Collaborators

48nord

Composers/Musicians - Symptoms of Development 2007, UNIT IN REACTION 2009

Founded in 1998 48nord has an international reputation as a pioneer in experimental electro-acoustic music. Siegfried Rössert (e- and double bass, live-electronics, composition) and Ulrich Müller (guitar, live-electronics, composition) explore the tension field between improvisation and composition. Their work is a fusion of acoustic instruments and electronic sound-generation and sound-processing. 48nord appears not only as a duo but also collaborates with internationally renowned musicians and composes experimental radiophonic works as well as music for theatre and ballet pieces.

Since 2003 the group has collaborated with the American trombone player and electronic musician George Lewis. Together they appeared at the "Sounds Like Now" festival at La MaMa ETC and composed the radiophonic work "Terminus" for Deutschlandradio Berlin. In 2005 they appeared as a trio together with "Tortoise" guitar player Jeff Parker. 48nord has been collaborating with the choreographer Jacopo Godani since 2006.

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

Choreographer - Orbo Novo 2009

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's first experience as a choreographer was with the ‘contemporary musical' Anonymous Society, director Andrew Wale's salute to the music of Jacques Brel. Cherkaoui also danced in this production for which he won several awards including the Fringe First Award and the Total Theatre Award in Edinburgh, and the Barclay Theatre award in London.  

Rien de Rien, Cherkaoui's first choreography as a member of Les Ballets C. de la B. artistic team, toured Europe in 2000 and won the Special Prize at the BITEF Festival in Belgrade. He worked on this production with singer and dancer Damien Jalet, who introduced him to Italian folk songs and went on to have a great influence on his later creations. The six dancers in Rien de Rien, whose ages ranged from sixteen to sixty, have a thorough command of as many different dance styles and techniques: from classical ballet through salon dance to the hand gestures we all make when we speak. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui regards them all as equally valuable sources for a contemporary dance language. This eclecticism fits in very neatly with a theme that is close to his heart: equality between individuals, cultures, languages and means of expression. Rien de Rien went on a marathon tour and also won him the Promising Choreograph prize at the Nijinski Awards in Monte Carlo in 2002.

That year Larbi and Nienke Reehorst also led a workshop for mentally disabled actors at Theater Stap in Turnhout, which led to the production Ook. This collaboration was a revelation. The individuality, directness, empathy and stamina of the Stap actors taught Larbi more about what it takes to be a ‘performer' than all his previous professional experience together. At that point Stap actor Marc Wagemans joined the group of kindred spirits who have accompanied Cherkaoui through his career.  

In July 2002 he took part in Le Vif du Sujet in Avignon, dancing in It, a Wim Vandekeybus production. Inspired by a short story by Paul Bowles, It is a dance solo in which the very specific languages of movement of both choreographers merge. "Cherkaoui pulls out all the stops. His body seems to have been uprooted and is inaccessible. When his foot touches the back of his head, it is as if the upper part of his body doesn't know there is also a lower part. The body fights with itself, juggles with the air between his hands, twists itself into a thousand curves." (from ‘De Standaard', EVC, 19/07/02). 

In the autumn of 2002 he and Damien Jalet and a number of dancers from the Sasha Waltz company created D'avant for the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin, which combines medieval songs from the thirteenth century and contemporary dance. D'Avant is a highly physical production, which succeeds in coupling lightness and relativization with important social phenomena such as fanaticism, physical violence and moral apathy in a mosaic of styles. This production is so close to the performers' heart that it is a permanent part of the repertoire.  

2003 saw him storm Europe with the much-acclaimed Foi, which revolved around the nature an power of belief - and went on to win the Movimentos Dance Prize in Germany. At the request of the Festival d'Avignon, in July 2004 Larbi presented a new project with Les Ballets C. de la B. Entitled Tempus Fugit, the piece calls into question the apparent absoluteness of time. People the world over seem to use the same concepts of time, but time is experienced and interpreted in different ways in different cultures. In Tempus Fugit an ensemble of fifteen performers from just about every corner of the world explored their own cultural past. Each of them tried to take control of time, which took the form of diverse dance rhythms and speeds. Tempus Fugit focused on the Mediterranean, the Arab and Central African worlds and on their mutual relationships.

In December 2004 Cherkaoui made In Memoriam at Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, and for the Ballet du Grand Théatre de Genève he choreographed Loin, which was premièred in April 2005. 

In 2005 Larbi worked with Akram Khan for the first time. Akram Khan is also a dancer and choreographer with dual ‘roots': the son of Bangladeshi parents, he grew up in England. Together Cherkaoui and Khan created and danced the production Zero Degrees about the effect of their mixed cultural backgrounds.  Zero Degrees was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award in 2006, and went on to win two Helpman Awards in Australia in 2007. For België danst, a special nationalwide edition of Bal Moderne staged out in the open air in twelve Belgian cities simultaneously on July 16th 2005, Sidi Larbi worked with Damien Jalet to create a new choreography, Ik hou van jou/je t'aime tu sais, to music by Noordkaap and Marie Daulne. Corpus Bach followed in the spring of 2006 in which Larbi and Nicolas Vladyslav explored the theatrical effect of Bach's cello suites. The spring of 2006 took Larbi back to Monte Carlo, where he made a new creation for Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, Mea Culpa (premièred in April 2006). In August 2006 his new creation End, made for the Cullberg Ballet, had its première at the Gothenburg Dance and Theatre Festival. The piece, made during the fighting between Israel and Hezbolah in Lebanon, clearly bears marks of the geopolitical realities that paralleled its gestation. 

2006 also saw Larbi shift base back to his hometown, Antwerp: Guy Cassiers, the newly appointed director of the prestigious Het Toneelhuis theatre invited him to step on board as associate artist. Rehearsals on Myth, Larbi's first production with Toneelhuis and one of the most encyclopaedic pieces in his repertoire, began almost immediately. 

Myth would open in June 2007 but before that, audiences at the impressive new opera house in Copenhagen were to discover L'homme de bois, Larbi's ballet for eighteen dancers from the Royal Danish Ballet to music by Stravinsky (May 2007). Furthermore, at the request of the Cité nationale de l'histoire de l'immigration, a museum in Paris, Larbi and photographer/film-maker Gilles Delmas created  La Zon Mai, an extraordinary three-dimensional video installation in the shape of a house filled with footage of dancers who reveal themselves through dance in the privacy of their homes. 

Larbi accepted Guy Cassiers' invitation to join all the other Toneelhuis artists in making a site-specific project in Antwerp's Bourla theatre, based on A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters in April 2007. September 2007 brought the première of Apocrifu (Apocrypha) commissioned by La Monnaie in Brussels. Apocrifu is a musical encounter with the Corsican a capella polyphonic singing of A Filetta. The group's music provides the backdrop for Larbi's new creation in which he also dances. The title is telling: a concise but key scene from Apocrifu (in which the three dancers take it in turns as three-headed monsters to read aloud from the Talmud, the Koran and the Bible) makes it clear that the difference between apocryphal and canonical is more a question of perspective or authority than of content or value. In this way Larbi treats in a light-hearted manner a broader theme that has been with him for a long time: the intrinsic equality of different cultures and religious viewpoints. 

