Note to editors and news directors: To arrange interviews in advance or media passes, contact CSULA dance faculty and artistic director Hae Kyung Lee at (626) 862-9772 or hlee@calstatela.edu.
Southern California choreography quintet
to debut new works
Los Angeles, CA -- Cal State L.A.’s Winter Dance Concert will feature students performing new works created by five of Southern California’s most notable choreographers Feb. 28, 29 and Mar. 1 at 8 p.m. in the Intimate Theatre at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex.
The guest choreographers are Rachel Rosenthal, Oguri/Roxanne, Holly Johnston, C. Derrick Jones and Hae Kyung Lee.
Rosenthal—an interdisciplinary performer and theatre artist—directs the Rachel Rosenthal Company. She is also currently writing a book on her methods of teaching improvisational theatre.
Oguri, a native of Japan, studied radical visual arts with Genpei Akasegawa and studied with Tatsumi Hijikata, the creator of Butoh dance. He joined famed dancer Min Tanaka’s company, Mai-Juku, in 1985. He conducts Body Weather Laboratory, a forum for investigating the body and dance, in Los Angeles with Roxanne Steinberg.
Steinberg is a founder of the Los Angeles-based Body Weather Laboratory and has been performing with Oguri since 1990. She has danced worldwide and performed in special projects for Tanaka’s opera choreography.
Johnston is artistic director of ledges and bones dance project (LABdp)—a collection of contemporary dance artists collaborating to create original choreography through a rigorous process of improvisation, experimentation and repetition.
Jones’ inspiration as a theatrical performer and improviser comes from his family of artists and civil rights activists. He was a key figure in Tohu Bohu, pure improvisational theater developed by The Rachel Rosenthal Company.
Lee is artistic director, founder and choreographer of Hae Kyung Lee & Dancers and has performed internationally. She is also a founding member of the Chopsticks & Sneakers Dance Company, and the Fall Ahead Dance and Performance Festival. She is a professor of dance at Cal State L.A.
(See below for detailed biographies of the choreographers.)
Tickets are $15 for general admission and $8 for students, seniors and Dance Resource Center members. To purchase tickets, call the Luckman Box Office at (323) 343-6600.
CALENDAR LISTING
What:
Cal State L.A. presents Winter Dance Concert, featuring Southern California’s well-known choreographers Rachel Rosenthal, Oguri/Roxanne, Holly Johnston, C. Derrick Jones and Hae Kyung Lee.
When:
Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Feb. 28-29 and Mar. 1, 8 p.m.
Where:
Intimate Theatre at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex, on the Cal State L.A. campus. (For campus map and directions, go to www.calstatela.edu) Permit parking is available at Lots 5 and 7 or Parking Structure C.
Details:
Tickets are $15 general admission, $8 for students, seniors and Dance Resource Center members. For tickets, call the Luckman Box Office at (323) 343-6600.
DETAILED BIOGRAPHIES
Rachel Rosenthal, a winner of OBIE, Rockefeller, Getty, NEA, and College Arts Association awards among others, is an interdisciplinary performer and theatre artist who toured her solo and group works nationally and internationally from 1975 through 2000. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in May 1999 and was named Los Angeles Cultural Treasure in 2000. Rosenthal stopped performing in 2000 to work as a painter. As director of the Rachel Rosenthal Company, she continues to teach improvisational theatre and is writing a book on her methods.
Oguri, a native of Japan, studied radical visual arts with Genpei Akasegawa, which led to his career as a dancer. He studied with Tatsumi Hijikata, the creator of Butoh dance. He joined famed dancer Min Tanaka’s company, Mai-Juku, in 1985. For five years Oguri lived, worked, and helped establish Tanaka’s farm outside of Tokyo. A resident of Southern California since 1990, he conducts with Roxanne Steinberg the Los Angeles-based Body Weather Laboratory—a forum for investigating the body and dance that was originally created in Japan by Min Tanaka in 1978. He has taught and performed worldwide. He is an artist-in-residence at the Electric Lodge in Venice, Calif. Oguri has received support from the California Arts Council, the New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project, the Rockefeller Foundation, the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, The Durfee Foundation, The Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Arts Partners Program, and The Getty Center.
