Program A: July 23 – July 25
[Rain Date July 26]
Time: 6:00 PM
Sara Joel
Sahar Javedani
Jessica Chen
Clairaudient
Debra Wanner
Kristy Lewis
Jamal Jackson Dance Company
Sara Joel returned to NYC in 2006 after performing her choreography in Cirque du Soleil’s “Zumanity” in Las Vegas for 3 years. Prior to running off with the circus, Sara spent a decade in NYC where her choreography was presented at various venues including Aaron Davis Hall, Symphony Space, Joyce SoHo, John Jay College, Saint Mark’s Church, Joe’s Pub, the Brooklyn Museum and Queens Theater in the Park. Outside NYC, her work was featured at DRA’s Fire Island Dance Festival, Paul Neumann’s Hole in the Wall Gang Benefit Performance, and The Colorado College. Mrs. Joel received a BA in Dance with Honors from The Colorado College. In 2001 Sara was assistant director of Stephan Koplowitz “InFormation” performance for the re-opening of the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library. In 2004 Mrs. Joel was featured in Cirque du Soleil’s Solstrom on Bravo. In 2005 and 2007 Sara performed a duet co-choreographed with her dance partner, Kevin Gibbs, at City Center in the Career Transitions For Dancers Gala. In 2007 Mrs. Joel’s dance film entitled “RAPT” was presented at Lincoln Center in the Dance on Camera Festival. She continues to perform at Special Events for Cirque du Soleil.
Sahar Javedani is originally from San Diego, California by way of Tehran, Iran. Javedani is Artistic Director of compani javedani, a contemporary dance theater ensemble devoted to cultivating an empowered, intelligent and socially responsible community. Javedani has a Master of Fine Arts in Choreography and Integrated Media from California Institute of the Arts and a Bachelor of Arts in Dance and Theater from Hollins University, nominated for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative and is currently participating in her second year as an Artist-in-Residence at Tribeca Performing Arts Center. compani javedani’s recent performances and collaborations have included the 2007 Solar Powered Dance Series and Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival ”Dreams of a Caspian Rain,” Abrons Art Center and Flea Theater “Maahinen Neito,” Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater, Brooklyn Museum “Bazm-o-Razm” with Susan Oetgen and Likeness to Lily, Performance Mix Festival at Joyce Soho “Reparations” with James Scruggs, Triskelion Arts Center, Movement Research at DTW, The Chocolate Factory, Voice and Vision Envision Retreat and Lab at Bard College, Dance Conversations at the Flea Theater, Whitewave Dumbo Dance Festival and Wave Rising Series, “In the Valley of Damavand,” Dance New Amsterdam, Empire Fulton Ferry Park, New York Theater Workshop, Fort Greene Park Dance for Peace Festival “Once Upon a Time…in India,” American Dance Guild’s Festival at the Hudson Guild Theater, Dixon Place, The FAR Space, newsteps and Ear to the Ground Series at Mulberry Street Theater “in the Middle, somewhat aggravated,” Chashama Oasis Festival “The story of Devdas and Paro,” and the Tribeca Performing Arts Center “from Persia, with Measured Love (Ketab : Yek)” Sahar Javedani is currently participating in her second year as an Artist-in-Residence at Tribeca Performing Arts Center and in the 2008-2009 Fresh Tracks Performance and Residency Program at Dance Theater Workshop.
Jessica Chen is a New York based performer, choreographer, writer and activist. She grew up in Hacienda Heights, California. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Global Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. When Jessica was 19, she sailed around the world meeting people in China, Vietnam, India, Tanzania, South Africa, Brazil, Japan and Venezuela. Jessica moved to NYC to study at the Alvin Ailey School. Jessica currently works as a staff member at Backstage acclaimed NYC’s Favorite Dance Studio,Broadway Dance Center. In 2007 and 2008 she performed at the Earl Mosley’s Diversity of Dance; working with choreographers such as Sharon Wong, Juan Rodriguez of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Julian Barnett, Camille A. Brown and Darcy Naganuma. She recently returned from a Japan Tour with hip-hop artist and judge of America’s Best Dance Crew Lil Mama. While showcasing her work throughout New York and surrounding areas, Jessica started the J. Chen Project to explore her own voice as a choreographer. Recently she began working with recording artist, Dennis R. Diaz, as artistic director.
