Tour Dates
February 3, 2006 7:00pm The Neurosciences Institute; La Jolla, CA
February 4, 2006 3:00pm The Neurosciences Institute; La Jolla, CA
March 17-18, 2006 8:00pm Bennington College; Bennington, VT
March 30-31, 2006 8:00pm Flynn Center for the Performing Arts; Burlington, VT
June 25, 2006 4:20pm New England Complex Systems Institute; Cambridge, MA
Artists
Direction: Susan Sgorbati
Special Assistance/Tour Coordination: Katie Martin
Musical Direction: Jake Meginsky
Lighting Design: Michael Giannitti
Costume Design: Amelia Powell
Visual Design: Jon Isherwood
Interactive Design: Paul Kyle
Graphic Design: Charlotte Sullivan
Photography: Paul Kyle, Jake Meginsky, Cynthia Locklin, Scott Barrow
Dancers: Carson Efird, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Katie Martin, Cori Olinghouse, Nicole Pope, Lionel Popkin, Zornitsa Stoyanova, and Keith Thompson
Musicians: Sean Mattio, Jake Meginsky, and John Truscinski
Contact Information
The Emergent Improvisation Project
c/o Susan Sgorbati
Bennington College, One College Drive, Bennington, VT 05201
802.440.4471
info@emergentimprovisation.org
Susan Sgorbati's Emergent Improvisation Project is a co-commissioning project by the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in partnership with Bennington College, The Neurosciences Institute, New England Complex Systems Institute, and the National Performance Network Creation Fund. The Creation Fund is sponsored by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, Altria, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). This work has received additional support from the Jerome Robbins Foundation, Bumper Foundation, and Bennington College.
EIP Artist Bios
Susan Sgorbati
Susan Sgorbati has been seriously investigating improvisation as performance for twenty years. For the last five years in collaboration with scientists, she has been exploring the relationship between dance and music improvisation and complex systems. Her work has led her to three residencies at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California under the tutelage of Dr. Gerald Edelman and a dialogue with Dr. Stuart Kauffman, who was in residence at Bennington College in the fall of 2004.
Susan Sgorbati is currently on the Dance Faculty at Bennington College, where she has been teaching since 1983. She created the improvisational ensemble, Materia Prima, which has performed at The Improvisation Festival in New York City, Improvised and Otherwise in Brooklyn, New York, and other venues in New England. She has done residency workshops with the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts for the last several years, and is indebted to them for their support of her new work. She is also a professional mediator, who mediates cases for the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, and the Vermont Human Rights Commission. She holds The Barbara and Lewis Jones Chair for Social Activism at Bennington College. In 1999, she created Quantum Leap, a program that reconnects at-risk youth to their education. She was recently awarded The 1st Annual David G. Rahr Community Service Award from The Vermont Community Foundation.
Carson Efird
Carson was born and raised in the Carolinas. After graduating from Bennington College in June 2005, she moved to Raleigh, NC. Carson currently teaches Yoga and works as a collaborative artist in the realms of dance, theater and design. Her choreography has been presented at the D.U.M.B.O Festival (Brooklyn), Danspace's Afterschool Series (NYC), and ACDFA's 2004 Gala (Smith College, MA). Carson has had the pleasure of working with Susan Sgorbati, Dana Reitz, Keith Thompson, Ann Carlson, and Jean Randich.
Michael Giannitti
Michael Giannitti designed lighting for August Wilson's play Joe Turner's Come and Gone on Broadway, as well as the pre-Broadway resident theatre tour. He has designed extensively at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Trinity Rep, Capital Rep, Shakespeare and Company, Weston Playhouse, and The Studio Theatre in Washington, where he was recently named resident lighting designer. He's also designed for Indiana Rep, George Street Playhouse, Jomandi, Yale Rep, Olney and other theatres. New York dance lighting credits include Dance Theatre Workshop, Danspace, The Joyce, The Kitchen, and P.S. 122 for works by Susan Rethorst, Everett Dance Theatre, Marta Renzi, and Cathy Weis; additional regional venues include the Spoleto Festival, Walker Art Center, Hopkins Center, Flynn Theatre, and Bates Dance Festival. Mr. Giannitti has been on the faculty at Bennington College since 1992, where he also is the production manager. As a Fulbright Senior Specialist Grant recipient, he taught at the National University of Art, Theatre and Cinema in Bucharest, Romania, and will be teaching at the New Zealand Drama School in summer 2006.
