The evening will feature two music & dance improvisation duos: Jennifer Monson, dance & Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello, as advocators and highly-respected practitioners of improvisation over decades and Frank Rosaly, drums & Ayako Kato, dance, as the followers of the genre for the past decade. Through performance and post-show dialogue, the event releases questions to reaffirm unlimited potential of improvisation by revealing the complexity and simplicity of their approaches. They will present quartet in the end.
Lighting by Francesca Bourgault.
8 pm (door opens at 7:45 pm)
Fasseas White Box Theater @ The Drucker Center,
Menomonee Club for Boys and Girls map
1535 N. Dayton St. Chicago, IL 60642
(2 min. walk from CTA Red Line North/Clybourn Sta.)
Tickets: $12 General, $10 Students/Seniors, $20 Tickets for Two
Available at the door or Brown Paper Tickets
*Parking is available. Ask Menomonee front desk in case it’s full. Other location will be assigned.
Artists:
Jennifer Monson has been pursuing an original approach to experimental dance forms in NYC since 1983 when she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. In that time she has created a wide body of work that incorporates well-developed collaborative relationships with many artists including Zeena Parkins, DD Dorvillier, Yvonne Meier and David Zambrano. Her solo work has been presented at many venues in the US, Australia, Europe, Latin America and Tanzania. Major works years include The Pigeon Project (2000); The Glint (1998); Sender (1997); La Mer (1995); Tackle Rock (1993); and Ursa’s Door (1990). Her project BIRD BRAIN (2000-2006) includes the theatrical work Flight of Mind (2005) and four migratory tours: Gray Whales (Spring 2001); Ospreys (Fall 2002); Ducks and Geese (Spring 2004); and Northern Wheatears (Fall 2009). She recently completed iMAP/Ridgewood Reservoir, a year-long research and performance practice in an abandoned reservoir in NYC.? ?Monson has received several awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship (2003), a Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art Fellowship (1998), National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer’s Fellowships (1989, 1992, 1993-95, 1995-97), and the New York Foundation for the Arts Artists Fellowship (1989,1998). She has been awarded two New York Dance and Performance Awards (“BESSIE’s”) for Sender and for sustained achievement in the dance field in 1997 and for BIRD BRAIN in 2006. Monson is founder and artistic director of iLAND-interdisciplinary Laboratory of Art Nature and Dance. www.ilandart.org
Fred Lonberg-Holm is an improvisor and composer living in Chicago. Principle projects include his Valentine trio, Seval, Stirrup, and the Lightbox Orchestra. He is also a member of The Peter Broetzmann Chicago 10tet, Joe McPhee’s Survival Unit III, Friction Brothers and Fast Citizens. Improvisors he has worked with include Clare Cooper, Charlotte Hug, Andrea Neumann, Shelly Hirsch, Carrie Shull,Jaimie Branch, Carrie Biolo, Birgitte Uhler, Rachel Wadham, Mary Halverson, Joelle Leandre, Joanne Powers, Zeena Parkins, Judy Dunaway, Lotte Anker as well as a number of guys. He has recorded solo records for the Emanem and FlyingAspidistra labels. Over the years he has been credited for work on dozens of jazz, rock, pop, contemporary classical and country records, including those by The Boxhead Ensemble, Wilco, Freakwater, Vandermark 5, US Maple, Guillermo Gregorio, God Is My Co-Pilot, Anthony Coleman, Kaki King, Jim O’Rourke, Bobby Conn, The Flying Luttenbachers, ZU…http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fred-Lonberg-Holm/33236290444?ref=ts
Frank Rosaly, a drummer and composer currently living in Chicago, is a staple of the Free Music and Free Jazz scenes. Currently active in many projects throughout Chicago, as well as New York and in Europe, Rosaly has been navigating a fine line between the vibrant improvised music, indie-rock, experimental and jazz communities for the past decade. He contributes much of his time to performing with groups too numerous to mention in full, but have included Matana Robert’s Chicago Project, Rob Mazurek’s Mandarin Movie, The Rempis Percussion Quartet, Ingebrigt Haker-Flaten Quintet, Jeff Parker/Nels Cline Quartet, Josh Abrams Remindring, Fred Lonberg-Holm’s Valentine Trio, and performances with the likes of Ken Vandermark, Michael Zerang, Von Freeman, Peter Brotzmann, Anthony Coleman, and many, many others. While not attending to his national and international touring demands, Rosaly organizes the Ratchet Series, a weekly showcase of creative music at the Skylark in Chicago, and dedicates himself to his own compositions. www.frankrosaly.com
Ayako Kato is a dancer and choreographer who hails from Yokohama, Japan. Kato’s experimental dance aims at realizing the absence of absolute/the mare absolute moment of being through human anatomy, energy and image. She established Art Union Humanscape (AUH) with double bassist Jason Roebke in 1998 and has been collaborating with musicians and artists extensively in the U.S., Japan and Europe. In December 2011, she was selected as one of 14 indispensable female artists, The Dynamic Women of Chicago Dance in 2010 in Time Out Chicago. Fall 2010, AUH++, an expanded version of the group, performed in the opening program of Chicago Jazz Festival at Jay Pritzker Pavilion of Millennium Park. Summer 2010, Kato also premiered fifty-one minute dance-piano duo Dear BACH - Goldberg Variations with pianist Ayako Yoshioka in Tokyo, Japan. In 2009, her recent video collaboration, Maria’s List, was featured at WTTW Image Union and she was also selected for “People to Watch” in dance in Chicago Reader. She has been studying anatomy and Ideokinesis with Irene Dowd since winter 2007, largely supported by CAAP grant (2009 - 2011). Since fall 2010, she is an artist in residence at Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater as part of Chicago Moving Company’s Dance Shelter Program. She is an organizer of the dance series Dance Union, formally Epiphany Dance Experiment, since November 2008. www.artunionhumanscape.net
Dance Union is supported in part by Menomonee Club for Boys and Girls and Puffin Foundation.
Photo: Jennifer Monson by Alex Escalante, Fred Lonberg-Holm by Vanita Joe Monk, Frank Rosaly by Josh Tillinghast, Ayako Kato by Yuriko Ohkubo