That theme returns in Origine, his second piece  for Toneelhuis, one in which he brings two male and two female dancers - all from different parts of the world - together with the Sarband Ensemble (première February 2008). Again Larbi chooses an unusual approach to the musical tradition and with that music he provides the leitmotif for a choreography that subtly examines topical political issues. Light-heartedly but unmistakably he touches on themes like immigration, alienation, and our excessive consumerism before abandoning them to an increasingly abstract dance vocabulary. 

Sutra, Sidi Larbi's brand-new project in collaboration with Antony  Gormley, Szymon Broska and monks from the Shaolin Temple  in China, has been produced by Sadler's Wells where it had its world premiere here in May 2008 before touring in Europe through the 2008 - 2009 season. The piece has fetched him a nomination in the Best Choreographer (Modern) category at the 2009 National Dance Awards in Britain.

He will soon return to his study of the notion and confusion of god in humanity's mindscape, of man's quest for the divine with work on BABEL, the third chapter of the trilogy that began with FOI and continued in MYTH.

In August 2008, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui received the title of Outstanding Choreographer of the Year by Ballet Tanz - the European dance journal - and its committee of forty dance critics from all over Europe for his work across 2007-2008. In February 2009, he received the Kairos European Cultural Prize endowed by the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung, lauded by the jury " because he raises fundamental questions about human existence through movement and because of the connections he makes between elements of different cultures".

 

Paolo Aralla

Composer - memory/measure 2008

Paolo Aralla was born in Lecce (Italy) in 1960. He studied symphonic-choral repertoire with Marcel Couraud and composition with Franco Donatoni.

He has won several awards in international competitions for composition including: Gaudeamus in Amsterdam (first prize - 1990) and selection by the Reading Committee of The Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris (1997). He has also received commissions from the Arturo Toscanini Foundation in Parma, the Teatro Comunale in Bologna and the Miller Theatre in New York.

His music has been performed in numerous cities and venues including: Amsterdam, Bologna (Teatro Comunale), Paris (Cité de la Musique), London, Milan (Milano Musica), New York, Palermo (Spasimo), Parma (Teatro Farnese), Tokyo, Rome (Foro Italico), Turin, Salzburg, Siena (Accademia Chigiana) and Venice (Biennale Musica). He teaches Composition at the music Conservatory in Bologna.

He composed the music for several of Luca Veggetti's works: Silence/Text, "O" - new version, Ensemble for Somnabulists, Four/Voice, Play for Dancer, Memory/Measure.

Nancy Haeyung Bae

Costume Designer - 3 Thursdays 2006, Glassy Essence 2008

Born and raised in New York and educated at Parsons School of Design, Nancy previously designed costumes at different levels for Alvin Ailey Workshop '99. She was creative director for Devo, a men's active foundation line using seamless technology; designed at DKNY, and is currently designer for a women's collection at Easel here in NYC. Nancy's interest in modern dance, combined with her technical knowledge of 7th Avenue fashion training, brought her to work with Pouffer at CEDAR LAKE.

Szymon Brzóska

Composer - Orbo Novo 2009

This young Polish composer, who also holds a Master in Arts diploma from the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Music Academy in Poznan (where Miros?aw Bukowski was his professor), has already attracted considerable attention among professionals of classical and contemporary music:  his works have been performed in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Poland; in 2003, his Antiphona Beatae Mariae Virginis was chosen by the Polish chamber choir Schola Cantorum Gedanensis for their concert at the Festival of Sacred Music Maria Auxilium Christianorum in Rumia; and  in 2004, he won both the 3^rd prize at the Adam Didur Composition Competiton in Sanok (Poland) for Czarna ró?a (The Black Rose), song for tenor and piano with words by Zbigniew Herbert  and the 2^nd prize in the Composition Competition for Choral Passion Song in Bydgoszcz (Poland) for Vexilla Regis Prodeunt. 

Recently awarded a postgraduate diploma in composition from the Royal Flemish Conservatory in Antwerp, Szymon Brzóska trained under the baton of Luc Van Hove he has also attended workshops directed by Marek Stachowski, Tapio Tuomela, Remigijus Merkelys, Toivo Tulev and Peteris Plakidis between 2000 and 2004.

In 2006, his 6 miniatures for cello and piano was chosen for the workshop with the prestigious Belgian Prometheus Ensemble and he also counted among the selected few at the competition for composition of the music @venture 2007 festival in Antwerp, which commissioned him to create a piece for the Belgian ensemble Solisti del Vento premiered in October during the 2007 edition of the festival. 

Mr. Brzóska is particularly interested in the synergy between music and other arts, such as contemporary dance, theatre and cinema. He has participated in soundtracks for several film and theatre projects in Poland, and his composition for the Original Motion Picture soundtrack for the French film Le bruit des gens autour, directed by Diastème and produced by Cipango Productions will be heard at a special pre-screening at Festival d'Avignon before the commercial release in Europe in September.

Miriam Buether

Costume Designer, Set Designer - frame of view 2009

Miriam trained in costume design at Akademie für Kostüm Design in Hamburg and in theatre design at Central Saint Martins. She was the overall winner of the 1999 Linbury Prize. 

Design Credits for Theatre and Dance (set and costume)

The Good Soul Of Szechuan (Young Vic); Cinderella (Göteborg Opera Ballet Company); Hartstocht (Introdans, Netherlands); Sacrifice (costume only) (Welsh National Opera); The Bacchae, (National Theatre of Scotland, Edinburgh Festival Theatre,  Lyric Hammersmith); Relocated, My Child, The Wonderful World of Dissocia, Way to Heaven (Royal Court Theatre); Generations (Young Vic); Red Demon by Hideki Noda (Young Vic, Japan); The Bee written and directed by Hideki Noda (Soho Theatre, Japan); Long Time Dead, pool (no water) (Theatre Royal Plymouth); Realism (National Theatre of Scotland); Unprotected (Traverse/ Liverpool Everyman Liverpool); Trade (RSC and Soho Theatre); Tenderhooks (Canadian National Ballet); Guantanamo Honor Bound to Defend Freedom (Tricycle Theatre, West End and transfers New York and San Francisco).

Stijn Celis

Choreographer - Rite 2008

Belgian choreographer and set designer Stijn Celis was born in 1964. Until 1997 he danced in com-panies such as the Royal Ballet of Flanders, the Zürich Ballet, Le Ballet du Grand Théâtre in Geneva and the Cullberg Ballet. In 1996 he created "L'odeur de l'ombre" for L'Association de Danse Contemporaine and in 1997,"UBILOZ Vanilla" for the Cullberg Ballet. In a survey of critics, Ballet International named him "most promising young choreographer for 2001". In 2002-2003 he created various works for the Cullberg Ballet, Ballet Gulbenkian, Bern Ballet and he created "Noces" for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal. In addition to creating the full-length ballet "The Lost Shoe" (Cinderella) for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, Stijn Celis staged works for the Cullberg Ballet, Iceland Dance Company and IT Dansa. He is the former Artistic Director of Bern Ballet. He has created ballets for the Cullberg Ballet, Ballet Gulbenkian, Bern Ballet, Ballet Mainz, Ballet Wiesbaden and Ballet Nürnberg. He has worked as a set-designer for Didy Veldman and has assisted Jan Verzweyveld in many opera and theatre productions.

