Come to Moment's Notice on April 18!

Hello, Friends!

We've got the studio and performers lined up for our next show -- and it's going to be another great one. Hope you can join us.

Moment’s Notice
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Showtime: 8:00 pm
Tickets: $8-15
Western Sky Studio 2525 8^th Street, Berkeley, 94710

Featuring:

Cathie Caraker : dance
Cathleen Daly : theater
Kristen Greco : dance
Sara Kraft : intermedia performance
Edward Schocker, Dylan Bolles, and Zachary Watkins : music
Evan Specter & musical guest : motion theater

Tickets available at door. For more info, email MomentsNoticeInfo (at) gmail.com

Biographies

Cathie Caraker is a dance-maker, performer and teacher based in San Francisco. Her work has been presented at theaters including Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace at St Mark's Church and the New York Improvisation Festival, Amsterdam's Nestheaters and CounterPULSE. She recently completed the Artist-In-Residence program at CounterPULSE, where she created a new work in collaboration with Katarina Eriksson. Cathie has also collaborated with artists including Danial Lepkoff, David Beadle, Felice Wolfzahn and Gonnie Heggen. She says she's happy to be back at Moment's Notice.

Cathleen Daly writes poetry and fiction and performs now and then.

Kristen Greco is a SF bay- area based choreographer who investigates the layers of the body and psyche through somatics, improvisational movement, contemporary dance technique, and physical theater. Kristen has directed, performed, and taught internationally with The Carpetbag Brigade Physical Theater since 2000. She is a graduate of Moving on Center (2002) and teaches contact improvisation at festivals, studios, and universities. Kristen is currently serving as guest faculty at USF in San Francisco, CA.

Sara Kraft is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, director, writer, composer/vocalist and teacher who creates original work drawing from her eclectic background in theatre, dance, performance art, film/video, music, installation and site specific work. Her award winning work has gained acclaim for its integration of interactive media and live performance, fusing form and content in groundbreaking ways, weaving disparate non-linear narratives into evening length works, and often directly questioning our relationship to technology and the nature of live performance itself. In addition to making her own work, Kraft was one half of acclaimed multimedia performance collaborative Kraft + Purver (creators of REMOTE and WOODS FOR THE TREES). Her work has been presented in numerous venues and festivals including YBCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), the HERE American Living Room Festival (NYC) and the SF International Arts Festival. Her next evening length work has been commissioned by YBCA, where it will premiere in March 2010.

Edward Schocker is a composer who works mainly with made/found materials and alternate tuning systems. He holds an M.A. in composition from Mills College, where he studied with Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran, and independently with Lou Harrison. At Mills, Edward founded The Music For People & Thingamajigs Concert, the only annual event in The Bay Area devoted to music for made/found instruments and alternate tuning systems -- now in its eleventh year. His works are performed throughout the world. Many of his scores are available through Wolf Music Publications Ltd, and can be found in libraries in New York, Montreal, Amsterdam, and Tokyo. Edward was recently awarded The NEA/Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Fellowship to research Japanese musical instruments and tuning systems. For samples of his work, visit http://www.myspace.com/edwardschocker

Like final drops of water, Dylan Bolles, Zachary Watkins and Edward Schocker explore the boundaries of slowness where the mind starts and stops to recognize rhythm.

Evan Specter performs at what he calls "the intersection of unflinching yet unsentimental memoir, authentic physical impulse, and the demands of creating an engaging theatrical atmosphere while practicing conscious embodiment." He says that "Motion Theater, pioneered by the Bay Area's own Nina Wise, offers a narrow road to this Deep North of the Soul. When it's really working, you are there with me, tasting the bite of the apple and the squish of the worm." Evan, a ten year veteran of this improvised, physical form of autobiography, is a founding member of Tumbleheart, an ensemble that is performing on Solstice weekend. (See www.Tumbleheart.org for details.) His recent solo piece, 'There Be Dragons', received a parade of adulation at The Marsh.

