Wed, 8/24 Music & Dance Improvisation: drum, drum
Two drummers, Michael Zerang and Mike Reed, will collaborate with a dancer, Ayako Kato. The evening will exhibit the volume and varieties of percussive sounds and the manners of existence and coexistence through their cross-cultural and cross-generational beings.
7:30pm (door opens at 7:15 pm) Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater (Now air conditioned!), 3035 N Hoyne, Chicago, IL 60618
Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater is located on Damen and Barry (two blocks south from Belmont Ave.) CTA: Damen#50 Bus to Barry, or Belmont#77 Bus to Damen Ave.
Tickets: $12 General, $10 Students/Seniors, $20 Tickets for Two
Available at the door or Brown Paper Tickets
Artists:
Michael Zerang was born in Chicago, Illinois and is a first generation American of Assyrian decent. He has been a professional musician, composer, and producer since 1976, focusing extensively on improvised music, free jazz, contemporary composition, puppet theater, experimental theater, and international musical forms. He has collaborated extensively with contemporary theater, dance, and other multidisciplinary forms and has received three Joseph Jefferson Awards for Original Music Composition in Theater, in 1996, 1998, and 2000. He has over sixty titles in his discography and has toured nationally and internationally since 1981 with and ever-widening pool of collaborators. He was the artistic director of the Link’s Hall Performance Series from 1985-1989 where he produced over 300 concerts of jazz, traditional ethnic folk music, electronic music, and other forms of forward thinking music. He continued to produce concerts at Cafe Urbus Orbis from 1994-1996, and at his own space, The Candlestick Maker in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood, from 2001 - 2005. He has taught as a guest artist at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in performance technique, sound design, and sound/music as it relates to puppetry; rhythmic analysis for dancers at The Dance Center of Columbia College, Northwestern University, and MoMing Dance and Arts Center; courses in Composer - Choreographer Collaborations at Northwestern University; music to children at The Jane Adams Hull House. He has held workshops in improvisational music and percussion technique and teaches private lessons in rhythmic analysis, music composition, and percussion technique. http://www.michaelzerang.com
Drummer and composer Mike Reed was born in Biclefeld, Germany, in 1974 but spent most of his childhood growing up in Evanston, IL, just north of Chicago. Still based in Chicago, Reed has been a big part of that city’s vibrant jazz scene, playing with the Treehouse Project, the David Boykin Expanse, Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra, and the Josh Berman Quartet, among other groups, as well as leading his own bands Loose Assembly and Mike Reed’s People, Places & Things. He has been involved in numerous Chicago recording projects, while under his own name releasing In the Context Of in 2006, Last Year’s Ghost in 2007, and Proliferation and The Speed of Change in 2008, all on the 482 Music imprint. In 2001 he founded the Emerging Improvisers Organization, a nonprofit group that sponsors a weekly series of jazz and improvised music performances in the city. http://mikereedmusic.com/thinkingoutloud.cfm
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
Photo: Michael Zerang by Esther Cidoncha, Mike Reed by Jen Reel, Ayako Kato by Yuriko Ohkubo
Dance Union: Music & Dance Improvisation is the Chicago Moving Company Artists in Residence Project via Chicago Moving Company’s residence as Arts Partners (16th year) with the Chicago Park District at Hamlin Park.
Past Events:
Wed, 7/20, Solo x Solo
The evening will feature two pairs of music and dance improvisers’ collaboration. Viewers will experience how each pair merges its own piece into duo in the given 30 min time flame.
Performers are: Julia Mayer, dance & Christoph Erb, reeds (Lucerne, Switzerland); JulieAnn Graham & James Falzone, clarinet.
7:30pm (door opens at 7:15 pm) Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater, 3035 N Hoyne, Chicago, IL 60618
Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater is located on Damen and Barry (two blocks south from Belmont Ave.) CTA: Damen#50 Bus to Barry, or Belmont#77 Bus to Damen Ave.