Clairaudient is the name given to the collaboration between choreographer, Danita Shaheen, and sound-designer, Dan Abatemarco, each of them stepping outside of their primary media to follow an idea: what if sound were to follow along with movement, rather than movement following sound? This idea became a feedback loop and a dance in and of itself, with movement and sound influencing each other in complex ways, resulting in sound and movement pieces with the two elements are steadfastly intertwined. The technique that Abatemarco and Shaheen developed, with the help of long-time friend Chris Shaver, involves dancers interacting with vibration and motion sensors– often affixed to their bodies– to generate sound in real time as the performance happens. The sensors send audio and MIDI data into a computer which translates the input into sound. The dynamics afforded by giving dancers full and immediate control over the sounds they are performing with is integral to Clairaudient’s work, and is what allows for the deep interaction between the two elements. The sounds of Clairaudient are conceived in an abstract way by Abatemarco, though they are orchestrated and arranged by Shaheen’s choreography. As such, the aural portion of Clairaudiant reflects many elements of his music project Speak Onion: rhythms collapsing on themselves, noise blasts, eerie textures, and drastic changes happening and unhappening in an instant. The resulting atmosphere combines fittingly, if uneasily, with Shaheen’s balletic training, modern tendencies, and unique eccentricities. The interplay of sound and movement lends Clairaudient a distinct sonic signature, as well as a unique choreographic style, as Shaheen plays off of the sounds created, finding ways to manipulate, sustain or silence the sounds through movement.
While the case could be made that Clairaudiant is an experimental band or a hyper-modern dance company, neither would be entirely accurate. Clairaudiant is the process of two people exploring new ways for movement and sound to interact.
Debra Wanner’s dances are about movement worlds, relationships and identity. They range from pure dance to work that may include text and/or video and improvisation. Her new company of dancer/collaborators is: Sam Ernst, Alessandra Larson, Molly Lieber and herself. The name of the company is Debra Wanner Dance Theater. Debra’s dances have been presented in New York City at Dance Theater Workshop, Movement Research, P.S.122, Dixon Place, The West End Theater by David Parker and Jeff Kazin and many others. Her works have been performed in a variety of art venues in the US and her videos have been presented internationally. Debra was a founding member of Stephanie Skura and Company and toured internationally with that company from 1986-1990. She has performed with The Performance Group, Rosalind Newman, Clarice Marshall, Victoria Marks, Nina Martin, David Rousseve, Sally Silvers, Pat Catterson, Tina Croll, Aviva Geismar, Barbara Grubel, Amy Larimer and others. Among her awards are a National Endowment of the Arts in dance, and the New York Foundation for the Arts in video. She is an adjunct professor of dance at Queens College and has been a guest teacher at other universities. She has a BFA from Tisch School of the Arts, an MFA from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and is also a Feldenkrais Practitioner.
Jamal Jackson was born in Brooklyn, New York and began his formal studies of movement with the Harlem based Batoto Yetu Dance Company. His pursuit of dance led him to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he received the Weston Award for his contribution to the Fusion Dance Company and New Works/World Traditions African Dance Company from 1996-2000. Jamal studied with Michelle Bach-Coulibaly, Seydou Coulibaly, and Fred Benjamin and worked under Mba and Bisar in Mali, West Africa. Jamal choreographed for the New York Arts Festival and Inaya Day in 2002, marking the beginning of his African based, modern style of movement. Jamal performed with Ballet International Africans for two seasons as a principal dancer and in 2004 he founded the Jamal Jackson Dance Company, which debuted Images of the Union at University Settlement in New York and at Westport Hall in Connecticut. The company went on to perform United We Stand at the Hudson Guild Theater, Dance New Amsterdam, Mo Pitkins, and for Jennifer Muller/The Works series. Jamal has created work for the Diversity in Dance Project at The Yard featuring Urban Bush Women and the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company and has returned to Batoto Yetu Dance Company as the Assistant Artistic Director. The company is currently performing new original works This Place Called Home, which has been presented at Dance Theater Workshop, the Battery Downtown Dance Festival, the Connelly Theater, The Yard in Martha’s Vineyard, and the Performance Space of the 21 Century in Chatham, New York.