 

Isabelle Lhoas

Costume Designer - Orbo Novo 2009

Isabelle Lhoas studied art history at the University of Liege, Belgium and haute couture and modeling at ESMOD in Paris.

In 1989 she returned to Brussels, where she began a full-time collaboration with Wim Vandekeybus and his international dance/theatre company, Ultima Vez. Her collaboration of styling, art direction and scenic design with Vandekeybus is ongoing.

Her work with Ultima Vez, has allowed her to travel the world and learn three languages, Dutch, Flemish, and English in addition to her mother-tongue French.
In 1992, her creation for the Ultima Vez production of "Immer das selbe gelogen" received first prize at the Arte Povera Festival in Torino and was later used by Dries Van Noten for one of his catwalks.

In 1996 while continuing to work with Vandekeybus, Lhoasbegan freelance collaborations with Iztok Kovac (Slovenia), Carmello Fernandez (Spain), Roberto Olivan (Spain), Francois Brice (France), Alexandra Bachzetsis (Greece), Douglas Becker (USA), Ted Stoffer (USA), Michelle Demey (Belgium) and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Belgium).

Her work has been seen in the repertoires of Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve, Ballet de Nancy, Cullberg Ballet, as well as, Guy Cassiers' opera "Rage d'amour" for Nederlands Opera Festival and Richard Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman" for La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels.

Gordon Cobb

Composer - 4 Flights Down 2006

lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. He studied music at the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University, and the London College of Music and Media in England, graduating with distinction from the Masters of Music program in Composition for New Media. Gordon's work has been performed most recently at the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of the New York City Ballet. More information about Gordon's work can be found at www.cobbhousestudio.com.

Leanne Darling

Violinist - Momentary Play 2005

As composer/performer, violist Leanne Darling bridges classical, jazz, blues, and Arabic musical genres to create groundbreaking compositions for viola, electronics, voice and dance. She has recently performed with poets Robert Bly and Clarissa Pinkola Estes at the Omega Institute, and with virtuoso oudist Simon Shaheen and the Near East Ensemble in Carnegie Hall. Her music has been featured at the New York Viola Society's biannual concerts, at the Omega Institute's Women and Power Conference, and interpreting works of art at the Florence Griswold Museum. Collaborations include premieres with the Aynsley VandenBroucke Movement Group, a site-specific dance piece with award-winning choreographer Ann Robideaux, and as a member of Storahtelling, a Jewish ritual theatre company that tours nationally.When not composing and performing, she teaches workshops in improvisation for strings, privately and at Op.118 Harlem School of Music, founded by Roberta Guaspari.

Alexander Dodge

Scenic Designer - 3 Thursdays installation 2006, Glassy Essence installation 2008, Orbo Novo 2009

Broadway: Butley w/Nathan Lane, Hedda Gabler w/Kate Burton.  Off-Broadway: The Water’s Edge (Second Stage), Measure for Pleasure (Public), Observe the Sons of Ulster…(Lortel Award) and Chaucer in Rome (both Lincoln Center), The Downtown Plays (Tribeca Theater Festival), and Force Continuum and Sexual Perversity in Chicago(Atlantic). Opera: (all sets and costumes) Il Trittico (Berlin), Der Waffenschmied (Munich), Der fliegende Holländer (Würzburg), and Lohengrin (Budapest). Mr. Dodge is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. 

Marija Djordjevic

Costume Designer - Lasting Imprint 2006

The road that lead her to The Cedar Lake passed through several countries and many, many theatres and projects. The list of the shows grows longer, but her favorites include Mushroom in Her Hands a new play by Anne Phelan for which Marija received a NY Innovative Theatre Award nomination, Siddhartha for Berkshire Theatre Festival, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and so on. In 2004, Marija was the recipient of USITT’s Young Designer’s Award for Excellence in Costume Design. She is a graduate of the prestigious University of Arts in her native Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

Brad Fields

Lighting Designer - Lasting Imprint 2006

Born in Greensboro, NC, Brad Fields has worked in over 20 countries lighting all areas of the performing arts. Recently he has designed the lighting for Nicolo Fonte‚ RE:Tchaikovsky and Follia for Goteborg OperaBallet. For the past ten years he has served as the lighting director for American Ballet Theatre where he has designed numerous ballets including Coppelia, Dorian, Kaleidoscope, La Fille Mal Garde, Within You Without You: A Tribute to George Harrison, and workwithinwork. Mr. Fields frequently works in Spain for Compania Nacional de Danza where he has designed the lighting for Nacho Duato's Arcangelo, Bach:Multiplicity, Castrati, Diecisite, Dreams of Ether, Herrumbre, Ofrenda de Sombras, Remanso, and Without Words. Other credits include Suzanne Farrell‚Äôs staging of Balanchine‚ Don Quixote for the Kennedy Center, Robert Hill Danzon for Ballet de Monterrey, Natalia Makarova's La BayadeÃÅre for the Australian Ballet and Bella Lewitzky's Meta 4 for the Lewitzky DanceCompany. He has also designed for Ballet Argentina, Ballet Basel, BostonBallet, San Francisco Ballet, Royal Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Houston Ballet, Netherlands Dance Theatre, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Los Angeles Chamber Ballet, North Carolina Black Repertory Company and North Carolina Dance Theater. He is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts. This is Mr. Fields' first design for Cedar Lake.

Nicolo Fonte

Choreographer - Lasting Imprint 2006

was born in Brooklyn, New York and started dancing at the age of 14. He studied at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York as well as at the San Francisco Ballet and New York City Ballet Schools while completing a Bachelor Degree of Fine Arts at SUNY Purchase. Upon graduation he danced with Peridance in NYC and later joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal, dancing in the works of Balanchine, Tudor, Kudelka and Spaniard Nacho Duato. Fonte subsequently joined Duato’s Compañia Nacional de Danza in Madrid and forged a strong identity in the spanish company for seven years – for both his dancing and his choreography. “En los Segundos Ocultos” (“In Hidden Seconds”), one of three ballets Fonte made for the Spanish company, was hailed as a breakthrough work of great impact with the poetic vision of a mature artist and indeed this ballet established his presence on the European dance scene.

In 2000 Fonte retired from performing to devote himself full-time to his choreographic career. Since that time he has created or staged his ballets for The Dutch National Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Stuttgart Ballet, The Australian Ballet, The Göteborg Ballet, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, The Washington Ballet, Ballett Mainz, Ballett Nürnberg, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, TANZ Ensemble Cathy Sharp, North Carolina Dance Theatre, Tulsa Ballet, Ballet British Columbia and Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal.

Fonte received a Choo San Goh award for his 2002 collaboration with The Pacific Northwest Ballet, “Almost Tango”, of which R.M.Campbell of the Seattle Post- Intelligencer wrote, “Fonte is a thinker, an architect who creates the new rather than reinvent the old. He is a master of manipulating space and creating relationships” “Almost Tango” was also voted as one of Dance Europe’s “Best Premiere”s when it was re-staged for The Australian Ballet in 2004.