Tickets: $12 General, $10 Students/Seniors, $20 Tickets for Two
Available at the door or Brown Paper Tickets
Artists:
Julia Mayer has taught and choreographed, as faculty and guest artist, at several colleges, universities and studios and in Chicago and the Midwest. She has presented her choreography at Links Hall, Hamlin Park, Glade Hall, the Chicago Cultural Center, Blue Rider Theatre, the Theatre Building, MoMing, Dance Chicago, Artemisia Gallery, and the Creative Re-Use Warehouse. A sought-after teacher, creative advisor and collaborative schemer, Julia has received several grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and is a 2007 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist. The Reader has called Julia’s work “refreshingly off the map.” And TimeOut Chicago said she “is possessed of a delicately luminous stage presence.” The Chicago Tribune called CoffeeDance, her groundbreaking series of Friday morning improvised performances which ran at Links Hall for 2 ½ years, “an evocative window into a dancer’s inner life.”
Christoph Erb is a tenor saxophone- and bass clarinet player, improviser and composer. He runs his own Label called veto-records. He lives in Lucerne, Switzerland. He won the “ZKB-jazz-prize” with his group erb_gut and was awarded of the culture prize of the city of Lucerne in 2006.
In 2009, he received a scholarship of the city and canton of Lucerne for a four month stay in Chicago. Erb leads his own bands: erb_gut, Veto, BigVeto and Lila. In addition to his work as a bandleader, Erb has performed and recorded with some of the most respected improvising musicians and composers in jazz and improvised music: Urs Leimgruber, Christy Doran, Christian Weber, HP- Pfammatter, Daniel Humair, Jim Baker, Michael Zerang, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jason Roebke, Josh Berman. He is also a frequent collaborator with dance artists; Irina Lorez and Veraisabella. He has toured in South America and Europe. www.erb.li
JulieAnn Graham has been dancing in Chicago for over 20 years. Her exploration has been purely focused on performing and teaching improvisation for 8 years. She teaches at Columbia College and Second City Training Center. She has had the great good fortune of working with Asimina Chremos, Julia Mayer, Carleen Healy, Ginger Farley and Julia Rae Antonick among many others over the years. She’s thrilled to be part of Dane Union!
Multi-faceted clarinetist/composer James Falzone is an acclaimed member of Chicago’s jazz and creative improvised music scene, a veteran contemporary music lecturer and clinician, the longtime Director of Music for Grace Chicago Church and an award-winning composer who has been commissioned by chamber groups and symphony orchestras among other institutions. In addition to directing his own ensembles Allos Musica and KLANG, his incredibly diverse career also includes sideman work in Tim Daisy?s chamber-jazz trio Vox Arcana and the French music ensemble Le Bon Vent. More information about James can be found at www.allosmusica.org
Dance Union: Music & Dance Improvisation is the Chicago Moving Company Artists in Residence Project via Chicago Moving Company’s residence as Arts Partners (16th year) with the Chicago Park District at Hamlin Park.
Photo by Julia Mayer by Mike Graham, Christoph Erb by Benny Meier, JulieAnn Graham by Michael Graham, James Falzone by Michael Jackson
Wed, 6/29, Long Run with Jim Baker, Piano
The evening will feature world wide known Jim Baker (piano) to improvise with four dancers: Rachel Bunting, Precious Jennings, Kelly Kane, Maggie Koller. As title shows, Baker will be the only one who plays music and he and four dancers will perform 45 min. to 60 min. He is one of the most respected and creatively tireless improvisers in Chicago’s music scene and dancers will elegantly and/or aggressively coexist with the sound environment.
7:30pm (door opens at 7:15 pm)
Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater
3035 N Hoyne, Chicago, IL 60618
Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater is located on Damen and Barry (two blocks south from Belmont Ave.) CTA: Damen#50 Bus to Barry, or Belmont#77 Bus to Damen Ave.
