

Every house has a door...

Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish, after a twenty-year collaboration as co-founders of Goat Island, have formed Every house has a door to create project-specific collaborative performances with invited guests. This company seeks to retain Goat Island’s narrow thematic focus and rigorous presentation, but to broaden the canvas to include careful intercultural collaboration, and its unfamiliar, even awkward, spectrum.

Check out festival events with Every house has a door:

Performance -- They're Mending the Great Forest Highway

Daniel Halkin

Daniel Halkin has been a leading member of the Chicago Contact Improvisation Jam for over 10 years.  He is forever indebted to Kathleen Maltese - for creating the jam in 1978, for nurturing it for the 20 years before he came on the scene, and for the generous spirit of her dancing that lives within the jam today.

Matthew Griffin

Matthew Griffin is a dancer, actor, and core member of Chicago's Contact Improv jam. He has collaborated with several Chicago-based dance artists, most recently with Melissa Simo in a duet that showed at Temple Gallery in 2010. Previously, he performed with Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York and earned a bachelor's degree in drama from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

Check out festival events with Matthew Griffin:

Contact Jam (6/12)

Benjamin Law

Benjamin Law is a movement collborator with Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak. He has also worked with Lucky Plush Productions, Mordine and Company Dance Theater, Hedwig Dances, Julia Rae Antonick, The Dance COLEctive, and Instruments of Movement. he is also a current company member of CDI/Concert Dance Incorporated. Ben has performed Tino Seghal's Kiss at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and performed in the Emmy-Nominated rendition of Billy Sunday in 2008. He re3ceived his B.A. in dance and psychology, with a minor in mathematics from Beloit College in 2005 and was presented the Beloit College Department of Theater Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography. Currently, Ben is enrolled in the Feldenkrais Practitioner Training Program with the Institute for the Study of Somatic Education.

Check out festival events with Benjamin Law:

Performance -- collision_theory (6/13)

Nadine Lollino

Nadine Lollino choreographs, performs, and designs/creates the garments for co-created multi-media art group POSTERCHILD. She is also a professional massage therapist and yoga teacher within the Chicagoland area and on faculty at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago teaching yoga. Nadine has danced with Breakbone Dance Co and Anatomical Dance Theater, and currently focuses her creative powers of POSTERCHILD and TEMPLE Gallery, both creations of hers and Bob Garrett, located in the Pilsen neighborhood (posterchildart.com). They open monthly for the 2nd Friday Art Walk in Pilsen and host other events in music, visual art and performance. POSTERCHILD's mission is to bring people together through dance and music, letting the spectator role turn into an experiential role, so that we can all be inspired to be healthy and happy in spirit, mind and body. Nadine and Bob will be showcasing the works of POSTERCHILD at TEMPLE Gallery in July 2011, through a multi-media experince of visual arts, performance, video, costumes and good food.

Check out festival events with Nadine Lollino:

Performance -- collision_theory (6/13)

Marc Macaranas

Marc Macaranas, from Delano, CA, has danced in Chicago with Lucky Plush Productions, Mordine and Co. Dance Theater and Luna Negra Dance Theatre. In 2008, he was a founding dancer with DanceWorks Chicago. Most recently, he performed with Montreal-based RubberBanDance Group. Currently, Marc is
interested in the intersection of food and sensation-based dancing. He conducts movement research from the comfort of his kitchen and living room.

Check out festival events with Marc Macaranas:

Performance -- Duet with Piece of String (6/16)