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Program B: July 30 – August 1
[Rain Date August 2]
Time: 6:00 PM
Masque Theatre
Julie Troost
Catch Me Bird
Gabriel Forestieri
Faye Lim
Sharon Mansur
Alexandra Joye Houston
Masque Theater’s “Blues, Blues” has been a collaboration between choreographer/puppeteer Adelka Polak & mask-maker Larry Hunt. The Solar1 audience will see an excerpt from the full-length production that just had it’s European premiere in Denmark at the International Maskefestival, and it also showed at the CT Storytelling Festival & PuppetFest 2008 at the University of Maryland. “Blues, Blues” takes two friends on a journey through an imagined world where everything seems alright as long as they have each other… and as long as they can keep dancing! Come to see where the map takes us.
Adelka Polak (Choreographer, Puppeteer, Performer) is a performing artist from Sherman, CT who engages her audiences with original mixed media theatre. She has performed at Stanford University, The Pittsburgh Glass Center, NY Puppet Library, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Melon University, and the Garden Theatre of the Slaughterhouse Gallery. She performed in “Once There Was a Village” at LaMama E.T.C. with the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre in NYC. She was choreographer, stage manager, and performer for the Pittsburgh-based, avant-garde theatre group, Squonk Opera, toured across the U.S. while also venturing internationally as participants in the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the 2004 Uijeongbu Music Theatre Festival in S.Korea. She began working with Masque Theater in 2008 on “Blues, Blues.” Adelka briefly studied at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic to begin research and design for her multi-media dance piece, From Mourning To Moonlight, inspired by Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.” She has trained in modern dance and clowning, based in the European tradition. Focusing on nonverbal performance and Eastern Europe, Adelka has a B.A. in Theatre and Cultural Studies with honors from Chatham College in Pittsburgh, PA. Larry Hunt (Director of Masque Theater, Mask-Maker, Performer) is an actor, director, mask-maker, and educator. During the past 30 years, he has performed throughout most of the United States, Canada, and many other countries including China, Japan, Australia, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Bulgaria, Serbia and England. Larry has produced and performed original theater works under the auspices of MASQUE, an international touring company which he founded in 1980. Larry has evolved a distinctive version of mask performance which combines historical traditions with performance approaches influenced by ZeAmi to Peter Brook. In addition to solo performances incorporating original masks and puppets, he has collaborated extensively with other performing artists in several countries. His productions are vignette style as well as full length plays.
