Funding for CHIME in the San Francisco Bay Area has been provided by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation, with additional support from The Fleishhacker Foundation, The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Harkness Fund for Dance, LEF Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation and generous individuals. Funding for CHIME in Southern California is provided by The James Irvine Foundation, with additional support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
CHIME in the San Francisco Bay Area 2012 Artist Profiles
Alex Ketley (Mentor) is an independent choreographer and the director of The Foundry. He has received acknowledgement for this work through the National Choo-San Goh Award, the inaugural Princess Grace Award for Choreography, the BNC National Choreographic Competition, the National Eben Demarest Award, two CHIME grants, two Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Residencies, as well as awards from the Hubbard Street 2 National Choreographic Competition and the International Choreographic Competition of the Festival des Arts de Saint-Saveaur. His work for AXIS Dance Company called To Color Me Different won an Isadora Duncan Award for Best Ensemble Performance and was performed on national television through an invitation from the show So You Think You Can Dance. In addition to his direction of The Foundry and his independent projects, in 2004 he helped create The San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, an organization where he still serves as an advisor, teacher, and the Resident Choreographer. www.alexketley.com
Maurya Kerr (Mentee) danced with Alonzo King LINES Ballet from 1994 – 2006. She is currently a freelance artist, a senior faculty member for the LINES Ballet Training Program and Summer Program, and adjunct faculty with the LINES/Dominican BFA program, teaching ballet, choreographing, and setting King's works. She also teaches workshops nationally, as a visiting guest artist at Hollins University and as faculty for The School at Jacob's Pillow's Contemporary Program. In 2010, Maurya founded tinypistol, a San Francisco based dance company. She is a winner of the 2011 Hubbard Street National Choreographic Competition, and will be creating a work on HS2 in early 2012. In 2011, Ballet Nouveau Colorado commissioned the creation of two works, Quarry Hymn, and Groundling, in collaboration with visual artist Sarah Wallace Scott. In June of 2011, the Aspen Fringe Festival presented a full evening of her work, including the commissioned premiere of BUCK, which was also performed in July 2011 as part of San Francisco WestWave Dance Festival's 20th Anniversary Gala. www.tinypistol.com
Ledoh (Mentor) is an internationally renowned multi-media performance artist. Ledoh trained in Japan under Butoh Master Katsura Kan (member of the radical 70's collective BYAAKOSHA), and has since electrified audiences around the globe for over 15 years with his riveting solo and ensemble performances. Born into the Ka-Ren hill tribe, Ledoh came to America at age 11 to escape the oppression of his people by the brutal dictatorship holding power in Burma. As Artistic Director of Salt Farm, Ledoh choreographs with a raw movement vocabulary and directs the production of sets, video art, and musical scores to create a vital, visceral brand of live theater and site-specific installations that can soothe then shock within the span of a timeless moment. www.ledoh.org
Erika Tsimbrovsky (Mentee) is the artistic director/choreographer of Avy K Productions, a company dedicated to exploring the interactions between diverse media through the framework of improvisational performance. As the five-year-old, San Francisco-based incarnation of Erika's and visual artist Vadim Puyandaev's 16-year collaboration, Avy K's signature "audio-visual-kinetic" approach brings together contemporary dance, live painting, evolving material installation, video projection and live music to create unique and vital performances. Notable among her recent works are The Garden (2007), presented at Stanford University and Noh Space; Scrap Soup (2008), premiered at Theater Artaud; Nocturnal Butterflies (2009), also at Theater Artaud; Full Moon Syndrome (2010), premiered at WestWave Dance Festival; The Book (2010), a series of performances culminating in an installation-performance at SOMArts Center in July 2011; and Rustling Silk (2011) presented by CounterPULSE as part of the Summer Special Program. www.avyk.org