Here are details about our next show:

Moment’s Notice

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Showtime: 8:00 pm
Tickets: $8-$15 (sliding scale)

Western Sky Studio

2525 8^th Street, Berkeley

Featuring:

Brian Myers - emcee

Cheryl Leonard & Anka Draugelates – music

Kira Kirsch– dance

Kim Criswell & Krista Gullickson – physical theater

Divisidero Research Company (Lizz Roman, Ilka Szilagyi, Laura Stokes, Maica Folch, Nita Little, Aaron Jessup, Vitali Kononov, Xedex Olivas and Matthew Shyka) – dance

Rhonda Morton & Andy Strain – Music / physical theater

Rosemary Hannon & Vitali Kononov – dance

Brian Myers is a wonderfully quirky improviser who often emcee's and volunteers for Moment's Notice.


Cheryl Leonard and Anka Draugelates will perform on viola, voice, water and found natural objects. Anka is an improvising vocalist/musician who is visiting from Regensberg, Bavaria. Cheryl is a composer, performer, and improviser of music and interdisciplinary works. Her interests include finding and building instruments, working with natural materials, collaboration across artistic disciplines, and site-specific work. Many of her pieces explore very quiet phenomena and the intricacies of sounds not generally considered musical. She has been awarded grants from the ASCAP Foundation, Meet the Composer, and the American Composers Forum; and artist residencies at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Engine 27, and Villa Montalvo. Recordings of her music are available from Great Hoary Marmot Records, Pax Recordings, 23five Incorporated, Apraxia Records, Old Gold Records and the Lab. She's joining us fresh from a sound-collecting trip to Antarctica. Her website tells more: http://www.allwaysnorth.com


Kira Kirsch was born in East-Berlin and studied modern dance and pedagogy at the conservatory of Vienna. She was granted scholarships from t a n z p o o l and the Austrian Arts Council to deepen and further her movement studies and artistic activities. She studied with Frey Faust for seven years and is a certified Axis Syllabus instructor. Since 2004 Kira has led workshops in dance technique and contact improv througout Europe and California. Most recently she performed in works by Sara Shelton Mann(US), AVY K./Erika Tsimbrovsky(RUS), Pipaluk Supernova/Half Machine(DK), PARTS and Frey Faust's ABCD Collective(EU). This year she began collaborating with Hana Erdman. Dedicated to deconstructing aesthetics, critical movement research and finding through-and-through embodiment, they've presented their experiments at the 418 project in Santa Cruz and here at Moments Notice. (corpiliquidi.com)


Kim Criswell & Krista Gullickson are 2/3 of Imaginary Friends (the other 1/3 being Abhay Ghiara, whose participation in this performance is dependent on his ability to bend the time-space continuum while traveling in India this February. He's good, but he might not be that good...yet.) They have been practicing and performing improvised physical theater together for about a decade. Lately they've been experimenting with micro-performances: sequences of 1-5 minute improvised segments that build into a large, abstract, whole.


Divisidero Research Company: Under the direction of choreographer Nita Little, Divisidero Research Company (Lizz Roman, Ilka Szilagyi, Laura Stokes, Maica Folch, Nita Little, Aaron Jessup, Vitali Kononov, Xedex Olivas and Matthew Shyka) is an improvisational collective engaged in an overt practice of performance as research. They focus on building resonant webs of awareness derived from movement scores that direct and modulate attention. DRC is in its initial stage of development, investigating the embodied experience by which we know ourselves, one another, and the dance.


Rhonda Morton is a poet, performance artist, dancer and singer with a particular interest in improvisation in all those roles. Equally at home working as a soloist, as an ensemble member, or as a producer/performer, Rhonda uses the transformational power of creativity-in-the-moment, often integrating the audience and/or the site into performances. In 2005, she formed Alligator Mouth Improv, a multi-disciplinary improvisational collective based in Corning, NY. Browse their website for more information and videos: www.rhondamorton.com/alligator.html


Rosemary Hannon & Vitali Kononov: 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)

Welcome, Rosemary!

