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Micheal Dauphinias- Composer

Yanira Castro — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:53:58 +0000

Pianist Michael Dauphinais champions both old and new music, and his performances have elicited praise throughout the U.S., Europe and Central America. An enthusiastic advocate for contemporary music, Dauphinais has performed recently with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and with ACME (Arizona Contemporary Music Ensemble), and has given recent premieres of works for piano and live electronics by Stephan Moore and John King. As a seasoned operatic professional, he has worked on numerous productions with Arizona Opera, Sarasota Opera, Kentucky Opera, New Jersey Opera Theatre, San Diego Opera and others, as coach, harpsichordist/pianist and assistant conductor. Hailed by the press as “a marvelous collaborative pianist” Dauphinais performs extensively as chamber musician with both singers and instrumentalists, and plays regularly with Art.If.Act Dance Project. He currently serves on the music faculty at the University of Arizona

Albert Sakhai- Costume Designer

Yanira Castro — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:32:43 +0000

Albert Sakhai is an award-winning fashion designer. An alumnus of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, where he gathered magna cum laude degrees in design, accessories, and millinery, Sakhai has been creating costumes for Yanira Castro since 1994

PETER RICHARDS VIDEOGRAPHER

Yanira Castro — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:03:48 +0000

Peter Richards moved to New York City in 1982. He is most known as a videographer for modern dance companies. He also is a dancer, having worked with companies as diverse as CoDanceCo, Richard Bull Dance Theatre, and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, among others. The video projections for the stage he has created have been shown at Aaron Davis Hall, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen, and Symphony Space, and his video work has also been shown at The Stark Gallery in New York City. His last touring engagement was as a live-cameraman and video technician for White Oak Dance Project’s performance, Past/Forward. In 2004 he was awarded a Fellowship to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree in the Department of Dance at The Ohio State University, where he taught Digital Video Editing, as well as Ballet for non-majors. He completed his degree in 2007 with a thesis project film, Legacy: Helen Alkire and the Department of Dance at The Ohio State Univeristy. While in Ohio, he started Absolutely Fabulous Dance Company, a weekly modern dance class and performing group of special-needs dancers from ARC-North, Columbus. He has been the resident videographer of The Bates Dance Festival, at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, since 2001

SUZANNE DOUGAN COSTUME DESIGNER

Yanira Castro — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:01:33 +0000

Suzanne Palmer Dougan has designed sets or costumes for over 50 productions, working with such well-known directors/actors as Paul Newman, Alvin Epstein and Tony Award winner Mark Lamos. She has worked as a designer for theater, opera, dance, and museums. Working with Humana Festival award-winning director Vinnie Murphy, she designed costumes for a series of experimental productions including Shakespeare’s King Lear and Chekov’s Uncle Vanya. She has designed the American premiers of the Hartford Stage production of Marivaux’s False Admissions and Edward Bond’s musical Restoration. The Boston Globe and Boston Phoenix both cited her costume designs for Restoration in their “best of the year” theater reviews for 1983. She received NEA support for her set and costume designs for Miss Ida B Wells, which toured inner city and rural schools across the U.S. and was invited to be part of the Women in Theater Conference in Australia during the summer of 1994. Over the last ten years she has collaborated with choreographer Wendy Woodson, Artistic Director of Present Company, on a number of pieces, most recently Dance Me to the End of Love. She has designed costumes for Rockefeller Fellow Choreographer Yanira Castro for fetus(twin) fet(us)twin and Dark Horse/Black Forest. She received her BA from Vassar College and MFA in Set & Costume Design from Yale. She is a Professor of Theater & Dance at Amherst College.

KATHY COUCH LIGHTING DESIGNER

Yanira Castro — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:00:49 +0000

Kathy Couch is a freelance lighting, scenic and costume designer, having designed for over 350 performances in New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Armenia, Russia, Latvia and throughout New England. Kathy has continuing collaborations with Wendy Woodson and Present Co. Inc., KinoDance, Chimaera Physical Theater, and Candice Salyers. She is currently working with members of Available Potential Enterprises to develop a plan for sustaining and expanding the arts and art spaces in Northampton, MA. Kathy is the resident Lighting Designer at Amherst College and is currently pursuing her MFA in Visual Arts at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