Scott Wells (Mentor) discovered the pleasure of contact improvisation in 1981 shortly after becoming obsessed with the struggles of modern dance. He stuck with both and currently directs a company in San Francisco and tours annually to Europe. Wells has created works for skateboarders, for boxers and choreographed West Side Story for Sonoma State University. In 2005 and 2009, Scott received the Isadora Duncan Award for Best Choreography and was selected by Dance Magazine as “one of the 25 To Watch”. In 2011, Wells taught and performed in Moscow, Copenhagen, Berlin, Munich and created Babel with Goda Gabor which premiered in the Hungarian National Dance Theater in Budapest. www.scottwellsdance.com
Sebastian Grubb (Mentee) spent his childhood doing musical theatre. He became devoted to modern dance while completing a BA in philosophy at Whitman College. He has since studied a variety of dance forms and techniques, especially contemporary, contact improv, acrobatics and release technique. He recently became certified to teach Axis Syllabus, a biomechanics analysis system and method for teaching healthy movement to dancers. Based in San Francisco, he has toured nationally with AXIS Dance Company since 2009. He also freelances and runs a fitness training business. As a choreographer, Sebastian draws from his background in theatre, athletics and philosophy to create work that seeks to be beautiful, conceptual and a bit odd. In recent years, his choreographic work has been shown in Santa Cruz at the 418 Project and in the Bay Area at CounterPULSE, the Subterranean Arthouse, Brava Theater, Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, and The Garage. www.sebastiangrubb.com
CHIME in Southern California 2012 Artist Profiles
Stacy Dawson Stearns (Mentor) is Bessie Award-winning interdisciplinary performance artist, teacher and scholar investigating symbolic language and the sensory experience of subjective reality. Her work has been presented nationally at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, The Yard, PS 122 (NYC), Town Hall (NYC), MassMoCA, The Dance Place (D.C.), The Southern Theater (Minneapolis), RedCat (LA) and The Getty Villa (LA). A principal member of Big Dance Theater from 1993 – 2001, Stacy continues to collaborate with the company through video performance in their internationally acclaimed Commes Toujours Here I Stand, and choreography/ movement consultation for Supernatural Wife (premiered in December at BAM). Other creative collaborations include duet project, “The Outsiders” with Tim Cummings, David Neumann and his Advanced Beginner Group, and Blacklips Performance Cult. In 2012, Stacy is choreographing the finale for the National Theater of the United States of America’s piece, Chautauqua! at the Segertrom Art Center’s Off-Center Festival, Jan 12 – 14.
www.channelb4media.com/stacydawsonstearns.html
Gregory Barnett (Mentee) is a performance and visual artist in Los Angeles, California. Utilizing encoded imagery and gesture through mimetic choreography, comprehensive objectively ritualized criticisms of contemporary sex practices, and inherently kitschy americana-centered idealizations of suburban archetypes, Gregory and his interdisciplinary performing experiment, "DANCEGOOD.DAMNIT!!!”, have created various acclaimed works since 2006. His works include the evening neo-musical, DIE MUTHAFUCKAH DIE!!! (a eulogy) – an inevitably failed attempt towards accepting love's relentless persistence through the embodiment of pop culture love songs and amateur pornography; and I Will Reapply This Lipstick Until You Give Me A Reason Not To/(going to put a bow on it) – BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND – YOU LOOKED SO HAPPY., Barnett's five-hour solo exploiting Betty Hutton's biography and insufficient parameters. As a visual artist, Gregory is currently touring WHORACLE, a propaganda bomb focused on re-assimilating the Sacred Whore into Christianity.