Photo by Julietta Cervantes

Bebe Miller

Bebe Miller formed Bebe Miller Company in 1985. Her works include the Bessie award-winning Landing/Place (2005) made in collaboration with OSU's Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design, Verge (2001), and Going To The Wall (1998). In 1999, she, along with choreographer Ralph Lemon and filmmaker Isaac Julien, completed the award-winning, collaborative film, Three. Collaboration being fundamental to her working process, Miller has worked with composers Albert Mathias, Don Byron, Fred Frith, Christian Marclay and Robin Holcomb; visual artists and designers Michael Mazzola, Caroline Beasley-Baker, Robert Kushner and Scott Pask; writers/directors Holly Anderson, Ain Gordon and Talvin Wilks; and filmmakers Kit Fitzgerald and, Isaac Julien, among others, as well as the Company dancers, currently including Kathleen Fisher, Angie Hauser, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Kristina Isabelle, Darrell Jones and Cynthia Oliver. She has created original works for a variety of companies, including Boston Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Philadanco, Phoenix Dance of Great Britain, Groupe Experimental de Danse Contemporaine in Martinique, Sbrit Dance Company in Asmara, Eritrea, and PATH Dance of Johannesburg, RSA. A professor at OSU, where she received her MA in dance, Miller has collaborated with OSU's Department of Dance to produce several digital documentation works, including a DVD-ROM of Going To The Wall, a CD-ROM of Prey (2000) that accompanies its Labanotation score, and DanceCODES, a software template for choreographic documentation. Miller's work has been performed internationally in Europe, Asia and the African continent, as well as at New York City's Brooklyn Academy of Music NEXT WAVE Festival. She has been honored with four "Bessie" (New York Dance and Performance) Awards, a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, an American Choreographers Award and Artist's Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. She currently serves on the boards of Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project and Bearnstow, a retreat center in Maine, and is a member of the International Artists Advisory Board of the Wexner Center for the Arts.

http://www.bebemillercompany.org/

Check out festival events with Bebe Miller:

Workshop -- DanceMaking: Physicality and Context (6/16)

Performance -- Duet with Piece of String (6/16)

Photo by Todd Hoffman

Dan Mohr

Dan Mohr is a singer, composer, songwriter, performer, and sometimes-dancer based in Chicago. In addition to his solo work, he performs with a number of musicians and ensembles in Chicago, including trance/drone collective G L E A M I N G, ambient improv duos Dhalgren and Mohr Mjolsness, experimental rock bands Relaxation Record and Zelienople, and singer/songwriters Jeff Harms and Matt Focht (Head of Femur). He has sung with the New Orleans Symphony Chorus, and has toured over the course of the past 10 years with VT-based traditional folk chorus Northern Harmony. His extra-musical interests have led him to collaborations and achievements in a remarkably diverse array of projects, including collaborations with dancers Rachel Damon and Asimina Chremos, Chicago film production company Split Pillow, and playwright/director Brian Torrey Scott. He will soon begin recording his second album, If You Let People Walk All over You, Do You Become a Place? Dan teaches private voice and piano lessons for Piano Power (www.pianopower.org).
http://danmohr.posterous.com
http://danmohr.bandcamp.com

Check out festival events with Dan Mohr:

Performance -- collision_theory

Jessie Marasa

Jessie Marasa is a movement collaborator with Molly Shanahan/Mad Shak and teaches modern technique in and around Chicago. While in Chicago she has had the pleasure of working with Julia Rae Antonick, Khecari Dance Theater, Same Planet Different World and performed works by Shapiro & Smith, Shirley Mordine and Jessica Miller Tomlinson. Jessie has performed Tino Seghal's Kiss at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Museum of Modern Art in New York.  She received her B.A. in Journalism from the University of Iowa.

Check out festival events with Jessie Marasa:

Performance -- collision_theory(6/13)

Don Nichols

Don Nichols is a percussionist, composer and improviser dedicated to innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration. He works in a variety of musical settings including contemporary Western music, jazz, chamber ensembles, improvisation, electro-acoustic and world music. Reflecting his diverse interests, Dr. Nichols has performed and worked with a variety of artists including Max Roach, Roger Reynolds, Evelyn Glennie, Evan Parker, Daniel Barenboim and John Luther Adams. In 2000, Dr. Nichols became the first percussionist awarded a Fulbright grant to Sweden, where he worked closely with percussionist Anders Åstrand. He earned his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree from the University of California, San Diego, where he worked with percussionist Steven Schick and played in the ensemble Redfish Bluefish. Dr. Nichols is currently based in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he performs and works as a lecturer at Purdue University.

