For Immediate Release Contact: Cid Pearlman, 831.332.4956 April 5, 2012 [email protected] www.cidpearlman.org or Meg Wolfe [email protected] www.showboxla.org
Cid Pearlman/Performance Projects presents: FROM ESTONIA WITH LOVE Thursday & Friday, May 24-25, 2012
Choreographer Cid Pearlman returns to Los Angeles, accompanied by five dance artists from Estonia and U.S.A., for an evening of intelligent and deeply embodied dancing. Los Angeles is the third stop on a mini-tour of California, including events in San Francisco and Santa Cruz. Los Angeles performances are Thursday, May 24th, 12:00PM, at UCLA’s Glorya Kaufmann Hall, Amber Dance Studio, and Friday, May 25th at Live Arts Los Angeles, 8:00PM. The UCLA event is an informal performance and is free; tickets for the Live Arts Los Angeles event are $15.50-$20. To purchase tickets for May 25th go to: http://www.liveartsla.com/special-events/performances/
Cid Pearlman’s This is what we do in winter features dancers from Estonia and the United States, performing to an original score by composer Jonathan Segel (Camper Van Beethoven). Starting as strangers – foreign bodies in the same room – this international collaboration reflects on the process of getting to know each other during the long dark Estonian winter. Pearlman’s “…intelligent, sensual choreography…” (SF Bay Guardian, 2011) foregrounds the individuality of the performer. Estonian dance critic Tiit Tuumalu writes: …This is what we do in winter continue(s) to haunt me...the simplicity of its culmination, brightness, impressionistic mood, soft humor, unconstrained-ness and dynamics were in beautiful harmony with the music by Jonathan Segel. (Postimees, 2010)
During the 2009-10 academic year Pearlman was a Fulbright Scholar in Estonia, teaching at Tallinn University and collaborating with Estonian dance artists. One of the highlights was working with an extraordinary group of dancers – Rain Saukas, Tiina Mölder, Helen Reitsnik, Alexis Steeves and David King. Together they experimented with performance and embodiment, thinking about how to create environments in which the dancers could be wholly themselves, while simultaneously working with the choreography that they created together. Out of these experiments came This is what we do in winter. how quickly these accidents is a first-time collaboration between Alexis Steeves (USA) & Rain Saukas (Estonia). As artists nurtured in different nations, cultures and movement styles, an essential aspect of this dance is the illumination of their own clichés and assumptions in both physical and dramatic contexts. In dedication to discovery the choreographers have allowed their aesthetic tendencies and preferences to be corrupted by the process. What began as an experiment in translation has become a game of serious play initiated between two naive yet driven characters. The narrative of the ‘love duet’ is neither avoided nor relied upon. As movement artists Steeves and Saukas believe that the fluctuations of the intellect and the body are inseparable. As our pigeon- aesthetic falters towards fluency we celebrate conflict as much as consensus and search for the barely graspable moments of becoming something new. Tiina Mölder & Helen Reitsnik (Estonia) present the premiere of Facing Forest. We are going over the open field. In front of us you can see huge sea of moss – the bog. In the remote distance there emerge detached copses – islands in the middle of the bog pool, full of water. A single fox is skulking in the reeds, he yelps. And then a couple of elks: huge and somehow restless. It is as if they are talking to each other, nodding their heads, rubbing noses, and stomping with their feet, while exchanging views. An owl takes wing. An adder flashes through the thicket.
Tiina Mölder & Helen Reitsnik are doing together two things: dancing and hiking. Their dance piece gets inspiration from the forest, swamps and bogs, from walking in different tracks. They are dancing independently and separately in different dance projects, and together in the Estonian dance company “United dancers of ZUGA” (established 1999). Both of them graduated from the choreography department in Tallinn University. In the last few years they have also choreographed dance pieces for children. Facing Forest is drawn from the ZUGA's performance Old Buddies (2010)
Who: Cid Pearlman/Performance Projects with Guest Artists from Estonia What: FROM ESTONIA WITH LOVE Photo downloads: http://cidpearlman.org/presskit.cfm
When: Thursday, May 24th Where: UCLA’s Glorya Kaufman Hall, Amber Studio Time: 12:00pm (noon) Admission: Free – Informal Performance ****************************************************************************************** When: Friday, May 25th Where: Live Arts Los Angeles Time: 8:00pm Address: 4210 Panamint Street, Los Angeles, CA 90065 Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door Purchase here: http://www.liveartsla.com/special-events/performances/
These performances are made possible in part by Eesti Kultuurkapital, the Fulbright Program of the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy/Estonia, UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures, Show Box LA, and the many donors who contributed to our USA Projects campaign.