CHARLES MERRITT HOUGHTON- INSTALLATION DESIGNER

Yanira Castro — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:00:01 +0000

Charles Merritt Houghton is an installation artist focused on creating multi-sensory, experience-driven environments. Recent work includes a sound-installation driven by dripping epidural needles, pneumatically-exhaling internally-illuminated pods, and a cocoon of counter-rotating diaphanous veils. Born and raised in the South, he studied Architecture and Philosophy at the University of Colorado, practicing for several years in Los Angeles at a major retail/entertainment architecture firm, then in New York for several industrial design firms. Houghton has collaborated with Yanira Castro on Don Quixote Project for Peculiar Works Projects, and (fetus)twin fet(us)twin at both The Chocolate Factory and Amherst College. He lives and works in New York City

Roderick Murray- Lighting and Installation Designer

Yanira Castro — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:58:24 +0000

Roderick Murray has had a varied career in the performing arts and received his first paycheck for $6.25 in 1983. His longest running collaborative relationship is with Yanira Castro for whom he has designed and helped shape the environments, the lighting, and the audience seating for many of her installation-based works. Murray has also created the lighting and environments in all of Kimberly Bartosik’s choreographic works since 2000. His collaborations with Wally Cardona also began in 2000. In 2001, he was awarded a Bessie Award for Cardona’s Trance Territory. Other work with Cardona includes his 2006 BAM premiere Everywhere and Really Real in 2009. Murray created the lighting design for Ralph Lemon’s Come Home Charley Patton and Rescuing the Princess for the Lyon Opera Ballet. In 2010, he will be designing Mr. Lemon’s next work at BAM. Murray has also designed three world premieres for Luca Veggetti, including both the set and lights for the US premiere of Iannis Xenakis’ Oresteia at the Miller Theater. He has designed for Benjamin Millepied on ABT, Ballet de Grand Theatre de Geneve, and for the Lyon Festival de la Danse. He has also designed the lighting for Sekou Sundiata, Paul Simon, Ballett Dortmund, ABTII, Donna Uchizono, Paradigm, Scotty Heron, Pepatian, Hot Mouth, Risa Jaroslow, Bill Young and many others.

Stephan Moore- Composer

Yanira Castro — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:57:31 +0000

Stephan Moore is a composer, performer, audio artist, sound designer and curator based in Brooklyn and Providence. His creative work currently manifests as electronic studio compositions, improvised solo performances, sound installation works, scores and sound designs for modern dance and theater groups, custom software design, and the creation of multi-channel sound systems for unusual circumstances. He performs regularly with Scott Smallwood in the electronic duo Evidence, and with a variety of musicians, live-video artists, and dancers. He has created custom music software for a number of composers and artists, and has taught workshops and numerous college-level courses in composition, sound art and electronic music. He curates the annual Floating Points Festival at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, where he serves on their Art Advisory Board. From 2004 to mid-2010, he was the Sound Engineer and Music Coordinator of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and one of its core-touring musicians. His collaborations with Yanira Castro include Center of Sleep, Dark Horse/Black Forest, and this year’s Wilderness.

Kimberly Young

Yanira Castro — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:56:02 +0000

Kimberly Young is a performer/choreographer based in Brooklyn. She choreographs dances under the name the extra-sensory pedestrians, through which she has an ongoing collaboration with composer/sound artist Stephan Moore. The ESPs have been presented in New York City by ISSUE Project Room, Movement Research at the Judson Church, and Roulette Intermedium among others, and in association with Joyce SoHo. The Company has also been presented nationally by venues including SUNY Stony Brook’s Staller Center (Stony Brook, NY), Summer Stages Dance at Concord Academy (Concord, MA) where Young received a Choreographers’ Project Fellowship in 2008, Free Form Mash Up (Princeton, NJ), and Studio 121 (Freeport, IL). As a performer, Young is honored to have worked with Tere O’Connor, Todd Williams, Jennifer Schmermund, Paul Singh and the Jen Mesch Dance Conspiracy.

Darrin M. Wright

Yanira Castro — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:55:41 +0000

Darrin M. Wright is a native of Los Angeles, California where he started tap dancing at the age of six. His early training began with Ian Gary, Janet Roston and Rudy Perez. In 1997, Darrin joined the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company as part of its farewell tour. He received his BFA in dance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2002. Since graduation, Darrin has had the pleasure of working with Susan Marshall, Terry Creach, Bill Young/Colleen Thomas, Yanira Castro, Jack Ferver, Tami Stronach, Amber Sloan, Jane Comfort, Lindsay Dietz-Marchant, Linsey Bostwick and Nina Winthrop. Darrin teaches master classes in technique, composition and improvisation throughout the country. Currently Darrin lives in Brooklyn, New York