Jon Isherwood
Jon Isherwood’s work is widely exhibited in public museums and private galleries around the U.S., Europe, and Canada. He is the recipient of a Jerome Foundation Fellowship, a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of New York at Plattsburgh. Recent solo exhibitions include: the John Davis Gallery, New York; the Maiden Lane Exhibition Space, New York; the C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore; the Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum, Ohio; and the Sculpture Court in Southampton, New York.
In 2002, he was featured in an exhibition of 21st Century British Sculpture at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice. Group shows include: Art Omni Sculpture Park, Ghent, New York; the Derby City Museum, Derby, England; the Kunsthalle, Manhein, Germany; and Usdan Gallery at Bennington College. Reviews and articles include: The New York Times, The Washington Post, ArtNews, Sculpture Magazine, Partisan Reviews, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Baltimore Sun, and The Guardian, in England.
Jon received a B.A. from Canterbury College of Art, an M.F.A. from Syracuse University, and other studies at Leeds College of Art. Since 1999, he’s been a Core faculty member of Bennington College.
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko is a Philadelphia-based movement and literary artist currently creating interdisciplinary work that merges language, movement and video. He holds a BA from Bennington College with a concentration in dance, literature, and visual art. There, he studied under the prominent instruction of Terry Creach, Pooh Kaye, Dana Reitz, Keith Thompson, and Susan Sgorbati. He has performed in the choreographic works of various artists, including Ann Carlson, Yoshiko Chuma, Lisa Kraus, and Richard Seigal. Kosoko has shown his own dances and dance-films at Bennington College, Dance Theater Workshop, American Dance Festival, and Danspace at St. Mark's Church. Currently, he creates programming for inner-city youth as the North South Area Teen Outreach Specialist for the Free Library of Philadelphia. He spends his summers at the American Dance Festival working as an arts administrator.
Paul Kyle
Paul is an interactive designer and video artist living in North Bennington, VT. Paul has shown in New York City, Los Angeles, and Santa Cruz, CA, including shows at Jonathon Schorr Gallery and CBGB's 313 Gallery in NYC. Before his current role as Audio/Video Technician at Bennington College, Paul was Technical Director for Crush Digital Video and V.P. of Production for Zuma Digital, both in NYC. Paul contributed to the books Apple Pro Training Series: DVD Studio Pro 2 & 3 as Lesson Designer and DVD Architect. Paul was the designer and production lead for over 300 DVD Titles and documentaries, including Scream Box set, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and Jackass: The Box set. Paul is currently working on a long form video project using the Icelandic Eldar Edda poems as a source text.
Katie Martin
Katie Martin is a movement artist based in Vermont, working within the spheres of choreography, performance, and education. She’s had the pleasure of being a guest artist-in-residence at Bennington College, teaching dance and yoga, and continues to teach widely throughout New England and New York City.
Katie received her B.A. from Bennington College with a concentration in dance and complexity studies, studying under the auspices of Terry Creach, Dana Reitz, Susan Sgorbati, Peggy Florin, Keith Thompson, Eva Karczag, Pooh Kaye, and Felice Wolfzahn. She has danced in the works of such artists as Mark Dendy, Ann Carlson, Keith Thompson, Dana Reitz, Susan Rethorst, and Meg Wolfe. Her own work has been presented at various venues, including the 2003 d.u.m.b.o. Dance Festival (Brooklyn), as a finalist in the 2004 American College Dance Festival Gala Concert (Smith College, MA), Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church (NYC), the 2005 Improvised and Otherwise Festival (Brooklyn) with percussionist, Jake Meginsky, and at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts (Burlington, VT).