Artist Biographies Cid Pearlman’s choreography subtly disrupts traditional notions of desire, gender, and friendship. Her work has been presented by numerous venues including Joyce SoHo (New York City), Kanuti Gildi SAAL (Tallinn, Estonia), the Getty Center (Los Angeles), Theater Artaud (San Francisco) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (San Diego). From 1991-1999 Pearlman was the artistic director of San Francisco’s critically acclaimed Nesting Dolls. In 1999 she relocated to Los Angeles, establishing herself as an independent choreographer and producer. Her most recent collaborations have been with composers Joan Jeanrenaud, formerly of Kronos Quartet, and Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven. In addition to her own works, Pearlman has choreographed for film, opera and theater. Her evening length dance, “High Fall,” won the 2002 Lester Horton Award for Visual Design, and 2006’s “small variations” was nominated for two Horton Awards.
Pearlman received her MFA in Dance from the University of California, Los Angeles. After completing her graduate studies in 2006, she moved to Santa Cruz, where she teaches at UC Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College. Her choreography has received support from the Fulbright Program of the U.S. Department of State, The U.S. Embassy/Estonia, the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the San Francisco Art Commission, the Zellerbach Family Fund, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the American Composers Forum and the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County. www.cidpearlman.org David King is a dancer, choreographer, durational installation artist and movement educator. Since 1992 he has been a principle dancer and choreographic collaborator with Cid Pearlman/ Performance Projects (San Francisco/Los Angeles/Santa Cruz/Estonia). In addition to his work with CP/PP, he has performed with choreographers Eric Stern, Liam Clancy and Carmela Hermann, among others. In 1991 he earned a BA in Theater Arts/Dance from UC Santa Cruz and completed a four-year Feldenkrais practitioner training. In 2001 he received an MA in Dance from UCLA. King is Co-Chair of the Dance Department at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz County.
Tiina Mölder is an Estonian dance maker who works both independently, and as a member of an Estonian dance company United dancers of ZUGA. As a dancer she has worked with different choreographers, including Kaja Kann, Jarmo Karing, Katrin Essenson, Taavet Jansen, Thomas Lehmen, Jenni Kivelä, and Cid Pearlman. As a choreographer with ZUGA, she likes to work as a co-author, creating in collaboration with other Zugans dances that have been performed on stages, in houses, in trams and parks, both for adults and children. Their work has toured to Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Russia, Germany, England, Sweden and United States. In 2003 ZUGA was invited to the Central Station festival in San Diego to perform their Walking home solo. www.zuga.ee
Helen Reitsnik (Estonia) graduated from University of Tallinn in 1997 with a degree in choreography. She has participated in numerous performances by Estonian choreographers, and has worked with a variety of companies, including Zuga, Fine 5, Zick and Von Krahl Theatre. She has worked with many choreographers, including Yoshiko Chuma, Tommi Kitti, Sasa Pepeljajev and Cid Pearlman. Helen teachers creative dance, improvisation and stage movement for children. She also likes hiking and taking photos in the nature.
Alexis Steeves is a contemporary dance artist living between Tallinn, Estonia and the United States. Alexis has been teaching dance technique, yoga and various movement and massage workshops at the Tallinn University and elsewhere since 2009. Alexis has choreographed collaboratively with her fellow Bard College alums, dubbed 10Queens, since 2001. Their collective works have enjoyed support from Judson Church, DanceSpace Project and BRIC in NYC. She has also danced for Daniel McCusker, Susan Osberg, Onye Ozuzu, Beth Simons, Bryan Hayes, Noemie LaFrance and Cid Pearlman.
Rain Saukas is a contemporary dance and graphic artist from Estonia. Rain trained intensively with Fine5 Dance Theater as well as Jyrkki Karttunen, Carolyn Carlson, Jane Comfort and Noemie LaFrance among others at several international dance festivals. Rain became a performing member of Fine5 Dance Theater in 2004, touring throughout Estonia and in Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Vitebsk, Warsaw, Yerevan and Busan, Korea. Among many applauded productions Rain participated in Fine5's original five-time production of Carmina Burana, conducted by Carl Orff at the Birgitta Music Festival of Estonia and "Phases" which won the 2009 Estonian Theater Award for Best Dance Production.
Jonathan Segel is an accomplished musician and composer. He has composed music for film and dance and has toured throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan by himself or with a number of bands, most notably Camper Van Beethoven, Sparklehorse and Cracker, and with avant- garde musician Eugene Chadbourne. Segel plays several instruments, including the guitar, bass guitar, violin, viola, mandolin, keyboards and computer. Segel has been a principal composer for Cid Pearlman/Performance Projects, and her former company Nesting Dolls, since 1992. He has also composed music for choreographers Curt Haworth, Maxine Moerman and Deborah Slater.