From 2002 to 2006 Nicolo enjoyed an ongoing creative partnership with The Göteborg Ballet in Sweden, creating and staging numerous works that helped establish the company’s distinct profile. While in Göteborg he created his first full-length ballet, based on the life of Tchaikovsky, which was widely acclaimed in the international press for Fonte’s marriage of rare narrative skill and thoroughly contemporary choreographic language. “Re: Tchaikovsky” appeared on the “Best of 2005” lists of both Ballett International and Dance Europe. Fonte has also played an important role in the ongoing development of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet as one of that company’s most popular guest choreographers. To date he has created five highly successful works for ASFB that have toured throughout the US and overseas – Jack Anderson, writing in The New York Times called Fonte “a choreographer worth knowing” when the company presented “Left Unsaid” at The Joyce Theater in 2005. ASFB continues to invest in their relationship with Nicolo Fonte with a planned sixth collaboration set for July of 2008.

Other upcoming projects include creations for The Australian Ballet (to music by the renowned Australian composer Ross Edwards written expressly for the choreographer), Ballet West, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo and once again for The Dutch National Ballet.

Stephen Galloway

Costume Designer - The Copier 2008

An accomplished dancer and designer American Stephen Galloway was a principal dancer with choreographer William Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet from 1986-2004 and in 1990 was appointed head costume designer/style coordinator for the German based company. In his short career Mr. Galloway has been the Art Director for fashion houses such as Issey Miyake and has staged fashion shows for Yves Saint Laurent, Costume National, Versace and Miyake. He has been a creative consultant and choreographer for the Rolling Stones’s world tours and music videos since 1997. His costume work has been seen internationally in productions by American Ballet Theater, The Paris Opera, La Scala Opera and many film opera and television projects across europe and the Far East. Mr. Galloway often collaborates with artists and photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin on editorial and fashion campaigns for Haper’s Bazaar,French, American and German Vogue, V and W Magazines, Calvin Klein and Gucci. He has been awarded a Bessie, a Sir Laaurence Olivier and a Nijinsky Award for his work as a dancer and costume designer with the Frankfurt Ballet. He released his first music CD “from this day on” in 2002, the follow up “THE RETURN OF LUBRIOUS” is set to drop in late fall 2009. He is also the editor of BRAVE! An innovative quarterly published in Germany release spring 2009.

Jodie Gates

Choreographer - Momentary Play 2005

professional dance career began at sixteen, dancing with the Joffrey Ballet in New York City under the direction of Robert Joffrey, marking the beginning of a fourteen-year career at the company. Gates joined the Pennsylvania Ballet in 1995 as a principal ballerina, performing title roles in numerous full-length classical ballets, as well as dancing leading roles in many works by George Balanchine. In 2000, Gates joined William Forsythe's company in Frankfurt, Germany, where she danced for five years before returning to the United States to pursue her choreographic and directing career. She continues to stage Forsythe's ballets nationally and internationally.

Gates has just returned from touring internationally. Most recently, she was invited to dance in a gala performance with the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia. She has been featured in two PBS Great Performances series and in other television events, including a special performance at the White House and an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She has also appeared in several commercial and video works. Most notably, Gates was featured on video as "the woman in red" in The Joffrey Ballet's Billboards, a full-length rock ballet set to music by the artist Prince.

Her recent choreographic credits include: now and again, premiered at the Joyce Theater and created for Ballet NY in 2005; Three at a Time for Laguna Dance Theater in 2005; In the Arms of Morpheus for the Phrenic New Ballet in Philadelphia 2004; Somewhere/In-Between, created for Ballet Pacifica in 2003; Por Ti, choreographed for American Ballet Theatre's summer workshop in 2003; and an original work for Pennsylvania Ballet dancers in 2000. She has also participated in workshop format with the Joffrey Ballet and Ballett Frankfurt. Gates is the artistic director for the annual caDance Festival in Laguna Beach, California. 

Jacopo Godani

Choreographer - Symptoms of Development 2007, UNIT IN REACTION 2009

Italian-born, dancer-choreographer Jacopo Godani began studying classical ballet and modern dance techniques in 1984 at the Centro studi Danza of La Spezia under the direction of Loredana Rovagna. He also pursued studies in the visual arts at the Fine Arts High School of Carrara. In 1986, Godani was accepted to further his studies at Maurice Bejart's international dance centre, Mudra in Bruxelles, Belgium.

Jacopo Godani made his professional debut in 1988 performing with several Paris based contemporary dance companies. As a dancer, Godani has worked with a range of international choreographers. In 1990, Godani formed his own Bruxelles-based company and began his choreographic career. His work in Bruxelles was produced by the theatre Atelier Saint'Anne and was supported by the arts festival Bruxelles Centra(a)l and the Plateau theatre.

From 1991 to 2000, Godani has been a leading soloist with William Forsythe's Ballett Frankfurt and has collaborated with Forsythe on the choreographic creation of many Ballett Frankfurt's most representative pieces. Godani developed his career as a choreographer creating original works for a vast range of international companies. www.godani.com

According to Valentina Bonelli (Vogue Italy, September 2005), "Jacopo Godani is considered to be one of the most demanded choreographers at the present moment. At 38 years old, he already has behind him a very important career and in front, a packed agenda for the next three years.

 

 

Jill Johnson

Choreographer - The Copier 2008

Dancer Jill Johnson’s fusion of classical purity with modern physical grace has brought her to stages around the globe. A graduate of the National Ballet School, Ms. Johnson was a soloist with The National Ballet of Canada and principal dancer with Ballet Frankfurt. A close collaborator of William Forsythe, she stages his ballets on companies worldwide, including The Norwegian National Ballet, State Opera Ballet Munich, Paris Opera Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Italy’s Alterballetto, Netherlands Dans Theater, Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company, The National Ballet of Canada and American Ballet Theatre. Ms. Johnson has created her own work including Four for the Juilliard School, and also choreographs for film and television, notably a series of dance film shorts for Bravo arts channel in Canada. Recently commissioned to design and lead a dance workshop series at the Baryshnikov Center, she has a residency teaching open, master workshops at Cedar Lake. Ms. Johnson is adjunct faculty at the Juilliard School, teaches at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, The Alvin Ailey School, and will begin a residency at The New School’s Eugene Lang College in the spring of 2009. She lives in New York City.

Junghyun Georgia Lee

Costume Designer - Between Here & Now 2006, Hammer 2006, Vastav 2007, 10 Duets on a Theme of Rescue 2008, Sunday, Again 2008, Set Design - Hammer 2006

was born and raised in South Korea and started her career as a scenic and costume designer in Canada. Now she is based in New York working on various projects across US. She has designed productions at Center Stage, Syracuse Stage, Actors Theater of Louisville, Williamstown Theater Festival, American Players Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Berkshire Theater Festival, Juilliard and Yale Rep. She is holding MFA in Design from Yale School of Drama and is also a contributing writer for Korean Theater Artists Association.

