“What I hope for---is to open a space for rigorous reflection, a shared space; critical, and embodied, a reflection of the body beyond critique, reflecting a form of freedom, and its divine curse, that kind of ‘dance.’ The sublime danger that accompanies such antics.” – Ralph Lemon, 2011 Chair
CHIME Across Borders is funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
For more information on Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange (CHIME) and CHIME Across Borders, click here.
2011 CHIME Across Borders Artist Profiles
Ralph Lemon is artistic director of Cross Performance, a company dedicated to the creation of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary performance and presentation. Lemon's projects expand the definition of choreography by crossing and stretching the boundaries between Western post-modern dance and other art forms and cultures. For each project, Lemon builds a team of collaborating artists from diverse cultural, national and artistic backgrounds who bring their own histories and aesthetic voices to the work. Projects develop organically over a period of years, with frequent public sharings of works-in-progress. Lemon and his collaborators derive the culminating artworks from the artistic, cultural, historic, and emotional material uncovered during his rigorous creative research process.
His most recent project, How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? includes live performance for the stage and film/art installation, and will premiere in September 2010 at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana, IL. His multimedia installation, (the efflorescence of) Walter was exhibited at Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, 2006), The Kitchen (NYC, 2007) and Center for Contemporary Art (New Orleans, 2008). In 2005, Lemon concluded The Geography Trilogy, a decade-long international research and performance project that spanned three continents in its exploration of race, history, and memory. The project featured three evening-length dance/theater performances that toured widely: Geography (1997); Tree (2000); and Come home Charley Patton (2004); two internet art projects; the publication of three books by Wesleyan University Press; and several gallery exhibitions. Other projects include the three-DVD set of The Geography Trilogy; Konbit, a video collage about Miami's Haitian community; Three, a dance/film created with choreographer Bebe Miller and filmmaker Isaac Julien; and Persephone, a book with Philip Trager's photographs of Lemon's choreographic work, with text by Lemon and Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, and poems by Rita Dove and Eavan Boland. In winter 2010, Lemon curated a critically acclaimed performance and discussion series for Danspace Project in New York City, entitled I Get Lost
Lemon is the recipient of a 2009 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and a 2009 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for interdisciplinary work. In 2006, he was one of 50 artists to receive the inaugural United States Artists Fellowship. He has also received a 2005 "Bessie" (NY Dance and Performance) Award in recognition of The Geography Trilogy; a 2004 NYFA Fellowship for Choreography; and a 2004 Fellowship with the Bellagio Study and Conference Center. In 1999, Lemon was honored with the CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts for Choreography. He was a 2009 Visiting Artist Fellow at Stanford University’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts, and has also been artist-in-residence at Temple University in Philadelphia (2005-06); George A. Miller Endowment Visiting Artist at the Krannert Center (2004); and a Fellow of the Humanities Council and Program in Theater and Dance at Princeton University (2002). From 1996-2000, he was Associate Artist at Yale Repertory Theatre.
Catherine Galasso is an interdisciplinary artist and choreographer based in San Francisco and New York City. For the past five years, her work has been presented at Danspace Project, Dance New Amsterdam, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Chen Dance Center, Hollins University, ODC Theater, CounterPULSE, Theatre Artaud, SomArts, as well as the International Theater Festival in Pristina, Kosovo. She has been awarded grants from the Zellerbach and Bossak/Heilbron Foundations as well as Theatre Bay Area CA$H, and commissions by ODC Theater, Duo Theater, and the San Francisco Film Society. Her next project, a performance installation about the silent film pioneers, the Lumière Brothers, will premiere in San Francisco in 2011, and was awarded a Matching Project Commission from the San Francisco Foundation. Catherine earned a European Baccalaureate from the Venice Art Institute in Venice, Italy, and a BA in Film from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. She is a current artist-in-residence at ODC Theater. www.catherinegalasso.com
Shinichi Iova-Koga examines, dissects and intentionally blurs the line between various media to uproot and communicate stories contained within the body. He founded inkBoat in 1998 and has been recognized with three “Izzie” awards, one “Goldie,” and a “Top 25” in Dance Magazine. Shinichi has engaged in long term and extensive work with Yuko Kaseki, Cassie Terman, Yumiko Yoshioka, Do Theatre and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Single project collaborations include work with Ko Murobushi, AXIS Dance Company, Minako Seki, Degenerate Art Ensemble, ROVA Saxophone Quartet and Anna Halprin. Coming up, Shinichi and KT Nelson are co-choreographers of a new work for ODC Dance Company premiering in March 2011. In December of 2011, he and Dohee Lee are featured in a new inkBoat production at ODC Theater. His teachers include Hiroko Tamano, Yukihiro Goto, Ruth Zaporah, Yumiko Yoshioka and Anna Halprin. Shinichi is currently an Artist in Residence at ODC Theater, SF. www.inkboat.com
José Navarrete is a native of México City. He studied dance at the National Institute of Fine Arts in México. José’s choreographic work has been presented by the Bay Area Dance Series, the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Dance Festival, Summerfest, Theater Artaud, ODC Theater and Dance Mission Theater. He has also received two nominations for the Isadora Duncan award in choreography and performance. In 2004, he was awarded a Bessie Schönberg Choreographers residency at The Yard and a Djerassi Resident Artist Program fellowship. He has a BA in anthropology from U.C. Berkeley, and an MFA in dance from Mills College. Navarrete co-directs Navarrete x Kajiyama Dance Theater and also teaches dance to youth in YBCA’s Young Artists at Work program. www.nkdancetheater.com
Photos: Top to bottom, left to right: Ralph Lemon's Come home Charley Patton (photo by Don Merlo); Shinichi Iova-Koga (Beth Martin); José Navarrete (Kallan Nishimoto); Catherine Galasso, Courtney Cooke and Ryan Eggensperger (Sean Carroll); Ralph Lemon (Frank Oudeman); Catherine Galasso (Andrea Basile), Shinichi Iova-Koga (Andy Mogg) and José Navarrete (Kallan Nishimoto).
Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
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