Alongside Sgorbati, Katie is currently engaged in research that investigates time-based art within the framework of natural, complex systems, out of which surfaced The Emergent Improvisation Project, a platform for research, teaching, and performance. Most recently, Katie performed at The Neurosciences Institute (La Jolla, CA), where she has been in residence the past two winters.
Sean Mattio
Sean Mattio is a Philadelphia-based drummer and bassist. His most recent projects included playing drums with The Sun Ra Arkestra and providing live beats for Rhandom, a Philadelphia-based hip-hop artist. In October, Sean began working with opera composer, Troy Herion, creating sounds both improvised and composed for video.
Jake Meginsky
Jake Meginsky’s work encompasses percussion, composition, dance accompaniment, and videography. Originally from Springfield, MA, he currently lives in Bennington, VT, where he is engaged in explorations involving compositional structures, music for movement, the representation of dance on video, and the performance of improvisation. His work in sound design and music for dance is fueled by the notion that music lives in the body.
For the past ten years, Jake has received training in various musical modalities under the auspices of Archie Shepp, Joe Platz, and Milford Graves. He has performed in a wide variety of venues all over the northeast, including Free 103 (Brooklyn), The Hook (Brooklyn), The Flywheel (Easthampton, MA), Mystery Train Records (Amherst, MA), Qville (Queens), Work in the Performance of Improvisation (Bennington College, VT), The Bread and Puppet Theatre (Boxer, VT), the 2005 Improvised and Otherwise Festival (Brooklyn), the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts (Burlington, VT), and The Neurosciences Institute (La Jolla, CA).
Currently, Jake teaches percussion at Bennington College, where he is pursuing an MFA. He frequently collaborates with Brooklyn-based percussionist John Truscinski in the Slaughterhouse Percussion Duo. Their recordings can be found on Open Mouth Records (Northampton, MA), Hells Half Halo (Seattle, WA), and Wooden Finger Records (Belgium).
Cori Olinghouse
Cori Olinghouse is originally from San Diego, California. She received a B.A. from Bennington College with a concentration in dance, film, and writing. A member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company since 2002, she performs and teaches with the company internationally. Recently, she assisted in the restaging of Set and Reset/Reset for the eDGE Dance Company at the London Contemporary Dance School and worked with Trisha Brown on the making of O Zlozony / O Composite for the Paris Opera Ballet. Olinghouse’s approach to dance is influenced by her study of the Alexander Technique and by her investigation of improvisational forms. Olinghouse has had an ongoing duet history in improvisation with Susan Sgorbati, and currently performs their duet, Binaries: Triumphs of Two, in New York City and New England. Olinghouse is also a film and video archivist for choreographer Cathy Weis and curator Jon Gartenberg of Gartenberg Media Enterprises, Inc.
Nicole Pope
Nicole received her B.A. from Bennington College in 2003. She now lives in New York City, where she is working on her own choreography and writing dance reviews for the Brooklyn Rail.
Lionel Popkin
Lionel Popkin is an independent choreographer and dancer. He has performed his own work in numerous US cities, as well as in Europe. In New York City, his choreography has been presented at such places as Danspace at St. Mark's Church and Dance Theater Workshop. Other cities where his work has been seen include Budapest, London, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle, and the Jacob's Pillow Festival's Inside/Out Series. He has danced in a number of companies, including those of Trisha Brown (2000-2003), Terry Creach (1996-2000), and Stephanie Skura (1992-1996). He continues to perform the role he originated in Winterreise as a guest with the Trisha Brown Company. He has served on the Faculty of Bates College, the Laban Centre, Sarah Lawrence College, Temple University, and UCLA and has taught master classes at numerous festivals and universities. He is currently on the faculty at the University of Maryland at College Park as a Visiting Artist.
