IS MY BODY A HOTEL?

Choreography and Dance: Joelle Gruenberg

Composition and Live Music: Melissa Castagnetto

This performance is a collaboration between dance and improvisational live music (prepared drums). Taking inspiration from several traditions – Butoh dance, Andean mythology and music – the performance is also an attempt to sustain two distinct moments while coming together in an encounter that occurs somewhere in-between.

Is my body a hotel? has been presented at the Chapter Art Centre, Centre for Performance Research-CPR (Wales), Cruce Gallery (Madrid), Kagurazaka die pratze “dance ga Mitai 10-International Series” (Tokyo) and Teatro Pradillo as part of Butoh Week (Madrid).

JOELLE GRUENBERG Peru 1976

Lives and works in Madrid where she teaches improvisation and contemporary dance. She studied contemporary dance in Madrid and completed a degree in Dance & Choreography at Laban Centre, London. From 2001 she began to study Butoh in Germany with Yumiko Yoshioka, Yuko Kasekia and Atsushi Takenoushi. She co-founded DANZA TUPAC, a centre for performance in Lima where she currently coordinates the residency programmes. She has worked in collaboration with different artists such as Grupo Integro, Guillermo Castrillón, Marisol Otero, LOT Theatre group, Ten Pen Chii Art Labor, Anushiye Yarnell, Rafael Freyre, and Melissa Castagnetto. Her solo work includes Persecuciones (2004-08), Glamour (2006) and Is my body a hotel? (2007).

MELISSA CASTAGNETTO Peru 1977

Lives and works in London since 1998. Started studying music at Escuela Nacional Superior Folklore Jose Maria Arguedas with Eusebio Sirio “Pititi” in 1995. She studied West African rhythms with drummer and composer Miller Lowoje and has taken master classes on free jazz and improvisation with Michael Griener (Berlin). In the last ten years she has collaborated with various visual artists, musicians and collectives such as Adam Lipman, Kaffe Matthews, Makimono, Emma Hedditch, Marina Vishmidt, Antifamily, Morella Petrozzi, Alberto Isola, Joelle Gruenberg, Sonora, Music for One, Kinya "Zulu" Turuyama and The Mary Kelly Project and has performed at various International festivals such as The Oberhausen Film Festival (Germany), Whitechapel Art Gallery Music Nights (London), Kagurazaka Die pratze Gai Mitai (Japan), Forde (Geneva), and Teatro Pradillo (Spain). Now she is working with artist John Barrett making the music for Rhythm in silence, an audio-visual artwork.

8:45pm

Joelle Gruenberg and Melissa Castagnetto will be joined by Katsura Isobe, Ute Kanngiesser, Jamie Coleman and Guillaume Viltard for a free improvisation jam session

KATSURA ISOBE - dance

Katsura Isobe is an independent dance artist. She trained in modern ballet and graduated in BA Dance and Dance Education at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, Japan, where She has performed extensively alongside of teaching ballet and PE. In 2000, Katsura came to London and completed MA Scenography [Dance] at Laban Centre in 2002.

Katsura has created and performed works with many choreographers and artists in UK. Her collaboration experience includes Johannes Birringer and Michele Danjoux (interactive design/physical theatre), Carol Brown (site-specific performance, interactive installation), Caroline Collinge (costume design), Thomas Kampe (Feldenkrais® Method and improvisation), Stephanie Schober (contemporary dance), Paul Verity Smith (sensor interaction), Fulvio Rubesa (Photography), and Jairo Zaldua & Nicola Green (print making and installation).

http://katsuraisobe.net/Home.html

UTE KANNGIESSER - cello

Ute Kanngiesser is a London based cellist with main focus on improvised and experimental music. Classically trained as a child and not playing at all for a few years she came back to music and improvisation while training in physical theatre and dance in Berlin. Since then she has been involved with a number of collaborations with dancers, film makers and improvising musicians. She is currently playing with the London Improvisers Orchestra, Guillaume Viltard, Grundik Kasyansky, Jamie Coleman, Dale Berning, and Laura Hyland. And she is a regular player at Eddie Prévost's improvisation workshop.

JAMIE COLEMAN – trumpet

Jamie Coleman is an accomplished trumpet player and has been playing with Nathaniel Catchpole, Alex James, John Edwards and Eddie Prévost and many other improvisers.

Conditions - 'A Bright Nowhere' is available from Matchless Recordings.

http://www.myspace.com/jamieimprov

http://www.matchlessrecordings.com/taxonomy/term/59

GUILLAUME VILTARD - double bass

Born in 1975 in the North of Ivory Coast, I have grown up in a wild countryside with almost no music - but many natural sounds. Back in France at the age of 10, I was seized by a compulsive desire of music, listening to many sorts of music, and espacially free jazz, to the great displeasure of my brothers who never appreciated Cecil Taylor for breakfast. I was dreaming about bass playing but started studying philosophy. By the whims of fate, I saw a double bass at a friend's flat. A few weeks after, I was studying at the Paris Conservatoire and had private jazz lessons. It was ages ago. I gave a first improvised bass solo in 2003 (not without apprehension !) I have played with many artists of the French improv' scene,( including Heddy Boubaker, Nusch Werchowska, Isabelle Duthoit, Alexandre Kittel, Catherine Jauniaux, Jean Pallandre, Mathias Pontévia, Etienne Brunet, Soizic Lebrat, Sébastien Coste, etc.) as well as with poets and dancers. I have also organised many concerts in Lyon where I lived from 2000 to 2007. I’m living in London now...

(from his website)

http://utofmu.free.fr/

http://www.myspace.com/treizelunes