Rosemary Hannon is joining Katarina Eriksson and Kim Criswell as co-curator and co-producer of Moment's Notice -- after performing and helping out at many, many shows. Welcome, Rosemary.

We've booked Western Sky Studio for a Moment's Notice show on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009 -- so save the date! We will announce the line-up of performers soon.

We're looking forward to bringing you another fun evening of mixed-genre improvisation!

We're taking a break...

Moment's Notice is on hiatus for the time being.

We'll be back... probably after the holidays...

In the meantime, here are some photos from past Moment's Notice shows.

(Photographers: Ira Fabricant for the first, of Owen Walker & Kim Criswell; Steelee for the audience shot...)

If you have any photos of Moment's Notice performances you'd like to add, try submitting jpgs or links to photos / videos as comments... and if that doesn't work, email them to us -- moments notice info at gmail dot com -- and we'll try to post 'em.

We're back!

Moment's Notice has been on a summer hiatus -- but we'll be back on Saturday, August 30. Same time, same place, same price as usual:

8/30/08
8pm
Western Sky Studio, in the Sawtooth Building, 2525 8th St., Berkeley
$8-$15 (sliding scale; tickets available at the door)

August performers:

Liz Boubion --dance
Edward Schocker & Suki O'Kane - music
Imaginary Friends (Abhay Ghiara, Krista Gullickson & Kim Criswell, in collaboration with Edward Schocker) -- physical theater
Nicole Richter & Pamela Marsh - dance with poetry & music
The Olimpias (Petra Kuppers and friends)- dance, etc.


About the performers:

Liz Boubion is a dance-theater artist who has performed locally doing both solo improvisation and collaborative work with choreographers Erick Kupers, Dawn Frank, Rowena Ritchie, Tara Brandell, Jez Lee, Ali Woolwich and Niel Marcus. In 1997 and 1998, Liz danced internationally with Frankfurt-based Vivienne Newport of TanzTheater, Pina Bausch, Estelle Clareton of Canada's Vertigo Danse, Petra Leher of TanzCo-Lab and with the Frankfurt Opera's Movement Chorus.

Edward Schocker creates music with found objects & made instruments. As a composer, his work spans genres and has been performed in Asia, Europe and North America. Google him and you'll be amazed... or just click here: http://www.composersforum.org/member_profile.cfm?oid=2915

Suki O'Kane is one of the founding members of the lo-fi sampling ensemble The Noodles (with Michael Zelner), plays percussion withMoe! Staiano's Moe!kestra! and Dan Plonsey. She works in partnership with House of Zoka, a live recording project that has documented over ten years of creative new music in the Bay Area, is an inveterate phonographer and since 2003 has been curating performances of live music and film, such as The Illuminated Corridor, a nomadic public art project that creates streetscapes of live experimental music and performative projection.

Abhay Ghiara, Krista Gullickson & Kim Criswell have been performing together as Imaginary Friends, a physical theater improv trio, for around a decade. Their work is influenced by Abhay's and Krista's experience with Goat Island and other Chicago theater groups, as well as by intensives with Ruth Zaporah, Cassie Terman and others. Abhay recently collaborated with Edward Schocker in Bamboo Alley, a site-specific piece.

The Olimpias (Petra Kuppers and friends): Burning. Disability Culture Work in Progress. Petra's website describes this as a "performance / drama / movement / visual art / collaborative project."

Nicole Richter & Pamela Marsh will do a dance piece set to poetry by Pamela Marsh and music by Anoymous 4. You might remember Nicole from the many years she served as Axis Dance Company's co-artistic director and education director. As a dancer with Axis, she originated roles in commissioned pieces by Bill T. Jones, Stephen Petronio, Joe Goode, Joanna Haigood and Sonya Delwaide. She's been nominated for Izzy awards and been the recipient of several California Arts Council Grants.