Adam Larsen

Projection Designer - Seed 2005, Momentary Play 2005, Mortal Coil 2005, Between Here & Now 2006, Hammer 2006, 3 Thursdays 2006

Adam Larsen is a New York based artist, projection designer and filmmaker. Projection designs include: Hal Prince's, LoveMusik (Broadway); the world premieres of The Women of Brewster Place (Alliance Theatre & Arena Stage) and Christmas Carol 1941(Arena Stage) both directed by Molly Smith; Carmina Burana and projection coordinator for Dancing Joni (Alberta Ballet); From the House of the Dead (Canadian Opera Company); Lily Plants a Garden (Mark Taper P.L.A.Y.); Gorecki's Symphony No.3 (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra); numerous productions with both Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet and the Fulton Opera House including the world premiere of The French Lieutenant's Woman; and most recently big a collaboration between the Atlanta Ballet and Big Boi from Outkast. Adam holds a BFA in Cinematography from the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Edwaard Liang

Choreographer - Mortal Coil 2005

 a noted dancer as well as a choreographer, has been invited to create a new work for Cedar Lake's inaugural fall season. "Cedar Lake is not just about dance. It's about theater, experimentation, pushing the boundaries, and tapping in to the emotions of the dancers and the audience," says Liang.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Liang was raised in Marin County, California, and began his ballet training at the age of five at the Marin Ballet. In 1989, he entered the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of the New York City Ballet. Liang joined the New York City Ballet in the spring of 1993, and that same year he was a winner of the Prix de Lausanne competition and the Mae L. Wien Award. He was promoted to soloist in November 1998.

He danced with the NYCB until 2001, when he joined the Broadway cast of Fosse, performing a leading role. In 2001, 2002, and 2004, Liang danced as a guest artist with Complexions, where his repertory included numerous ballets by artistic director Dwight Rhoden. In 2003, he became a member of Nederlands Dans Theater 1, where his repertory included ballets by Mats Ek, Johan Inger, Paul Lightfoot and Hans van Manen. In the spring of 2004, Liang returned to the New York City Ballet as a soloist. With the New York City Ballet, he originated featured roles in Peter Martins's Harmonielehre and Christopher Wheeldon After the Rain, Mercurial Manoeuvres and Polyphonia.

Liang has been featured in The New York City Ballet Workout book and its accompanying video, and Richard Corman's book of photographs, titled Glory. His television appearances include the nationally televised PBS Great Performances broadcast Dance in America: From Broadway: Fosse, which has subsequently been made into a DVD. In 2003, he choreographed a pas de deux titled Flight of Angels for a Nederlands Dans Theater 1 workshop, which has since been staged for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and Configurations. For Configurations, in 2004, he created the ballet Mixed Nuts, set to music by Erik Satie as well as music by Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin. In March 2005, Liang created Distant Cries, a pas de deux set to the music of Tomaso Albinoni and danced by NYCB principal dancers Peter Boal and Wendy Whelan.

Timothy R. Mackabee

Set Designer - Seed 2005

Previously with CEDAR LAKE: RAW and Beyond The Red (National Tour). NY Credits: Gorilla Man (PS 122), Between Worlds, Armless (Best Overall Production/2004 Fringe), Foreign Affairs (Workshop Theatre Co.), Winter's Tale (Sonnet Rep), Those Who Can, Do (Clubbed Thumb), The House of Bernarda Alba (Prospect Theatre Co.). Regional: The Story (Philadelphia Theatre Co.). Associate/Assistant Designer on Broadway for Ring of Fire, 'night, Mother, Frozen, Wonderful Town and Little Women. Assistant Off-Broadway for Here Lies Jenny (Zipper/National Tour), Drumstruck (Dodger Stages), and productions at New York Theatre Workshop, The Public, Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club, Signature Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, Classic Stage Company, Primary Stages, Second Stage and the Vineyard. Four (long) seasons with the Williamstown Theatre Festival. BFA: North Carolina School of the Arts.

Emily Molnar

Choreographer - 4 Flights Down 2006

Named as one of Canada's "new generation of ballet sensations" (MacLean's Magazine), Emily Molnar is drawing attention to her work as a choreographer and solo artist. Molnar is a graduate of the National Ballet School and a former member of the National Ballet of Canada; Frankfurt Ballet, where she created and performed an extensive repertoire under director William Forsythe; and most recently a principal dancer with Ballet British Columbia. Molnar has toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia, Mexico, Canada and the United States, participating in numerous Festivals and Galas, notably the Montpellier Dance Festival, Holland Dance Festival, Festival de Nouvelle Danse, Cervantino Festival, The Canada Dance Festival and The New Music Festival.

Since 1998 Molnar has created and performed several works as a choreographer and solo artist. Recent works include LifeLines, a full-length evening collaboration with Gioconda Barbuto and Michael Slobodian; Swivel Fields for Ballet Augsburg; Utterance for Ballet Mannheim; Carmina Burana, for Alberta Ballet with an industrial set design, new video, live orchestra and chorus; 4 Flights down, for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (New York City); a solo evening SubSilence; Etudes Pour Piano, a duet with pianist Corey Hamm to the music of György Ligeti; and Portrait of a Suspended Grace, a work for seven men, for Alberta Ballet. In September 2005 Molnar was invited to participate in The New York City Choreographic Institute where she worked with dancers from The New York City Ballet.

In the fall of 2008 Molnar premiered Six Fold Illuminate, a new commission for Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company for their season at Sadler’s Wells (London) and City Centre (NYC). As well she created As for It Now, for Pro Arte Danza (Toronto) and performed with Robert Glumbeck in a new duet, We will..., choreographed by Kevin O’Day (Artistic Director, Ballet Mannheim).

Molnar has worked closely with mentor Margie Gillis through her own solo work, in performing Gillis’ Speak and M.Body.7, and in collaborating on Breathing in Bird Bones. In 2003, Molnar was named Artist in Residence at Arts Umbrella, where she also acts as Rehearsal Director for the Apprentice Dance Company. Molnar is an active mentor, movement coach and creative process teacher, work in which she follows her passions to educate, support the research and development of dance and explore the role of the artist in society.

Roderick Murray

Lighting Designer - memory/measure 2008

Roderick Murray's Lighting designs have been seen nationally and internationally since 1992, through the works of many choreographers, performance artists and theater events. He has been working for over six years with the renowned dancer Kimberly Bartosik in the creation of her own highly-aclaimed choreographic works. Also he has had the great pleasure to collaborate with Benjamin Millepied on nearly all of his choreographic productions with such companies as American Ballet Theater and Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve in such international venues as Maison de la Danse, Sadler's Wells, Grand Theatre de Geneve, and locally at Florence Gould Hall and the Joyce Theater. Future work will include a piece at the Paris Opera. In addition, Murray as worked on seven major projects with choreographer Wally Cardona which have been seen at such venues as BAM and the Joyce Theater and in such cities as Cannes, Portland OR, Montreal, London and Budapest. Murray is indebted to Cardona with whom he received a Bessie award for his lighting design of Trance Territory.

He is also excited about his recent collaboration with the dance artist Luca Veggetti, described as "medieval darkness." Together they have created performances in New York at the Joyce Theater, the Miller Theater and the Guggenheim Museum. They have upcoming performances planned for the opera, Oresteia by Xenakis at the Miller Theater and a new work for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. Murray has also had the good fortune to have collaborated with the incredibly inspired artist Ralph Lemon on the final part of his epic trilogy The Geography Project.

Finally, he is grateful to have worked with many other artists and choreographers including Yanira Castro, Sekou Sundiata, Andonis Fiondakis, Paradigm Dance, Dusan Tynek, Scotty Heron, Pepatian, Hot Mouth, Donna Uchizono, Ricohet Dance, Risa Jaroslow & Dancers, Bill Young and Dancers, Kriota Willburg, and many others. Murray has toured extensively as the production manager for such companies as Tharp!, Lucinda Childs, John Jasperse and Neil Greenberg. Prior to dedicating himself full time to design, he performed for nine years with the award winning Circus Amok. He is inspired by his beautiful wife and their incredible baby daughter.  

