Butoh is a form of Japanese dance theatre that encompasses a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement. Following World War II, butoh arose in 1959 through collaborations between its two key founders, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. The art form is known to "resist fixity" and is difficult to define; notably, founder Hijikata Tatsumi viewed the formalisation of butoh with "distress". Common features of the art form include playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, and extreme or absurd environments. It is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion. However, with time butoh groups are increasingly being formed around the world, with their various aesthetic ideals and intentions.
Shen Wei is a Chinese-American choreographer, painter, and director who resides in New York City. Widely recognized for his defining vision of an intercultural and interdisciplinary mode of movement-based performance, Shen Wei creates original works that employ an assortment of media elements, including dance, painting, sound, sculpture, theater and video. Frequently, critics have commented on his innovative blend of Asian and Western sensibilities, as well as his syncretic approach to performance art.
Yvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental. Her work is sometimes classified as minimalist art. Rainer currently lives and works in New York.
Trisha Brown was an American choreographer and dancer, and one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern dance movement. Brown’s dance/movement method, with which she and her dancers train their bodies, remains pervasively impactful within international postmodern dance.
Aerial modern dance is a subgenre of modern dance first recognized in the United States in the 1970s. The choreography incorporates an apparatus that is often attached to the ceiling, allowing performers to explore space in three dimensions. The ability to incorporate vertical, as well as horizontal movement paths, allows for innovations in choreography and movement.
Lillian Elaine Summers was an American choreographer, experimental filmmaker, and intermedia pioneer. She was a founding member of the original workshop-group that would form the Judson Dance Theater and she significantly contributed to the interaction of film and dance, as well as the expansion of dance into other related disciplines, such as visual art, film, and theater. She fostered the expansion of performing dance in new, often outdoor locations. Her movement approach Kinetic Awareness offers a comprehensive perspective on human movement and dance.
Eiko Otake and Takashi Koma Otake, generally known as Eiko & Koma, are a Japanese performance duo. Since 1972, Eiko & Koma have worked as co-artistic directors, choreographers, and performers, creating a unique theater of movement out of stillness, shape, light, sound, and time. For most of their multi-disciplinary works, Eiko & Koma also create their own sets and costumes, and they are usually the sole performers in their work. Neither of them studied traditional Japanese dance or theater forms and prefer to choreograph and perform only their own works. They do not bill their work as Butoh though Eiko & Koma cite Kazuo Ohno as their main inspiration.
Lisa Bufano was an American interdisciplinary performance artist whose work incorporated elements of doll-making, fabric work, animation, and dance.
Deborah Hay is an American choreographer, dancer, dance theorist, and author working in the field of experimental postmodern dance. She is one of the original founders of the Judson Dance Theater. Hay's signature slow and minimal dance style was informed by a trip to Japan while touring with Merce Cunningham's company in 1964. In Japan she encountered Noh theatre and soon incorporated nô's extreme slowness, minimalism and suspension into her post-Cunningham choreography. Sometimes she also imposed stressful conditions on the dancers, as with her "Solo" group dance that was presentation at 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering.
Ann Carlson is an American dancer, choreographer and performance artist whose work explores contemporary social issues. She has performed throughout the United States and internationally and has won a number of awards.
Elizabeth Streb is an American choreographer, performer, and teacher of contemporary dance.
Jennifer Wootton Mascall is a modern dance choreographer, performer, and teacher. After completing a formal training at York University, she went on to work with several dance companies, and as an independent dancer and choreographer in parts of Europe, the U.S and Canada. She is the founder and Artistic Director of Vancouver dance company Mascall Dance Society where she teaches and choreographs.
Mette Ingvartsen is a Danish dancer, choreographer and performance artist who has been active since the early 2000s.
Evann Siebens is a Canadian multi-discilpinary artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Her practice cross-references film, media, photo, performance art, and dance. Siebens' film works have been shown both nationally and internationally and have won awards. She recently exhibited a geodesic dome and 360 projection at the Belkin Gallery in Vancouver and also screened a commissioned work on the exterior of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Her moving billboard Orange Magpies Triptych was part of Capture’s Photography Festival. She has also performed live with her media at New Media Gallery and the Western Front, Vancouver.
Ghislaine Boddington is a British artist, curator, presenter and director specialising in body responsive technologies, immersive experiences and collective embodiment, pioneering it as 'hyper-enhancement of the senses' and 'hyper-embodiment' since the late 80s.
Justine A. Chambers is a dancer, choreographer and artist currently living and working in Vancouver, British Columbia. Interested in social choreographies of the everyday, she engages dance in site-specific, experimental and collaborative creation.
Margaret Garrett, is an American artist and dancer. Her artistic practice includes painting, printmaking, collage, and video work. She lives and maintains a studio in Shelter Island, New York with her husband, the composer and pianist Bruce Wolosoff. She has two daughters, the singer-songwriter Juliet Garrett and the sculptor and mixed media artist Katya Wolosoff.
Louise Mary Potiki Bryant is a New Zealand choreographer, dancer and video artist. She has choreographed a number of award-winning performances, and is a founding member of Atamira Dance Company. She designs, produces and edits videos of performances for music videos, dance films and video art installations. She was made an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate in 2019.
Shamel Pitts is an American artist, choreographer, performer and teacher. He is the Founder and artistic director at TRIBE which is a New York-based multidisciplinary arts collective.
Gabri Christa is a Dutch performance artist, choreographer, professor, film-maker and writer. She is an associate professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College and also the Director for the Movement Lab there.