April 26 show

Moment's Notice performers on April 26 will be:

• Annah., Hanna Erdman & Kira Kirsch: Dance & live music
• Catherine Baumgartner: Dance
• Katarina Eriksson (AKA Dr. Eugenia Frank): Dance theater
• Evan Specter: Theater
• Brian P Myers: Theater

Same logistics as usual:

Showtime: 8pm

Tickets: $8-15 sliding scale

(We're funded 100% by ticket sales, so your contribution helps us pay for our performance space rental, flyers, programs... and if there's enough left over, performers!)

Location:
Western Sky Studio
2525 8th Street (between Dwight Way & Parker St.)
Berkeley, CA

Reservations usually aren't necessary -- we can always add chairs!







Bios:



Catherine Baumgartner is originally from Minneapolis, MN where she danced on bridges, barges, and buildings with site-specific choreographer Marylee Hardenbergh and explored dance's deeper roots in celebration and intergenerational community as a performer and workshop facilitator with Kairos Dance Theatre. Since moving to the hiker's paradise of West Marin in 2007, Catherine has become a student of Mt. Tamalpais, learning new ways to think about "time" and "space" and the many ways one can cultivate a kinesthetic relationship with the landscape. She also just started the MA program in Transformative Arts at John F. Kennedy University, hoping to focus on movement as a contemplative practice and to explore the nature (literal and figurative) of creative inspiration. Catherine is very interested in connecting with artists who would be open to deep diving into the collaborative process to create multidisciplinary performances and other events.

Lately, dancer Katarina Eriksson has been haunted by the character Dr Eugenia Frank. In this piece, she explores the story of Ms Frank through the form of solo improvisation, and to music by Asa Chung & Junray

Kira Kirsch, born in Berlin, studied modern dance and pedagogy at the conservatory of Vienna. She was granted with scholarships of tanzpool and the Austrian Arts Council to deepen and furthering her movement studies and artistic development. She studied with Frey Faust for seven years and is a certified Axis Syllabus instructor. She gets invited to lead wksps and classes in both dance technique and contact improv all around Europe and California and among others has worked with Half Machine(DK), Frey Faust's ABCD Collective(EU), PARTS(B) and Cie Anna Tenta(A). She is currently dancing with the choreographer Erika Tsimbrovsky and the visual artist Vadim Puyandaev in San Francisco.

Hana Erdman studied contemporary dance and contact improvisation at UCLA and in San Francisco. She dances and performs in the bay area and in Europe. She has had the pleasure of working with Jess Curtiss, Smith/Wymore productions, Half Machine, The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, as well as in her own work. She currently trains with and dances for Sara Shelton Mann in San Francisco. Most recently she has become obsessed with circus aerial performance and trains at the circus center in San Francisco. Hana also plays music with her experimental band project in Berlin called drowning daisies.

Annah Wilson is a Bay Area, Accoustic-Experimental artist/musician, and the writer of
the zine Resisting Palindromes. myspace.com/annahantipalindrome

Evan Specter is a founding member of Tumbleheart, and he is also developing a solo show about eating too much at the spiritual smorgasbord (please visit http://DragonTree.weebly.com). He has been singing and making theater since grade school in New York, and was introduced to autobiographical improvisation through a chance meeting at a mountaintop monastery. Evan has been studying movement, writing and improvisation with Nina Wise and Corey Fisher for ten years.

Next show is on March 22

Here's info on our next Moment's Notice show. Logistics are the usual:

Saturday, March 22 @ 8pm
Tickets: $8-15 (sliding scale)
Western Sky Studio
2525 8th Street, Berkeley


This month's performers are:

Action Theater: Deanna Anderson, Kim Criswell, Catherine Debon, Hana Hammer, Hank Obermayer, Claire Peaslee, Molly Sullivan, & Owen Walker

It's been a while since we've had a large group of people improvising together at Moment's Notice. This large group has practiced together and worked with Ruth Zaporah for many years. Most teach Action Theater as well as perform.


Dance: Rosemary Hannon

Over the years, Rosemary has performed many times at Moment's Notice, and she's always fabulous.


Music: Wayne Grim & Aurora Josephson

You'll have to come to the show to find out about these two! ;-)