Ohad Naharin

Choreographer - Decadance 2007

A citizen of both Israel and the United States, Ohad Naharin began his formal dance training with the Tel Aviv-based Batsheva Dance Company. He came to New York at the invitation of Martha Graham to join her company and continued his studies at the Juilliard School of Music and the School of American Ballet. After performing in Europe with Maurice Béjart, he returned to New York, where he made his choreographic debut at the Kazuko Hirabayashi Studio, where he studied and worked with Maggie Black, David Gordon, Gina Buntz and Billy Siegenfeld. With his wife Mari Kajiwara (1951-2001), Naharin made his home in New York City until returning to Israel, where he has been artistic director of the Batsheva Dance Company since 1990.

His works have been staged by many companies around the world, including the Nederlands Dans Theater, Frankfurt Ballet, Opéra National de Paris, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Sydney Dance Company, Lyon Opera Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Rambert Dance, Balé da Cidade de São Paulo and Bavarian State Ballet. Naharin is the winner of two "Bessie" awards and in1998 was awarded the "Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" by the French government.

 

 

Ben Ormerod

Lighting Designer - frame of view 2009

Ben’s many collaborations with Didy Veldman include Cinderella (Gothenburg); See Blue Through, Tender Hooks, Outsight (all Ballet Gulbenkian); I Remember Red (Cullberg Ballet) and A Streetcar Named Desire (NBT). Other dance credits include Sophiatou Kossoko’s Ibi L'ohun (Brest), The Journey (Candoco) and Christopher Bruce’s God's Plenty (Rambert Dance).

He has also lit operas for Opera North, Scottish Opera and most recently La traviata for English National Opera. Theatre work includes productions in Sydney, New York, Toronto, Greece and Denmark as well as productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre and many shows in London’s West End, including the Gypsy Kings musical Zorro!

Work in NY includes Rose Rage (Duke); The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Walter Kerr); and frequent visits to BAM with Propeller.

Ben has lit the Calico Museum in Ahmedabad, directed Fugard’s Dimetos (Gate Theatre, London), and created a stage adaptation of four films from Kieslowski’s Dekalog (E15).

website: www.benormerod.com

Gilles Papain

Video Design - Symptoms of Development 2006, Glassy Essence 2008

Gilles Papain was born in Marseille, France. He was the stage manager of Opera de Marseille until 1999. In 2000, he joined the Ballets de Monte-Carlo, as the artistic stage manager. He travelled with the company around the world and worked on international stages in Europe, the USA, Mexico, Canada, Japan and Russia. There he also began making films that are included in the scenography of Maillot's ballets, such as :"Œil pour Œil", "La Belle", "Men's Dance", "D'une rive à l'autre", "Miniatures", "Le Songe"...

Following this path, he soon has other proposals which led him to start his own independant company. His projects have included:

With Jacopo Godani : "Beyonders" Ballets de Monte-Carlo (Monaco and Venice - Italy); "Elemental"  bayerisches staatsballett (Munich, Germany); "Symptoms of Development" for the Nederlands Dans Theater (Den Haag - Nederlands) and Cedar Lake, (New York, NY - USA).
With Denis Caïozzi : "Carmen", "La Boheme", "Don Carlos", "Lucia de Lamermoor" for Les Chorégies d'Orange, France (Orange - France); "Humain dites-vous" Claude Brumachon, Avignon Festival, (Avignon - France); "La Dame de Pique" Roland Petit, Bolchoï (Moscow - Russia).
"Love"  Le Cirque du Soleil : 3D images and QTVR film (Montréal, Canada).
"Allem nah, allem fern" Heinz Spoerli (Zurich, Switzerland) and the Companhia nacional do bailaido e danca (Lisbon - Portugal).
"Tannhäuser" Beat Wyrsch and Roland Aeschlimann (Münster - Germany).
With Charles Roubaud : "Aïda" & "Il Trovatore" Les Chorégies d'Orange (Orange - France); "Die Walküre" for the Opéra de Marseille (Marseille - France).
"One Love" Brian Burke, production Franco Dragone (Las Vegas, NV - USA).
"Othello" Franco Dragone (Mons - Belgium).
"Faust" Jean-Christophe Maillot, Ballets de Monte-Carlo (Monaco).
"Catherine Lara" Director Giuliano Peparini, production Dragone. (French tour)
"Glassy essence" Benoit-Swan Pouffer, Cedar Lake (New-York, NY - USA).
"Cenerentola" Spotelo Festival (Charleston, SC - USA).
"Mayumana" new show Director Giuliano Peparini (World Tour)

Future collaborations include :
"Il Barbiere di Sivigla" Director Adriano Sinivia ( Lausane - Switzerland)
"Amadis" Director Olivier Benezech ( Avignon - France)
"World of Color" Disneyland (Anaheim, CA - USA).

David Poe

Composer - The Copier 2008

David Poe is a songwriter, musician, and composer for film.  He has released and three studio albums:  his eponymous debut (Sony/550), produced by T-Bone Burnett, The Late Album (Sony/Epic), and Love Is Red (Universal), and produced recordings for other artists, including Regina Spektor and Kraig Jarret Johnson. Musical side projects include an "electronic super hero band from the future" called The Rabbit, and an ongoing collaboration with fellow songwriter Duncan Sheik. Poe's score for the forthcoming film Capers and his next solo effort are slated for 2008 release.  www.davidpoe.com

Angelin Preljocaj

Choreographer - Annonciation 2008

Artistic director of the Ballet Preljocaj - National Choreographic Centre, has been living and working in Aix-en-Provence France since 1996.

Born in 1957 of Albanian parents who had immigrated to Paris, he began his career by studying classical dance before turning to contemporary dance with Karin Waehner at the Schola Cantorum.  After studying with Merce Cunningham in New York (1980), he joined the Quentin Rouiller Company in Caen and then worked at the National Contemporary Dance Center of Angers, at that time directed by Viola Farber.

In 1982, he was hired by Dominique Bagouet as a dancer for his company in Montpellier. Angelin Preljocaj made his debut as a choreographer by creating “Aventures Coloniales” with Michel Kélémenis, a successful duet presented at the Montpellier Festival in July, 1984.  In December 1984, Angelin Preljocaj decided to venture out on his own and presented “Marché Noir” at the Concours de Bagnolet, obtaining France's "Ministry of Culture" award. He then founded his own company in Champigny-sur-Marne and created “Larmes Blanches” in 1985, “A Nos Héros” in 1986 and “Le Petit Napperon Bouge” in 1987.

This same year, Angelin Preljocaj obtained the "Villa Medicis hors les Murs" award and left for Japan to study Noh. Upon returning he created “Hallali Romée” for the Festival d’Avignon, the Biennale Nationale de Danse du Val-de-Marne and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, followed by “Liqueurs de Chair,” a piece co-produced by the Théâtre de la Ville (1988) while in residency at the CNDC (National Choreographic Dance Center) in Angers.

