ian winters

Evelyn Ficarra  is a composer and sound artist.  She has a strong focus on electro-acoustic and collaborative work and has written music for dance, music theatre, multi media, experimental film, radio, installation and the concert hall.  Her work has received support from, among others, the Arts Council of England, the London Arts Board, the Sonic Arts Network, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust, the Hinrichsen Foundation, the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Meet the Composer and Poems on the Underground.  Her music has been heard in concert halls, theatres, music festivals, film festivals, on television and in radio broadcasts in the UK, Europe, the Americas, Australia and the Far East. Her solo CD Frantic Mid-Atlantic is available on the Sargasso Label www.sargasso.com. Recent works include O, One, a five minute opera for two Nao robots and cello, and War Poems : the dead returning lightly dance for large chamber ensemble and recorded sounds. Upcoming collaborations include Listening Creates an Opening, with Mary Armentrout Dance Theater, which will be premiered at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer in September 2018. Evelyn is a Lecturer in Music at the University of Sussex. http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/41192

Mary Armentrout is an experimental choreographer, performance artist, videographer, and the director of the Mary Armentrout Dance Theater.  She calls her genre-mixing works performance installations, and one of her site-specific works recently won an Isadora Duncan Dance Award.  Working primarily with repetition and duration, her works problematize aspects of intentionality and presence.  Her work has been presented throughout the Bay Area, as well as across the US and the UK, Europe, and China, and has been supported by the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Fohr Foundation, the Clorox Company Foundation, the Lighting Artists in Dance Award, the New Stages for Dance Award, and the CA$H Grant. She is currently working on listening creates an opening, in collaboration with Ian Winters and Evelyn Ficarra – a commissioned project of EMPAC, premiering in September 2018. maryarmentroutdancetheater.com

paige starling sorvillo is an Oakland, California based choreographic artist who creates work for stage, site, and film.  Following multiple threads in her performance practice, she is as likely to be performing a minimalist improvising-choreography with a music colleague, as she is to be creating a complex multi-layered intermedia work.  To her work, she brings a performance dialect where image and metaphor yield a brute, delicate physicality, and an emotional, energetic communication that is felt – not simply seen.   sorvillo/blindsight has been presented throughout the San Francisco Bay Area including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the San Francisco International Arts Festival, Yerba Buena Gardens’ ChoreoFest, the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, NOHspace,  and CounterPULSE.  National and international presentations include Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, Chicago’s Dfibrillator Gallery, New York’s Judson Church, Berlin Germany’s Club Polnischen Versager, Czech Republic’s CESTA Festival, Portugal’s InShadow Festival, and Brighton UK’s Digital Festival.  Residencies include CESTA, CZ; Djerassi, CA; CounterPULSE, CA; and University of Sussex, UK. paigestarlingsorvillo.com

Ian Winters is an award-winning media and performance artist who often collaborates with  composers, directors, and choreographers to create both staged and open-ended visual and acoustic media environments in performance as well more traditional video and visual work. In addition to work internationally with many noted ensembles and directors his work has been supported by the Creative Work Fund, the Rainin Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Djerassi, EMPAC among many others .

He maintains an active worldwide teaching practice leading workshops in live media and the integration of sensors, physical performance and site-based pieces. He studied video and performance at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts & Tufts University, followed by training in dance / physical theater and architecture. He is also the co-curator of Richmond’s MilkBar with Mary Armentrout. ianwinters.com/bio