Check out festival events with Don Nichols:

Performance -- Duet with Piece of String (6/16)

Kevin Rechner

Check out festival events with Kevin Rechner:

Performance -- Utopia Parkway (6/18)

Michael Rioux

Michael Rioux (Chicago, Seattle) is a performance and visual artist. The long list of companies Michael has performed with includes River North Chicago, Luna Negra Dance Theater, Mordine & Co., Lucky Plush Productions, Same Planet Different World, Scott/Powell Performance, and Salt Horse. In 2001 Michael formed Impetus Dance Theater and served as Artistic Director until 2005 when he picked up and moved to Seattle. While in Seattle Michael received his BFA in printmaking and video from Cornish College of the Arts, and formed The Sho. The Sho is a vehicle for Michael's choreography, has been performed by Mordine & Co., Instruments of Movements, Lehua Dance Theater, Cornish Dance Theater, Chicago Dance Crash, and Giordano's Jazz Dance. Michael has been a faculty member at Lou Conte Dance Studio, Velocity Dance Center, and the Spectrum Dance Theater School. Currently Michael teaches at Visceral Dance Center.

Check out festival events with Michael Rioux:

Performance -- Duet with Piece of String (6/16)

Nathan Ruyle

Nathan Ruyle (Media Artist, Collaborator) is an artist, designer, producer, educator and technologist with a broad professional background including performance, live, interactive and cinematic design, music production, project management, and large-scale installation. Nathan has had numerous creative residencies and is currently working with three multimedia performance collectives in LA. He is co-creating the data visualization/ presentation/ installation in residence at EMPAC with Early Morning Opera which will be shown in the Filament Festival in October 2010. Nathan is also video designer and technologist for the touring Cloud Eye Control’s Under Polaris, an NPN Creation Fund project, co-produced by PICA and REDCAT. Nathan traveled to Cuba in 2010 with Project Por Amor for their hybrid film/theater project, the Closest Farthest Away which premiered at the Havana International Film Festival. Nathan also began a new Mellon Foundation funded project with Center Theater Group. His most recent film project is Nina Menkes’s feature Dissolution which premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival in July 2010. Other notable projects include sound montage for Me Broni Ba (My White Baby), which premiered at the 2009 MoMA Documentary Fortnight and Ba yue shi wu (Aug. 15), which appeared in the 2008 Festival de Cannes and won honorary mention from the jury at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Nathan completed an MFA in Performance, Design and Technology with an emphasis on interactive media and film at the California Institute of the Arts, in May of 2008. Nathan is currently adjunct faculty at the California Institute of the Arts in the School of Film/Video and a visiting artist with the Center for Integrated

Media/Art and Technology Program.

Check out festival events with Nathan Ruyle:

Performance -- Utopia Parkway (6/18)

Synapse Arts Collective

Synapse Arts Collective (Chicago) is a performance group that focuses on developing new works and new artists through a laboratory process involving improvisation, feedback, and multi-media collaboration. Founded in 2004 by a dancer, a theater-maker, and a photographer, interdisciplinary projects by our member artists have traveled internationally from clouds to stages and sidewalks. Acclaimed projects include Stridulate named one of New City's "Top Ten Performances of 2009" and presented at the Roy Hart International Arts Centre, and The First Sound, an installation commissioned by Redmoon Theater. Gallery performance projects include Slit (Around the Coyote), Chrysalis (The Chicago Cultural Center) and hush (Weisman Foundation). 2011 will see the premiere of Factor Ricochet, a project supported by the Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Grant, which recently returned from a presentation at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis. Synapse is home to the works of Artistic Director Rachel Damon, and the annual program Synapse Arts/New Works fosters artist development through presentation of emerging artists. See more at synapsearts.com

Check out festival events with Synapse Arts:

Improv Jam in the Park (6/15)

Duet with piece of string (6/18)

Ni'Ja Whitson

Ni'Ja Whitson is a transdisciplinary artist, activist, and writer who creates work engaging a nexus of postmodern and African diasporic performance practices. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, informing an eclectic approach to live art that intersects body, text, technology, installation, and criticality. 2011 welcomes the development of root shock supported through a Lisa Dershin residency, a Chicago DanceBridge residency hosted by the Chicago Cultural Center, invited international performances, and an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporic Art in New York. Ni'Ja is the Apprentice of award-winning theater artist, Sharon Bridgforth, for which she also supports the facilitation of the Theatrical Jazz Institute, resulting in ground breaking models of performance pedagogy and practice. Ni'Ja has worked with a range of artists including Guillermo Gomez Peña and La Pocha Nostra, Baraka de Soleil, and Allison Knowles. She is currently on faculty at the Dance Center of Columbia College teaching capoeira and dance history/theory.