In 1990, he created “Amer America” for the Biennale de la Dance in Lyon, and then a futuristic comic book version of Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet,” with the participation of Enki Bilal, for the Lyon Opera Ballet (1990). His residency at the Théâtre National de la Danse et de l’Image (TNDI) in Châteauvallon led to the creation of “Le Peau du Monde” in 1992. This same year, he received the Grand Prix National de la Danse from  the Ministry of Culture. He was invited with his company to the Palais Garnier to present a tribute to the Ballets Russes (1993), composed of reinterpretations of “Parade,”” Le Spectre de la Rose” and “Noces.”

The following year, Brigitte Lefèvre invited him to create Le Parc for the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris, with selections chosen from Mozart. In 1995, he created “Petit Essai sur le Temps qui Passe,” followed by “L’Anoure” (based on the original libretto by Pascal Quignard) and “Firebird” for the Munich Ballet. He received the “Benoit de la Danse” award for “Le Parc” at the Bolshoï in Moscow.In 1996, his company settled in Aix-en-Provence where he restaged “Romeo and Juliet.” This same year, several ballets staged a number of his pieces in their repertoires: The Monte-Carlo Ballets  (“Le Spectre de la Rose”), the Tuscany Ballet in Italy (“Liqueurs de Chair”) and The Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris (“Annonciation”).

1997 was a double hit in New York: the company presented “Annonciation,”” Le Spectre de la Rose” and “Noces” at the Joyce Theatre and Angelin Preljocaj was invited by Peter Martins, director of the New York City Ballet, to create a ballet for his dancers for the Diamond Project: “La Stravaganza.”  He received the  "Bessie" Award for “Annonciation” and the "Victoires de la Musique" award for "Romeo and Juliet." That same year, while creating “Paysage Après la Bataille” for his own company at the Festival d’Avignon, the Ballet of Nancy restaged “Larmes Blanches” and the Helsinki Ballet “Le Spectre de la Rose.”  In 1998, already Officier des Arts et des Lettres Angelin was named Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.  This same year, he restaged “Le Parc” for the Berlin Deutscher Opera and created “Casanova” for the Opéra National de Paris. He presented “Centaures,” adaptation of a duet from “La Peau du monde,” at the Maison des Arts de Créteil for the Biennale Nationale de Danse du Val-de-Marne. “Le Spectre de la Rose” was restaged by the Municipal Ballet of Rio de Janeiro.  In 1999, he created “Personne N’épouse les Méduses” at the Festival d’Avignon and received the  Grand prix International de Vidéodanse for Le Parc. The Ballet Gulbenkian of Lisbon and the Finnish National Ballet restaged Noces.  In 2000, during the reign of virtual and synthesed imagery and the implosion of dance, he created “Portraits in Corpore,” a choreographic installation which establishes a dialogue between the bodies of the dancers and their image. He pursued this approach in 2001 with his creations “MC 14/22 (Ceci est mon corps)” and “Helikopter.”  In May 2001 he created “The Rite of Spring,” a Franco-German co-production joining the dancers of the Ballet Preljocaj with those of the Berlin Staatsoper, with Daniel Barenboïm directing Igor Stravinsky’s famous score.  In 2002, “Annonciation” was restaged by La Scala in Milan and "Noces" by the ABC Dance Company of St Pölten in Austria. In 2003, he directed the film  “Annonciation,” inspired by the piece created in 1995, and created “Near life Experience” with the music of the French electronic band Air.  In 2004, he created “Empty Moves” (Part I) for the Biennale Nationale de Danse du Val de Marne and, the same year, “N,” in collaboration with Kurt Hentschläger and Ulf Langheinrich of the group Granular Synthesis, presented at the Festival Perspectives of Saarebrücken, at the Theatre de l’Olivier in Istres and at the Festival Montpellierdanse. This same year, the Ballet of Lorraine performed “La Stravaganza,” the Nederlands Dans Theater “Noces”, the São Paulo Balé de Cidade “Liqueurs de Chair” and the Ballet d’Ankara “Le Spectre de la Rose.”  In 2004 he restaged “MC 14/22” and created “Le Songe de Medee” for the Opera de Paris National Ballet.  In 2005 he created “Les 4 Saisons,” in collaboration with Fabrice Hyber. The Ballet of La Scala Milan restaged “La Stravaganza.”  In 2006 Preljocaj created the choreography for the opera “Grendel” by Elliot Goldenthal, staged by Julie Taymor for the Los Angeles Opera. This same year “Noces,” a major work from his repertoire was restaged and presented alongside “Empty Moves” (Part I), a quartet performed to a sound creation by John Cage.

Jo Strømgren

Choreographer - Sunday, Again 2008

Jo Strømgren, born 1970 in Norway, was educated in classical ballet and had some years as a dancer before an injury made him pursue a multi-disciplinary creative career. As the artistic director of Jo Strømgren Kompani, a theatre company specializing in nonsensical languages, he has surprised audiences and critics worldwide with his peculiar style. The company has performed its mix of gibberish, live music, film, and puppet theatre in 45 countries so far and has achieved numerous prizes. As a freelance choreographer he is frequently engaged by ballet companies, such as Wiener Staatsopernballet, The Royal Danish Ballet, Ballett Nürnberg, Gothenburg Ballet, The Norwegian National Ballet, Ballet de l'Opera du Rhin, and others. He is also frequently commissioned to do contemporary dance pieces with companies like Cedar Lake, Danish Dance Theatre, Carte Blanche Dance Company, Cloud Gate Ensemble, ITDansa, abcdancecompany, Helsinki Dance Company, Iceland Dance Company, Bern Ballet, Bielefeld Tanztheater, and many others. As a theatre director he specializes in the plays of Henrik Ibsen and is predominantly commissioned in the Nordic region, such as The Norwegian National Theatre, The Royal Danish Theatre, Reykjavik City Theatre, The National Theatre of Bergen, and others. As a playwright he has had about 10 plays produced at different state theatres in Norway. And finally, he directed his first feature film in 2003, "Destination Moscow", which was played in cinemas in Norway and on several festivals abroad.

Luca Veggetti

Choreographer - memory/measure 2008

Luca Veggetti was born in Bologna Italy in 1963 and trained at La Scala Milan under I.Glowacka and G.Popescu. After a career as a dancer at London Festival Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and Ballet Chicago, in 1990 Luca Veggetti started an on-going collaboration with stage director and designer Pier Luigi Pizzi. Working with Pier Luigi Pizzi as a choreographer and assistant, Veggetti's work was seen in Europe's most important theatres and with prestigious musical ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Capriccio Stravagante, Musikfabrik Koeln.

In 1999 he became the first Italian choreographer in the 20th century to be invited to work with the legendary Kirov Ballet at the Marinsky in St. Petersburg. In 2000 he was the artistic director of a dance event in the ancient theatre of Epidaurus in Greece where he staged the world premiere of the piece Emmeleia with Julia Makhalina of the Kirov Ballet. In 2002 he staged Ermafrodito at the Teatro Carignano in Turin, a dance event centered around the world premiere of the choreographic version of Ermafrodito per chitarra by Sylvano Bussotti commissioned by the composer.

In 2004 he was invited by Peter Martins to participate at two sessions of the New York Choreographic Institute creating November steps (Takemitsu) with School of American Ballet and Duo (Hosokawa) with the New York City Ballet. November steps was also performed in a gala event at the Public Library for the performing arts at Lincoln Center.
Veggetti has been active in pursuing a collaborations with contemporary music ensembles such as FontanaMix in Italy and musikFabrik Koeln as well as with composers Paolo Aralla, Toshio Hosokawa, Sylvano Bussotti and Gerhard Staebler.

