INSTRUCTOR BIOS
iDfest 2010
Andrew Ward grew up in Berkeley and began dancing at Berkeley High School under the guidance of Linda Carr. He continued to dance at UC Berkeley while studying Peace and Conflict Studies. Andrew now dances with the Joe Goode Performance Group, Scott Wells and Dancers, and Erika Tsimbrovsky/Avy K Productions. More info on Scott Wells and Dancers: http://www.scottwellsdance.com/
Workshops: Fly Together
Sebastian Grubb spent his childhood doing musical theatre. He then received a B.A. from Whitman College where he began taking classes in modern and postmodern dance. Since then he has studied a variety of dance forms and techniques, including Contact Improvisation, free-form acrobatics, contemporary, and release technique. He is currently a candidate for certification to teach Axis Syllabus, a movement analysis system that champions biomechanical integrity and movement efficiency. He now lives in San Francisco and performs with AXIS Dance Company and Scott Wells & Dancers. He also freelances, teaches and creates his own work. More info on Scott Wells and Dancers: http://www.scottwellsdance.com/
Workshops: Fly Together
Rajendra Serber was born the same year as Contact Improvisation. He grew up wrestling as a playful and loving practice. Starting with his father, who was a national wrestling champion in Argentina. Before he could even walk he was being rolled and flung around. Since that time he has studied a variety of physical forms: Contact Improvisation, Cuningham Technique, Release Technique, Butoh, Alexander Technique, Astanga Yoga, and Tai Chi with teachers Anna Halprin, Nita Little, Kathleen Hermsdoff, Simone Forte, Oguri, Akira Kasi, Viola Farber, Daniel Lepkoff… and many others.
Recently Rajendra has been focusing on making choreography for film. In 2009 he was awarded the DANCE MOViES Commissions and was a resident at San Francisco Film Society’s FilmHouse. He was a 2008 recipient of the Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange award. As a dancer Rajendra has had the privilege of collaborating with many wonderful artists, including: The Residents, Scott Wells, Sara Shelton Mann, Ilaan Egeland, Jon Weaver, Kimiko Guthrie and Eric Kupers of Dandelion Dancetheater. More info on Scott Wells and Dancers: http://www.scottwellsdance.com/
Workshops: Sense and Structure / The Point of Contact
Zack Bernstein was first introduced to Contact Improv jamming at 848 Divisidero in his native San Francisco in the late 1990s. Contact was required training for the performance group Capacitor, which he co-founded in 1998, touring around the US and abroad to critical acclaim. Zack speaks several languages and has traveled extensively, performing in Europe, Asia, and South America. Inspiring contact experiences and events include: CI36, Las Brusquitas, Contato no Rio, and WCCIF. He currently performs with Scott Wells and teaches at the SF Circus School, Counterpulse, Studio Valencia, the Thursday Jam in Berkeley, and Ecstatic Dance in Oakland. More info on Scott Wells and Dancers: http://www.scottwellsdance.com/
Workshops: Sense and Structure
Charlie Morrissey has been working as a performer, director, teacher and researcher for 20 years internationally from his base in Brighton in the UK. He creates large and small-scale site specific and theatre and gallery based performance work using set and improvised materials in a variety of contexts. His work in improvisation is influenced by long term working relationships with Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson, Kirstie Simson, Scott Smith, K. J. Holmes and many others. He often works in groups with some of the above and others to research approaches to improvisation and instant composition.
The group Body of Truth includes K. J. Holmes, Henry Montes, Christoph Lechner, Kate Brown, Scott Smith. He also works in regular workgroups brought together by Lisa Nelson across Europe to explore Tuning Scores. He was instrumental in establishing Movement 12 – a group of dance artists who curate a program of workshops, classes, salon evenings and a variety of other events which offer different context for artists to come together to stimulate debate and explore research in the field of dance. He is currently touring an improvised trio Moving Men with Adrian Russi and Jean-Hugues Miredin, which has been performed in Bern, Rotterdam, Freiburg, Brighton, Rome and later in the year in Warsaw. He is also currently working with Siobhan Davies Dance in London on the creation of a new work. You can find out more about Charlie on his website at www.charliemorrissey.com
Workshops: See Feel Do: The Human Instruments of Composition
Stefan Fabry has started modern dance in Germany in the early 90s following his early martial arts training. He has been practicing teaching and performing Contact Improvisation for 17 years, studied and performed with Rudy Perez and company for over a decade until January 2009 when he shifted his attention completely onto fulltime professional Tango - which he has been practicing, teaching and performing for now almost 6 years. Together with his partner Mitra Martin he has founded Oxygen Tango - the only all-Tango school in LA with an extensive and holistic approach to teaching, and the mission to promote tango as a force for good in the world. More info on Oxygen Tango: http://www.oxygentango.com/
Workshops: Argentine Men’s Club: The Ultimate Discipline of Improvisation
Rudy Perez's career has encompassed early training with the giants of modern dance, the birth of the postmodern dance movement, and the creation of a large body of vital work. He is an active and influential choreographer and teacher based in Los Angeles, California, recognized in 2005 with the Lester Horton Lifetime Achievement Award and an Honorary Doctorate from California Institute for the Arts (CalArts) in 2006.
Perez's career began in New York, working various day jobs and studying dance at night with Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Mary Anthony, and others. His breakthrough solos in the 1960's with the Judson Dance Theater - whose members included Lucinda Childs, Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton and Yvonne Rainer - helped launch the postmodern movement in dance. During that time, he studied with dance therapist Marian Chase and practiced dance therapy at Bellevue Hospital.