Roxanne Steinberg is a founder of the Los Angeles-based Body Weather Laboratory (1988) and has been performing with Oguri since 1990. She has danced worldwide and performed in special projects for Min Tanaka’s opera choreography and in “Fifth” by Amagatsu of Sankai Juku. She has choreographed works for Body Vox in Portland, Oreg., Lauren Bon’s “Not a Cornfield” and Farmlab in downtown Los Angeles. Her solo dance work was presented in Oguri’s Flower of the Season at Beyond Baroque in Venice and she received a Durfee Arts grant for her piece at Conversations at the Flea in New York where she will be perform again next spring. She is an artist in residence at the Electric Lodge in Venice.
Holly Johnston was born in South Korea and has lived in the United States since her adoption at the age of four. Spending most of her life preoccupied with physical play, she is now the artistic director of ledges and bones dance project. LABdp is a collection of contemporary dance artists collaborating to create original choreography through a rigorous process of improvisation, experimentation and repetition. Johnston was selected by Dance Magazine as one of their top “25 to Watch” in 2007 for her “fearless and fluid” approach to choreography. She is a performer, choreographer and movement educator holding a B.A. in dance from Loyola Marymount University. She emerges from a career as a dancer using her passionate performance style and her relentless drive for movement invention to create work as an independent choreographer alongside her company of dancers based out of Los Angeles and/or San Francisco. She has performed nationally and internationally and has toured to Malaysia/Singapore, New York, Las Vegas, Mexico, Vancouver BC, San Francisco, Detroit, and The Cayman Islands. She has performed in venues such as the Joyce SoHo, The Getty Center, Cultural Centre de’ Tijuana, The RedCat, The Sharon Disney Lund Theater, City Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Carpenter Center and many others throughout the United States and abroad. She has performed in corporate industrials for companies such as Mercedes, Volkswagen, Union Pacific Railroad, The Ritz-Carlton and The Grammy’s ’06 & ‘07.
C. Derrick Jones’ inspiration as a theatrical performer and improviser comes from his family of artists and civil rights activists. Known for his improvisational wizardry, Derrick was a key figure in Tohu Bohu, pure improvisational theater developed by The Rachel Rosenthal Company. Derrick went on to perform with Airealistic, De La Guarda (Las Vegas), Diavolo Dance Theater, Blue Eyed Soul/ Jess Curtis, and Project Bandaloop. Bay Area director Kim Epifano had Jones perform the main character in Fears Of Your Life, a collaboration with AXIS Dance and Creativity Explored. Through dance and theater, he explores his work as a children’s social worker with the Department of Children and Family Services of Los Angeles County. Policy and procedures inundate the fabric of our government, and these ideas, derived from our litigious society, will be explored through the context of child abuse, the dependency court system, and cyclical patterns of dysfunction.
Hae Kyung Lee is a founding member of the Chopsticks & Sneakers Dance Company, Fall Ahead Dance and Performance Festival, and Hae Kyung Lee & Dancers. Hae Kyung Lee & Dancers is entering its fifteenth season under Lee’s artistic direction. She has performed throughout Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United States. Lee has also performed in the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival; The Asian American Choreographer’s Showcase; Café de la dance and the Mandapa Theater in Paris, France; the International Korean Dance Festival in Seoul, Korea; Festival Drummondville in Quebec, Canada; and Danse Fraiche at Sushi Performance Gallery. The dance company has been invited to perform in festivals, such as the Soho Arts Festival in New York, Universitaet Mainz, Germany; Belluard Bollwerk International (BBI) Festival in Fribourg, Switzerland; Festspielhaus Hellerau, Germany; the World Festival of Sacred Music; The Getty Museum; the John Anson Ford Theatre; the ODC Theatre in San Francisco; Tanzwoche Festival in Dresden, Germany; the ChangMu International Dance Festival; and at the LG Arts Center in Seoul, Korea. Lee has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Artists at International Festivals, the California Arts Council Fellowship, Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the James Irvine Foundation Choreography Fellowship, and the National State County Partnership. She is a professor in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at California State University, Los Angeles.
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