In March 2007 an evening of three of his works with the music of Toshio Hosokawa, including the world premiere of Night/Sounds was presented in the Works & Process series at the Guggenheim. In May 2008 he was also invited to stage an evening dedicated to Hosokawa at the Saarbruecken festival for new music.
In September 2008 he directed, choreographed and designed the world premiere of the complete version of Iannis Xenakis Oresteia at the Miller Theater in New York in coproduction with Works & Process at the Guggenheim.

Future engagements include new pieces for Cedar Lake, Rome Opera and Purchase New York as well as a new staging of Toshio Hosokawa's opera Hanjo at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo and a new Theater piece for the Milamoltre Festival.

He as choreographed and designed numerous works, notably :

Sarabande (Bach) at the Maison de la danse in Lyon
Semiramis (Gluck) for the Compagnia di Danza Teatro di Torino
Psychè (Franck) for the Santander festival
La Chanson de Melisande (Faurè) for the Ballet of the Nice Opera
Metamorfosis (17th cent. Music) for the Madrid en danza festival
Nascita di Orfeo (Ferrero) for the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona
Tersicore (Haendel) for the National Ballet of Cuba at the International Ballet Festival in Havana, the Novosibirsk ballet and the Ballet Plus in Ekaterinburg.
Don Juan (Gluck) for the Novosibirsk Ballet
L'Envol d'Icare (Markevitch) and Marsia (Dallapiccola) for the Compagnia di Danza Teatro di Torino
Metamorphose (Purcell/Britten) for Ballet Plus at the Pushkin Theater in Moscow
Prelude à l'apres-midi d'un faune (Debussy) for Maximiliano Guerra
Wozzeck, Lulu, La Morte ed altri (Berg) for Carla Fracci and the Ballet of the Rome Opera
Turandot (Busoni) for the Ballet of the Rome Opera
Hed and Sequenza XIV (in silence) at the Miami International Ballet Festival
Fandango (Soler) and Hed for camera (in silence) at the Theatre de Saint Quentin en Yvelines, Paris
Vis Motrix (Kodaly) and Glyphes (Takemitsu) for the Ballet d'Europe in Marseille
A dream with the FontanaMix ensemble in Bologna
Subject forgotten (Hosokawa) for the NCI in Los Angeles
Hanjo (staging of the Toshio Hosokawa's opera) at the Schlelswig-Holstein Festival in Hamburg
Silence/Text (Aralla) at the Joyce Theater in NY with NYCB's dancers
"O" (Aralla) with Paris Opera's dancers in Roissy
On the edge of silence and Traces (Hosokawa) for Cincinnati Ballet
Makrokosmos (Crumb) at the Exitime Festival in Bologna
Aleksandr Blok (Shostakovich) for the Ballet of the Rome Opera
Ensemble for Somnambulists (Aralla) for the NWPDP in Portland
Sull'Orlo del Silenzio (Hosokawa) at the Japanese Institute in Rome
Georg Trakl (Webern, Hindemith, Vlad, Togni) for the Ballet of the Rome Opera
Night/Sounds (Hosokawa) commissioned by Works&Process at the Guggenheim, NY
Inner Shore (Hosokawa) for the NWPDP in Portland
FOUR/VOICE (Aralla) Miller Theater in coproduction with W&P at the Guggenheim
Apollon Musagete (Stravinsky) Rome Opera Ballet, decor of Giorgio De Chirico
Play for Dancer (Aralla, Scarlini) staging of an experimental theatre piece based on W.B.Yeats' play for dancers At the hawk's well, PIM spazio scenico, Milan
Variations III (Cage) at the MAMbo, the museum of modern art of Bologna
Oresteia (Xenakis) Miller Theater, NY in coproduction with W&P at the Guggenheim
Inner Sequence (Donatoni, Hosokawa, Haas, Sterk, Aralla) at the Austrian Kultur Forum in NY

 

Didy Veldman

Choreographer - frame of view 2009

Dutch choreographer Didy Veldman trained at the Scapino Academy in Amsterdam. She has danced with Scapino Ballet, Ballet du Grand Theatre de Geneve and Rambert Dance Company, working with international choreographers such as Jiri Kylian, Mats Ek, Ohad Naharin and Christopher Bruce, among others.

In 1987 she began her career as a choreographer and continued to develop her choreography throughout her dancing career. In 1993 she founded Alias Company with Guilherme Botelho. Their creation En Manqué won two major choreographic awards, the Dance Exchange International in 1993 and the Prix Romand des Spectacle Independent in 1994. That same year she was invited to join Rambert Dance Company and created three works for their repertoire. She received the Choo-San Goh & H. Robert Magee Foundation Award for a new Creation with Rambert in 1999. Didy left Rambert in 2000 to concentrate on her choreographic career.

She has created and re-staged works for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal, Ballet Gulbenkian, Rambert Dance Company, Cullberg Ballet, Northern Ballet Theatre, New Zealand Ballet, the Komische Oper Berlin, Scottish Dance Theatre, amongst others. Recently she has created a new version of Cinderella for the Goteborg Ballet and Peter and the Wolf for ‘In the Wings’ an independent production company.

Stefano Zazzera

Composer/DJ - Seed 2005, Between Here & Now 2006, Hammer 2006, 3 Thursdays 2006, Vastav 2007, Glassy Essence 2008

Composer for Cedar Lake for the productions: 3 Thursdays, Hammer, Skomposto for a dream, Seed and Vaastav in collaboration with C. Lovrin and S. Bosnjiak.

Recent sound designs and additional compositions include: Semipermanent by R. GRADONE (NYC Fringe Award), Night by P. GERSON, Bottled in G and Premature Krimes for J. LANCASTER, Test test test, this is Andy Warhol with K. PETERKIN, Momentary Play by J. GATES, Gray Area, The Timekeepers and Pentecost produced by THE BARROW GROUP.

Studio credits are: TUSK 1, Stefano's debut album In collaboration with R. Macrini and K. McWha Steel released on January 2008, EAST WEST by Panonian Wave (As producer), ODE TO G by Ande & Jonathan (Producer and programming).

He runs Moody Mammoth Studio an alternative music production base and In 2007 he opened his own music label MOODYMAMMOTHMUSIC.

www.moodymammoth.com
www.myspace.com/moodymammothmusic

Edgar Zendejas

Choreographer - Rastay 2007

hails from Mexico City where he began his training at the Estudio Professional de Danza de Ema Pulido. His passion for dance soon led him to the United States where he received a fellowship from the untied Sates International University, and shortly thereafter became a member of the International Ballet Company of USIU.

Prior to joining Les Ballet Jazz de Montreal in 1993, Edgar lived in Chicago where he was s dancer in both Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and the Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago. Edgar has worked with several choreographers who have inspired him to further his career, not only as a dancer, but as a creater as well. Among these inspirations are David Parsons, Twyla Tharp, Ulysses Dove, Mia Michaels and Jennifer Muller.

Edgar was recently promoted to Apprentice Choreographer of Les Ballets Jazz of Montreal, following several successes with his choreography, namely the professional competition ENCORE in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec where he won both the public prize and the jury prize for his work.