Julie Tolentino's (Mentor) performance work is instigated by activism, care-giving, high profile organizing, and movement/installation/dance/endurance. Tolentino's projects have been presented since 1998 – including commissions and notable support from Tramway/QueerUpNorth, On The Boards, The Kitchen, Participant Inc., Spill Festival, In Transit, Pact Zollverein, L.A.C.E., amongst others. She leads international workshops in solo-making, yoga and alignment. She is a co-creator of PRAXIS Mohave Bootcamp for Performance Artists and initiated the Feral Gallery, and an annual performance series in Joshua Tree, California. She has worked with artists including David Rousseve/Reality, Ron Athey, Vaginal Davis, Ibrahim Quarishi, Catherine Opie/Rodarte, Meg Stuart, Amy Pivar, Sondra Loring, Margarita Guergue, Barbara Hammer, Stosh Fila, Tom Kalin, Art Positive, Gran Fury, Diamanda Galas. She is certified in Thai, Watsu, Eastern and integrated aquatic bodywork. Her work points to key inquiries around loss, relationship, sexuality, age, intimacy, love and longing. www.julietolentino.com
Jmy James Kidd (Mentee) works out of Pieter, her dance studio and performance space in Los Angeles (opened January 2010). She lived in NY for ten years where she danced for luciana achugar, Walter Dundervill, Neil Greenberg, Stanley Love, Nancy Meehan and Sarah Michelson. She started MGM Grand, a dance trio with Biba Bell and Paige Martin; AUNTS, a performance platform; and CLASSCLASSCLASS, an independent dance pedagogy organization.
Cheng-Chieh Yu (Mentor) began her performance career touring with Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan. Then residing in NYC from 1989 to 2001, she performed in the companies of Gus Solomons, Jose Limon, Bebe Miller, and as a guest artist for the Ralph Lemon Dance Project. Her choreography has been produced by numerous venues in NYC and LA, as well as internationally in China, Singapore, Germany and Taiwan. Choreographic commissions include from Movement Research, Danspace at St. Mark's Church (NYC), The Yard (Massachusetts), Beijing Modern Dance Co. and Guangdong Modern Dance Co. (China), Sun Shier Dance Theatre and Creative Society (Taiwan), and the Jumping Frames Dance Video Festival, (Hong Kong). She has received funding from City of LA/Cultural Affairs, the James Irvine Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Durfee Foundation, DTW Suitcase Fund, and the Cultural Council as well as the Arts and Culture Foundation of Taiwan. She is an Associate Professor of the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, UCLA. www.yudancetheatre.com
Sheetal Gandhi (Mentee) is an intercultural, multidisciplinary choreographer and performer. She creates work that is reflective of a life that embraces diversity, observes human experience, and yearns to tell a story. Gandhi's career has spanned genres and disciplines for the last 16 years and includes her work as a creator and performer in Cirque du Soleil's Dralion, and a leading role in the Broadway production of Bombay Dreams. She is currently touring her solo tour-de-force dance-theater work, Bahu-Beti-Biwi (Daughter-in-law, Daughter, Wife), which is being supported by an NDP Touring Award for 2012 – 2013. Recent honors include a 2011 L.A. Dance Advance Grant and the 2010 COLA Grant from the L.A. Department of Cultural Affairs. Her work has been presented at The Painted Bride (Philadelphia), The Maui Cultural Center and Kahilu Theater (Maui and Kona, HI), Grand Performances (Los Angeles), The Lab Theater (Minneapolis), Bijlmer ParkTheater (Amsterdam), Highways Performance Space (Los Angeles), The Joyce Soho (NYC), REDCAT (Los Angeles), Erasing Borders Festival (NYC), National Asian American Theater Festival (NYC), and more. www.sheetalgandhi.com
Photos (left to right, top to bottom): Erika Tsimbrovsky (photo by Aleksey Bochkovsky); Sebastian Grubb (David Papas); Maurya Kerr (photo by Marty Sohl, courtesy of Alonzo King LINES Ballet); Sheetal Gandhi (Chris Rady); Jmy James Kidd (Takahiro Yamamoto); Gregory Barnett (Mathu Andersen); Alex Ketley; Maurya Kerr (Alan Kimara Dixon); Ledoh; Erika Tsimbrovsky (Aleksey Bochkovsky); Scott Wells (David Papas); Sebastian Grubb; Stacy Dawson Stearns (Deirdre McGaw); Gregory Barnett (Mathu Andersen); Julie Tolentino (Peter Ross); Jmy James Kidd (Takahiro Yamamoto); Cheng-Chieh Yu (Monica Nouwens); and Sheetal Gandhi.
Margaret Jenkins Dance Company
149 – 9th Street, Suite 400
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 861-3940