Check out festival events with Ni'Ja Whitson:

Performance -- Duet with a Piece of String (6/16)

Photo by Jennifer Kayle

Donnell Williams

Donnell Williams is an independent choreographer and improviser whose
work is often informed by curiosity and the world around him. He has had the fortune to dance with Peter Carpenter; is very grateful to create work with Suzy Grant again; and is thankful for the words and work of The Architects. Constantly creating and performing work with DoubleDJ (facebook.com/dubdeej), Donnell is also an inaugural member of Goldmine. He is a Teaching Artist and Company Member with Barrel Of Monkeys Theatre Company, a Teaching Artist with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and an Artistic Associate with About Face Theatre.

Check out festival events with Donnell Williams:

Performance -- Duet with Piece of String (6/16)

Jeff Carter's Power Plant

Jeff Carter

Jeff Carter lives and works in Chicago. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Art, Media and Design at DePaul University. Jeff has exhibited his work in Chicago at the MCA, the Renaissance Society, the Chicago Cultural Center and IIT's Crown Hall. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Museum 52 (London), the Kunsthalle Hamburg (Germany), the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan), and the Hayward Gallery (London). His solo shows include Kavi Gupta Gallery (Chicago and Leipzig, Germany), and Spencer Brownstone Gallery (NewYork). Jeff has received several grants, including the 2001 Artadia Award. Reviews of his work have appeared in FlashArt International, Tema Celeste, The Art Newspaper, and The Chicago Tribune. His 2011 kinetic sculpture A Vague Sensation of Paradise has recently been added to the permanent collection of the Smart Museum of Art (Chicago).

Check out festival events with Jeff Carter:

Kinetic Sculptures (6/12)

Christopher Furman

"I have always been drawn to machine based work. All around us, movement remains constant, and it has become an interest of mine to reflect that state. I believe that the process of art making is inherently a spiritual undertaking. This may not be a fashionable take on artistic motivation, but beyond any socio-political content of art lays the spriritual act of creation. From the modernist painting to a contemporary performance, the secular art world is imbued with the act of the infinite; Creation from thought manifesting itself in form and time. I explore questions, never intending to find the answers. The question of existence. The human condition. These are the seeds of poetry. It is with this notion that I develop my work. I rely on archetypes as a visual bank, and the spectacle of theatrics to lure the audience into an entertaining and potentially meditative moment. Mechanical movement along with color, form, and sound create the environment, and the objects themselves are devices or characters that develop a narrative. A kinetic theater; a single piece is a vignette, and an installation is a performance. I am in search of an elusive ontological machine. A machine that tells us of ourselves."

The Chicago Robotic Theatre installed the kinetic installation.

Check out festival events with Christopher Furman:

Kinetic Sculptures (6/12)

JulieAnn Graham

JulieAnn Graham

JulieAnn Graham is an improvising artist working in Chicago for over 20 years. In addition to performing as an improviser, she teaches body awareness and improvisation at Columbia College and Second City Training Program. She has had the great fortune to collaborate with many wonderful artists and festivals over the years including: The Other Dance Festival, Collision Theory, Julia Mayer, Asimina Chremos, Ginger Farley, Carleen Healy and Ayako Kato. She's so thrilled to be part of this improvisation festival.

Check out festival events with JulieAnn Graham:

Kinetic Sculptures (6/12)

Julia Mayer

Photo by Mike Graham

Julia Mayer

Julia Mayer has taught and choreographed, as faculty and guest artist, at several colleges, universities and studios and in Chicago and the Midwest. She has presented her choreography at Links Hall, Hamlin Park, Glade Hall, the Chicago Cultural Center, Blue Rider Theatre, the Theatre Building, MoMing, Dance Chicago, Artemisia Gallery, and the Creative Re-Use Warehouse. A sought-after teacher, creative advisor and collaborative schemer, Julia has received several grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and is a 2007 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist. The Reader has called Julia’s work “refreshingly off the map.” And TimeOut Chicago said she “is possessed of a delicately luminous stage presence.” The Chicago Tribune called CoffeeDance, her groundbreaking series of Friday morning improvised performances which ran at Links Hall for 2 ½ years, "an evocative window into a dancer's inner life."