From 1968-1978 he was a Resident Artist in Dance at Marymount Manhattan College. After a year's residency at UCLA, Perez relocated to the West Coast. Since 1978, he has established his position as a master teacher and choreographer in Los Angeles. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowships, the prestigious Irvine Fellowship in Dance, The Pasadena Arts Commission Grant, and Lester Horton Awards for Performance (1992) and Teaching (1997), to name a few.
The Los Angeles Music Center/Bilingual Foundation honored him in 1992 with the !Viva Los Artistas! Performing Arts Award for distinguished Latino artists. The same year, he received an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from the Otis Institute of Art and Design. Perez was on the dance faculty at Los Angeles High School for the Arts for ten years (1992 - 2002), and continues to teach classes at the West Side Academy of Dance in Santa Monica.
The Art of Rudy Perez, performed at the Luckman Arts Complex/CSULA in 2001, was applauded as "Performance of the Year" by Los Angeles Times dance critic Lewis Segal. Countdown: Reflections on a Life in Dance, a documentary on Rudy Perez's life and work, by Severo and Rachel Perez (no relation), was premiered at MOCA/Museum of Contemporary Art on November 21, 2004, and is being broadcast nationally on PBS. Countdown was also screened at the ADF International Festival of Film and Video Dance in 2005 in Durham, North Carolina; in 2006 at the Museum of Latin America Art/Long Beach; and for Dance Camera West at REDCAT in Los Angeles. In fall 2005, Rudy Perez mounted Shifts (Lingering in Spaces with Past Happiness), his 2003 group work, for the Lula Washington Dance Theater, which was presented at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. University of Southern California's Special Collections recently acquired the archives of Rudy Perez, which also reside in part at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in New York City. More info on Rudy Perez Performance Ensemble: http://rudyperezdance.org/
Workshops: Creative Process
Jones Welsh is a performer, administrator, and arts activist. He received his degree in theatre and dance and from the University of Washington in 2000, then founded 501(c)3 performing arts organization Making Faces Productions (www.makingfacesproductions.org), which co-produces the annual LA Improv Dance Festival and the Somatic Movement Arts Festival. Completing five years with Diavolo Dance Theatre, he now collaborates with Collage Dance Theatre, Invertigo Dance Theatre, Intention Dance Theatre, Not Man Apart Physical Theatre Ensemble, Keith Glassman and Dancers and devises original performances with co-director Erin Schlabach in their new company: Leonix Movement Theatre Ensemble (www.leonixtheatre.org). In addition to teaching athletic modern dance at Cal State LA and UCLA, Jones is also the Adult Program Manager at Broadway Gymnastics School and teaches Contact Improvisation and Dance workshops across the globe.
Workshops: Music & Dance Collaboration Workshop
Will Salmon's work has been on the borders of music, dance, and drama, with improvisation a key element. Most of his work has been with the group that he leads, Open Gate Theatre, but he has also danced with Los Angeles Dance Theatre, Mieko Fuji Dance Theatre, and Auricle Ensemble. He has created music for dance with URDT, Dance LA, and he has accompanied for dance and created music for performances at Cal Arts, Loyola, University of Utah, and LACHSFA. He has improvised on an ongoing basis with several musicians for many years including Alex Cline, Vinny Golia, Bruce Fowler, and Brad Dutz. He performs on flute, and voice with an expanded sound vocabulary, as well as on recorders, keyboards, and percussion. Full Length works he has created in Open Gate include the dance theatre pieces "Night Spirit", "Lightbreaking"; the operas (with extensive dance) "Orestia", "Orphic Ritual", and "Atsumori", and the musical/dance plays "Dionysus in Hell", "Pinocchio", and "Noman's Return". He has co-curated a music series Open Gate Sunday Series with Alex Cline for the last twelve years. This series, mostly improvisation, was awarded Jazz Venue of the year by L.A.Weekly. More info on Open Gate Theatre: http://opengatetheatre.blogspot.com/
Workshops: Music & Dance Collaboration Workshop
The Platt Brothers: Cy, Boone, and Cheetah Platt grew up in Redwood Valley, California, and began performing while still quite young. Their performing lives took them on individual paths toward the stage, and eventually they teamed up to create their own unique Platt Brothers show in 2004. Their success has been swift as audiences flock to see their fresh look at family comedy and entertainment.
The Platt Brothers’ first united effort came with the creation of a movement piece for a show in Lake Tahoe. The success of this first collaboration inspired them to go on to write a full-length Christmas show, which also met with critical acclaim. With their confidence bolstered, the Platts set about expanding their repertoire and building their show piece by piece, until they had a full-length, all-original show. It premiered at the University of California San Diego in the spring of 2007. The overwhelming response to The Platt Brothers convinced them to perform it at the nationally renowned arts festival Reno is Artown that same summer. The Platts played to a standing-room-only audience and took their bows to a standing ovation. Since then, the Platts’ shows have earned rave reviews and established The Platt Brothers as one of the premier family-friendly acts on tour today.
When they are not on the road performing, the Platts spend their time teaching their craft. Working as gymnastics coaches, dance teachers, choreographers, circus instructors, and theater consultants, the Platts cannot share their love of the stage enough. More info on The Platt Brothers: http://theplattbrothers.com/
Workshops: Parnter Acrobatics and Silliness