As the Artistic Director of Anima Productions, Julie Troost creates collaborative, concept-driven work in dance, theater, video, and performance art rooted in the physicality of the body. Challenging the elements traditionally used by a choreographer, she will include story, song, character, public interaction, props, sets, and video to re-present our human experience. She often portrays the physicality of daily human life onstage or reaches off the stage to enter life with site-specific work and public participation. Julie also has a profound interest in the intangible portrayed onstage. Selected works: Congregation (PS122 GoTour Festival, Dance Conversations @ The Flea and deemed “a moving spectacle” by The Brooklyn Rail, Dumbo Dance festival);The Interim: a physical play about two characters trapped between life and death Julie wrote and starred in with her brother, Scott Troost (Players’ Theater, NYC); H U G: performance installation(presented by Conflux festival on Manhattan streets, Lincoln Center lobby, profiled on the Brazilian television show Lugar Incomum on MULTISHOW); H U G: performance documentary film (Chashama film festival, NYC and Heaven Gallery, Chicago); Assimilated: site-specific dance theater (Solar1 Dance Festival, 3rd Ward, shown on MNN/Manhattan Neighborhood Network television); FrEdem: movement theater (Linhart Theater); I’m Still in my Underwear: choreography for Edy Ferguson’s film (group art project, “Song Poems” at Cohen Leslie & Brown gallery, NYC and Low Gallery, Los Angeles); I Am Here.: site-specific dance (fashion designer Shelley Stefee’s NYC store); Farewell: site-specific dance (East Village garden). Julie has performed as an actress and modern dancer for artists such as Noemie Lafrance, Fiona Templeton, Daniel Kramer, Billy Siegenfeld, Ann and Alexx Make Dances, and Jill Sigman. Northwestern University graduate, Re-Discover Your Heart Award recipient, Lincoln Center Director’s Lab member, Monarch Theater Company Artistic Associate, resident artist at Harold Arts, Workspace for Choreographers through Artward Bound, and at Outpost in the Cuts and Burns program.
Catch Me Birddebuted in 2004 at the historic Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles, when Derrick and Nehara created the reality performance, “The Wedding Journey: Vows In Midair”, a combination of their actual wedding and evening of dance, theater, and aerial performance. Nehara Kalev creates and performs dance-theater and madcap reality performance with her company, Catch Me Bird. (www.catchmebird.com). Nehara has harnessed her aerial dance expertise with Airealistic, has performed featured roles while touring with Diavolo Dance Theater, and is touring David Rousseve/REALITY’s 2009 premiere performances. She attended LaGuardia High School of the Arts in New York and has a B.A. from Oberlin College and an M.F.A. from UCLA. Her background encompasses spoken theater, improvisation, gymnastics and aerial choreography. Nehara offers a physically rigorous class and enjoys teaching people how to live and breathe upside down. Nehara is a word for the light that shines from your face when you are happy. C. Derrick Jones’ inspiration as a theatrical performer and improviser comes from his family of artists and civil rights activists. Known for his improvisational wizardry as a member of the Rachel Rosenthal Company, he collaborated to write, direct, and choreograph four full-length productions. Derrick has toured extensively with Diavolo Dance Theater, performed with De La Guarda in Las Vegas, Project Bandaloop, Jess Curtis/Gravity U.K. tour, and performed the featured roles in two recent full-scale performances with Epiphany Productions for the stage at Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, including Speaking Chinese, a collaboration with Beijing National Ballet star Hou Honglan.
Gabriel Forestieri was born in Louisiana raised in Detroit and transplanted from San Francisco to New York City in 2004. As the Choreographer/Director of projectLIMB he is intent on connecting communities with their landscape, resources, and each other. ProjectLIMB has performed in Hawaii, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Washington D.C., Paris, Rome, San Francisco, and New York City. ProjectLIMB’s work has been presented in NYC at DTW, the Tank, White Wave, The Puffin Room, and Symphony Space. ProjectLIMB has been involved with numerous residencies including SEEDS at Earthdance, DTW’s Outer/Space, The Wave Rising Festival. ProjectLIMB also received a fellowship to go to Hawaii and perform at the Ulua Theatre. Gabriel is an alum of the MFA (2006) dance program at NYU. He was a Dance Omi International Dance Collective Resident in the summer of 2005 and was nominated for a total of four Isadora Duncan awards (San Francisco’s highest dance achievement) in 2004 and 2005. He has had the pleasure of working with choreographers: Risa Jaroslaw, Ted Johnson, Foofwar D’immobliite, Heather Mcardle, Keith Thompson, Bill Young, Tomi Pasoneen, Scott Wells, Erika Shuch, Christine Cali, and Kristin Heavey.