Tickets: $12 General, $10 Students/Seniors, $20 Tickets for Two
Available at the door or Brown Paper Tickets
Artists:
Jim Baker has been playing piano and/or synthesizer for a number of years, in & around Chicago and overseas. In addition to having performed as a soloist or as pianist or synthesist in a trio setting, he has performed and/or recorded in groups led by Fred Anderson, Mars Williams, Ken Vandermark, David Boykin, Nicole Mitchell, Michael Zerang, Damon Short, Edward Wilkerson Jr., Dave Rempis, Paul Hartsaw, Bill Brimfield, Keefe Jackson, Josh Berman, Jason Roebke, Mike Reed, Rob Mazurek, Joshua Abrams, Carol Genetti, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Janet Bean, Nicholas Tremulis, and various others. He currently plays with the Extraordinary Popular Delusions (a group whose archetypal configuration usually also involves Mars Williams, Brian Sandstrom, and Steve Hunt), who perform nearly every Monday evening around 9 pm (upstairs, above the bar; even if another band is playing in the main room) at Beat Kitchen, 2100 w Belmont, in Chicago.
Rachel Bunting is a 2001 graduate of Columbia College, Chicago. Since then, Rachel has formed a company named “The Humans.” The Humans are housed by the Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater, in which Rachel has been Artist-In-Residence since 2004. She is a proud recipient of four Illinois Arts Council Awards. In 2007, she was chosen as an Artist-In-Residence at the Canal Chapter Gallery in NYC where she spent five weeks creating an installation titled, “Let’s kill our sadness.” In 2008 Rachel was awarded a residency at The Atlantic Center for the Arts under the mentorship of Susan Marshall. In 2008, she performed her choreography at Judson Church in NYC. This duet was also a part of “The A.W.A.R.D. Show!” as well as a self-produced evening at Links Hall, Chicago. This year Rachel was chosen as a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist, and she is currently working on an evening length work.
Precious Jennings currently works with the Humans/Rachel Bunting and Chicago Moving Company (CMC). In 2010 she travelled to Mongolia with CMC and the Humans to perform, which was hosted my the Mongolian Arts Council. She has also performed with choreographer Julia Antonik and other local choreographers/artists in her ten years in Chicago. She is currently part of Columbia College of Chicago adjunct faculty in the theater department, is a graduate of Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, a practitioner of Thai Bodywork and teaches yoga and movement in Chicago Public Schools and Hamlin Park. She continues to integrate her dancing and teaching lives.
Kelly Kane hails from Minneapolis, MN, where she began her performing arts career appearing on such stages as The Guthrie Theater, Children’s Theater Company, and Chanhassen Dinner Theaters. While studying as a BFA Dance major at the University of Minnesota and at NYU-Tish School of the Arts, Kelly had the honor of performing works by such artists as Robert Battle, Ron K. Brown, Carl Flink, Gina Gibney, Linda Talcott-Lee, Morgan Thorson, and Karen Sherman, as well as having her own choreography presented at the American College Dance Festival in 2009. Since moving to Chicago, Kelly has been thrilled to be performing with The Humans, The Knot and Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape.
Photo: Kelly Kane by Matthew Hollis
Maggie Koller received interdisciplinary dance training at the Academy of Movement and Music in Oak Park, Illinois. She earned her BA from Beloit College with a double major in Dance and Psychology, graduating with departmental honors, Summa Cum Laude. Maggie is currently in her fifth season with The Dance COLEctive. She has also danced with several other Chicago-based companies, including The Space/Movement Project, for which she acted as co-director and CFO. Maggie is involved in an ongoing performance collaboration with musical artists, AM Brother. She also has a full-time position as a Lead Conceptualizer for Central Coast Agency, a creative think tank.
Photo: Maggie Koller by Amy Mokris
Dance Union: Music & Dance Improvisation is the Chicago Moving Company Artists in Residence Project via Chicago Moving Company’s residence as Arts Partners (16th year) with the Chicago Park District at Hamlin Park.
Music & Dance Improvisation Upcoming Performance:
Wed, 7/20 Solo x Solo
Julia Mayer (dance) x Christoph Erb (reeds), JulieAnn Graham (dance) x James Falzone (clarinet)
Wed, 8/24 drum, drum
Drums: Michael Zerang, Mike Reed; Dance: Ayako Kato
7:30 pm (door opens at 7:15 pm)
Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater, Hamlin Park Fieldhouse 2nd Floor, Chicago, 3035 N. Hoyne, Chicago, IL 60618