Check out festival events with Julia Mayer:

Kinetic Sculptures (6/12)

Carly Czach

Carly Czach completed her BFA in Dancemaking at Columbia College Chicago in December 2010. Over the lifespan of her dancing career, Carly has studied classical ballet, modern and post-modern dance forms. In recent years, somatic practices, improvisation as a performance form and Contact Improvisation have become interests for personal investigation. Carly has worked and studied with artists such as Lisa Gonzales, Darrell Jones, Chris Aiken and Angie Hauser. A native of Chicago, Carly plans to travel nationally and abroad to further explore improvisational forms and the physicality of the body in varying states of being.

Check out festival events with Carly Czach:

Duet with Piece of String (6/16)

Josh Berman

For more than ten years, cornetist, improviser, composer and music presenter Josh Berman has been an essential contributor to Chicago's active improvised music scene. His work encompasses both developing opportunities and forums for presenting improvised music - as co-founder of the critically acclaimed Umbrella Music Group and as vice president and co-curator of the Emerging Improvisers' Organization - and performing in a variety of highly collaborative formats - including as bandleader of his own groups, Josh Berman's Old Idea and Josh Berman and His Gang, and as co-leader of the Chicago Luzern Exchange.

In addition to his work as bandleader, Berman has performed and recorded with some of the most internationally respected improvising musicians and composers in jazz and improvised music: Bill Dixon, Ab Baars, Ken Vandermark, Rob Mazurek, and Jeb Bishop. He is also a frequent collaborator with dance artists; his most recent collaboration with dancer Ayako Kato and musician Jason Roebke was awarded a CROSSCUT grant for New Collaborations in Sound/Movement from Experimental Sound Studio and Links Hall. Berman has toured the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan.

Check out festival events with Josh Berman:

collision_theory (6/13)

Carol Genetti

Carol Genetti is a vocalist, composer and installation artist. Her work is focused on the interplay between the voice as an expressive musical instrument and its extension into the sound-making realm. She has studied a variety of techniques including Western singing, Hindustani classical voice and Bulgarian folk music.

Genetti has toured throughout the US, Canada, France and Germany and has performed numerous live concerts as an improvisational vocalist. She has collaborated with a large number of like-minded artists in both ad hoc groupings and long-standing partnerships, including her duos with electroacoustic improvisor Eric Leonardson; bassist Tatsu Aoki; the trio Nom Tom with saxophonist Jack Wright and percussionist Jon Mueller; collaborations with composer Adam Sonderberg; and multi-disciplinary performances with dancer Asimina Chremos.

She has composed sound/music scores for Hedwig Dance Company, Sonic Celluloid Festival and the Outer Ear Sound Arts Festival. Her sound installations utilizing tape loops and lathe-cut records have been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Spare Room Gallery and the Nova Art Fair. Labels that have published her recorded work include Balance Point Acoustics, Crouton, Dead CEO, Last Visible Dog, Recorded and Spring Garden Music.

Check out festival events with Carol Genetti:

collision_theory (6/13)

Quin Kirchner

Quin Kirchner has become a ubiquitous drumming force thoughout the city’s diverse music scene, performing with such musicians as Jeb Bishop, Danielle D’Agaro, Greg Ward and Dave Rempis as well as groups including NOMO, Leaf Bird, blink., Greg Ward’s Fitted Shards, In Tall Buildings, ZING! & Lucky 7s to name a few. Kirchner has toured extensively in the US and Canada as well as in France, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the UK, performing in venues and on stages as diverse as Pritzker Pavillion/Millenium Park (Chicago), Belly Up Aspen, Music Meeting Festival (Nijmegen), Sudpole (Luzern), Michigan Theater Ann Arbor, Chicago Jazz Festival, Au Foin de la Rue (St. Denis), Bowery Ballroom (NYC), New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Moers Festival, and the Montreal Jazz Festival. In addition to performance, Kirchner has participated in several musical education programs including those organized by Jazz Aspen Snowmass and L’Aeronef in Lille, France. Most recently, Kirchner was selected as a member of the New Generation, a cross-cultural exchange in Dortmund, Germany led by Georg Graewe and Tobias Delias as part of the Ruhr 2010 Cultural Capital of Europe.

Check out festival events with Quin Kirchner:

collision_theory (6/13)