Faye Minli Lim is a native of Singapore, where she began dancing and exploring martial arts, namely aikido, at a young age. She moved to New York after graduating summa cum laude from the World Arts and Cultures program at UCLA. She has had the pleasure of performing for such artists as Tina Croll, Kristen Schifferdecker / Red Novae Movement Group, Tammy L. Wong Dance Co., Yin Yue Dance Co. and Cheng-Chieh Yu / Yu Dance Theatre, and continues to perform and collaborate with Carlos Cruz-Velazquez / colectivodoszeta, Patricia Noworol Dance Co. and Benjamin Rasmussen / Society of Velocity. Her dance studies have taken her to Germaine Acogny’s Ecole des Sables in Senegal and to Amsterdam with Dance as Integrated into the Humanities and Society. Faye recently received an M.F.A. from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she organized the Dance Across the Board Graduate Student Conference. This summer, her choreography will be presented at Los Angeles Movement Art’s Momentum Showcase and the Solar One Dance Festival in Manhattan.
Sharon Mansur is a contemporary multi-media dance artist currently based in Maryland. Since 2002 Mansur has been the artistic director of mansurdance, a collaborative performance project that integrates choreography, improvisation and experimental multi-media performance in traditional, alternative and site specific venues. Since 1991 her work has been presented throughout the MidAtlantic region, including Washington DC and New York City, Minnesota, throughout the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, and numerous other locations. Sharon has been fortunate to collaborate and perform with numerous contemporary dance artists including Daniel Burkholder, Clare Byrne, Body Cartography, among others. Sharon danced for Sara Rudner in NYC from 1998-2000, and was a core cast member of Rudner’s four hour Dancing on View, reconstructed and performed at St. Mark’s Church for Danspace Project’s 25th Anniversary Silver Series in 1999. Sharon was a co-curator for the 2001and 2002 DC International Improvisation Festivals, and performed and taught at the festival 1996-2004. She has been on faculty at the Wild Meadows Improvisation Intensives in 2000, 2007 and 2009. Sharon co-directed Quiescence, a DC based contemporary dance/performance project with Daniel Burkholder from 1992-1998. She received an Individual Artist Award in Solo Dance Performance from the Maryland State Arts Council in 2002 and support from the Bossak-Heilbron Charitable Foundation for the creation of the improvisationally based work Still Life. Sharon’s site-specific improvisational performance work, in collaboration with Kitty Clark, was funded by the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the Arts and Humanities Alliance of Jefferson County. In 2004 she was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in Choreography from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and a John F. Kennedy Center Local Dance Commission. In 2008 she was awarded a Creative and Performing Arts Award from the University of Maryland for the creation of semblance during the 2009-2010 season. Sharon is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland has taught at numerous Washington DC area studios and colleges including Dance Place, American University, George Mason University, George Washington University, Goucher College, and Howard University. She holds an M.F.A. in Dance from George Mason University, a B.A. in Dance and English from Connecticut College, and is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst (CMA).
Alexandra Joye Houston is a native of the Washington, D.C. Metro area. She began her intense training as a dance major at Suitland High School for Visual and Performing Arts. She received her BA degree in Drama with a concentration in Dance/Pre-Medicine from Spelman College in 2003 and in 2006 received her Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Upon graduation from UNCG Alexandra relocated to Brooklyn, NY and was offered an apprenticeship with Urban Bush Women. She has since found a home with Christal Brown’s INSPIRIT dance company. Alexandra has been fortunate to work with Bill T. Jones on the Fela Kuti Project and as a teaching artist with the Brooklyn Arts Council. Alexandra is also an emerging dance filmmaker her first film short shown in the Urban Literature Film Festival in 2006 and at the University of Chicago’s Eyes on Mosaic conference in 2007. Alexandra is also a freelance writer of dance and urban culture with articles published in Greensboro’s Go Triad and Urban Literature Magazine. In the summer of 2007, Alexandra participated in the Africa and the Diaspora dance intensive workshop in Senegal at the company home of Jant-Bi, under the leadership of Germaine Acogny and other guest artists. This is Alexandra’s second season with INSPIRIT and she is grateful to be working with such amazing women.
