Moment's Notice in March

March 20, 2010

Showtime: 8:00 pm
Tickets: $8-15

Western Sky Studio 2525 8th Street, Berkeley

Performers include:
Claire Peaslee - Theater
Kim Criswell - Theater
Diana Lara & Bonner Odell - Dance
Nicki Koethner & Diahna Fortuna - Dance
Rae Shao-Lan Blum - Dance
Rosemary Hannon & Vitali Kononov - Dance
Shay Nichols & Green Huse - Music

Tickets available at door.

For reservations call 510-992-6295 or email MomentsNoticeInfo (at) gmail.com

About the performers:

Claire Peaslee is a citizen of Point Reyes and has a life practice in Action Theater. She wanders in, beholds, and converses with the living world in a field of inquiry known as nature-laughter. Her newest experiment, with kindred improvisers, involves taking instruction from the Earth -- Listening To Gaia. For this equinox Moments Notice, Claire is solo and plans nothing, thank you.



Kim Criswell never does solos, because she loves collaboration. So tonight, she's doing a solo. Like Claire Peaslee, Kim is a long time Action Theater improviser. She's also a former dancer who likes Butoh, performance art, certain cirque-y clown stuff... She has a masters' degree in Transformational Art, so she hopes she can successfully (and artistically) transform herself from Moment's Notice co-producer into... well... we'll just have to find out, won't we? Her work often playfully pokes fun at the catastrophe of being human.

Diana Lara is a choreographer and dancer from Honduras. She graduated from the Choreography Program of the Center for Research and Choreography at the Mexican National Institute of Fine Arts (2003) and from the Somatic Research and Participatory Arts program offered by Moving-on-Center in Oakland, California (2007). She has worked as a dancer and choreographer for contemporary dance groups in México (Caída Libre and Luna Roja) and Honduras (Danza Libre), participating in festivals in Mexico and Central America. At this time, she works as an independent artist developing projects based in the exploration of somatic elements and improvisation.

For Moment’s Notice, Diana will present a structured, improvised piece about our relationships with ourselves, others, space, and time. The piece was developed in collaboration with Bay Area dancer and choreographer Bonner Odell. The music is from Ariel Guzik and was edited by John Rodgers.

Rae Shao-Lan Blum will perform an experimental dance and music improvisation, with a friend who will play music. Rae is the recipient of a Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange (CHIME) Grant 2008 with mentor, Simone Forti. Creating performances for stage, film and site specific locations since 1999, Blum's work spans literary, installation and performance. Blum began her early dance training in New York City in the studios of Alvin Ailey, Jose Limon and Movement Research. In addition to performing, choreographing and directing, she teaches classes and workshops in dance technique, composition and improvisation.

nono dance (Rosemary Hannon & Vitali Kononov) : dance

Nono Dance is a performance collective dedicated to conceptually, visually, and aurally framed improvisation. Formed by Rosemary Hannon and Vitali Kononov in 2007, Nono Dance investigates the somatic realms of dance performance. Nono’s improvisational work explores expanded awareness through non-doing. This authenticity in performance elicits a shared experiential field with the audience, offering somatic resonance and rich imagined non-linear narratives. (nonodance.info)

Free Roaming Chicks (Diahna Fortuna and Nicki Koethner) will perform Syncopated Dreams, a structured, improvised piece about relationship dynamics including spoken word and movement. Syncopated Dreams explores the dynamics integral with bisexual identity. Two dancers explore each other. They are in the moment. They respond. They react. They enable a world of possibility within any relationship.

Diahna Fortuna is founder of Fortuna Life Bodywork & Movement, teaching ways to embody creative power and enrich mind-body connection. In private practice since 1994, Diahna draws on an extensive repertoire of techniques and her BA in dance. She has been performing in theater and dance since she was four years old and has been teaching Essential Motion classes & groups throughout the Bay Area since 2000. She's studied with Karen Roeper, founder of Essential Motion, since 1997 and continues to assist Karen's trainings and groups in the U.S. Diahna enjoys inspiring her clients, students, and audience members in becoming more enlivened, relaxed, and joyful in their bodies. http://fortunalife.com and http://www.essential-motion.com/

Nicki Koethner is a multimedia artist, Marriage and Family Therapist and Expressive Art Therapist, specializing in spirituality, creativity, sexuality, attachment, trauma and parenting. She has given Expressive Arts workshops and performances in NY, the Bay Area and in Germany. Her performance work is inspired by her practice of Body Tales and Authentic Movement. She is a passionate advocate of the Expressive Arts for healing trauma as well as celebrating our aliveness and common humanity in sustainability. She is the Executive Co-Chair of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association and is on the Board of Body Tales. She is a bisexual modern-day mystic who is curious about how the psyche expresses itself in the here and now and loves to explore consciousness and touch others through embodied experience.



A singer and vocal improviser from the Bay area, Shay Nichols loves creating music for the moment. Inspired by vocal traditions from around the world, she sings in imaginary languages that are a bridge from the primal to the sublime. Shay recently completed the CIIS Voice/Sound Healing certificate program and is certified as a Sound Practitioner through the Open Ear Center. Her work combines the freedom of improvisation with the wisdom of sound healing traditions to encourage well being and transformation.



Green Huse is a songwriter with an unforgettable voice and a warm performance style. She loves to write songs; she loves to sing them. She takes the listener on a journey through her most recent incarnations of life. Departing from an insecure innocence, traveling to deep jungles and dreams within her heart, she reaches a humble, ecstatic destination.