Amelia Powell
Amelia Johnston Powell is a garment designer from San Juan Island off the coast of Washington state. Her parents, both artists, instilled in her the desire to find beauty in all things. During her childhood, she was active in local community theater, acting in and designing costumes. Ms. Powell combined her last two years of high school into one, after which, she traveled to Europe to broader her perspective of the visual world and begin learning French. In 2001, she enrolled at Bennington College, where she received a B.A. in Design and French in 2005. Recently Ms. Powell spent a month in Kenya living in a Maasai village, teaching at a school for homeless girls and studying the mixture of traditional dress and modern ready-to-wear apparel.
Ms. Powell has created solo collections of tutu designs, presented in a theatrical runway setting, but has found her interest to be in collaboration. She has designed for dance, theater and film with this in mind. She has recently completed her senior show, an evening-length collaboration with five other artists. Currently, she works as a freelance designer.
Zornitsa Stoyanova
Zornitsa Stoyanova was born and raised in Bulgaria. She started dancing at the age of fifteen and soon decided to pursue a degree in dance. This led her to Bennington College, where she discovered movement improvisation, among other styles of dance. Zornitsa has performed improvisation work in Hungary, Bulgaria, and the United States. In April 2005, her choreographic work was shown at Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church (NYC). She is currently a senior, expecting to graduate with a concentration in dance and sound design.
Charlotte Sullivan
Charlotte Sullivan is a junior at Bennington College in Vermont. She loves graphic design because it combines most, if not all, of her interests: problem solving, paying attention, collaboration, typography, books, seeing, imagination, and mass production. She wonders about design everyday and wants you to too.
Keith Thompson
Keith Thompson, born in Mississippi, began his performing arts training at the late age of 19 at Ohio State University. Mr. Thompson was a founding member of the modern and jazz repertory company Zenon Dance Company in Minneapolis. During his 8 years with Zenon, he created original roles with Bebe Miller, Doug Varone, Danny Buraczeski, Mark Dendy, Lynn Simonson, Victoria Marks, and Stephanie Skura, to name a few. Also during this time, Mr. Thompson served as both Scholarship Director and Rehearsal Director for Zenon, teaching all levels of modern and jazz classes within the Zenon School. Thompson was also a member of JAZZDANCE by Danny Buraczeski the last three years in Minneapolis before moving to New York City.
In 1991, Mr. Thompson moved to New York, where he branched out by working with Dan Wagoner & Dancers, Jacob’s Pillow Men Dancers, and Creach/Koester Company. He danced internationally for Trisha Brown Company from 1992-2001, served as Trisha’s Rehearsal Assistant from 1998-2001, and continues to represent TBC in the sharing of Technique and Repertory both at the Trisha Brown Studio in New York City, as well as festivals, schools, and workshops around the world. In early 2005, Mr. Thompson served as choreographic assistant to Dianne McIntyre on the choreodrama, Open the Door, Virginia, a Theater of the First Amendment production in Virginia.
Keith has continued to perform nationally and internationally as a dancer for Creach/Company; directed and choreographed Heiner Muller’s Hamletmachine; teaches beginning through professional master classes in Contemporary Technique for the International Dance Festival in Kyoto, Japan; was on faculty at the 2003 Florida Dance Festival; held workshops of technique and repertory at the Tanzwerkstatt Europa Festival in Munich; is on the summer faculty for the American Dance Festival; and is immersing himself in the creation of his own work globally. Mr. Thompson completed his MFA Research Fellowship in Dance from Bennington College in 2003. Keith has served on faculty at the Conservatory of Shenandoah University in Virginia and George Mason University in Virginia. Keith latest work was presented and selected for the 2005 American College Dance Festival Mid Atlantic Regions Gala performance. He currently serves as MFA faculty at Temple University in Philadelphia.
John Truscinski
John Truscinski is a Brooklyn, NYC based percussionist and sound engineer. A 1998 graduate of Emerson College in Media Arts, John has spent much of his time working as a sound engineer at Slaughterhouse Recording Studios in Hadley, MA. In recent years, he has recorded and performed extensively with Slaughterhouse Percussion Duo and x04, an improvised trio using prepared guitar and percussion instruments.