Updated Jan. 2024
Yokko (Performer, Choreographer, Concept) is an actor, and Interdisciplinary Artist from Japan. She has acted in, devised and choreographed a variety of local and international shows, having won several awards, including “Best One-Woman Show” for Butoh Medea (United Solo 2014 at Theatre Row). Butoh Medea was selected to perform in Warsaw, Poland. (United Solo Europe 2015, Teatre Syrena), toured Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2015, nominated The Asian Arts Award. It has been touring across the USA and several countries in Europe (Poland, Scotland, Italy, Turkey, Germany, Czech Republic ). Other Theatre credits include: Hide Your Fires: Butoh Lady Macbeth (United Solo 2017, Pan Asian Rep's NU WORKS Festival 2017, Hollywood Fringe Festival 2019), Lone Wolf Tribe's Body Concert (Labapalooza! 2018 at St. Ann's Warehouse), BALDY (CRS, United Solo 2013, HFF 2013, Fringe NYC 2012), FACET (Irondale Center, Wave Rising Series, HFF 2013). Her choreographed & directed ensemble work SHINKA won “Outstanding Premier Production of a Play,” and “Outstanding Choreography and Movement” at The New York Innovative Theatre Awards (2019). Yokko also acted in several of award winning films, such as Cloud-Kumo (2016), planet b234 (2019). Yokko’s Butoh work has been seen in several music & Arts videos, including Ready To Let Go (Cage The Elephant, 2019), and The 8 dissolutions at Morris Museum, Times square billboard (Erik Bergrin, 2022) Yokko has been offering her Butoh & Movement workshops across the USA & Europe since 2014, and serving as an adjunct faculty at several universities and training programs. Her published article: “Why Butoh Theatre” by Routledge / Taylor and Francis (2020). Yokko is the G William Hume Fellow in Performing Arts (2023), and Producing Artistic Director of a NY Based Butoh Theatre Group, RenGyoSoh and Unfix NYC Festival. She is passionate to create new work through collaboration especially synthesis of several different disciplines and culture. www.yokko-online.com, Lists of Awards and Nominations
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Brian Rhinehart (Director) Brian Rhinehart (Director) is a freelance actor and director, and an Associate Professor at The Actors Studio Drama School in New York City. Working primarily in devised and site-specific theatre, the productions he has written, directed and/or acted in have been seen in seven countries and all over the U.S. He is a Fulbright teaching scholar, and is co-author of a book on comedy acting, titled Comedy Acting for Theatre: The Art and Craft of Performing in Comedies, published by Bloomsbury/Methuen. He has given numerous seminars and workshops on acting, comedy-improvisation and devising in theatres and universities across the U.S., Europe and Asia. He would like to thank his lovely wife Alev, Yokko the genius, Sean Michael Welch, Derek Van Heel, Deepsikha Chatterjee, and Jordan Rosin for a long and successful journey.
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Paul Michael Henry (Music) is an Irish Scottish performance artist, dancer and musician. His work is informed by Butoh dance, punk rock and ritual, and is performed all over the world. He is also Artistic Director and creator of UNFIX, an evolving and experimental festival platforming ecologically committed performance, dance, music, film and discussion. Michael’s themes are political, social & spiritual, dealing with love, neglect of the body, destruction of the environment and atrophy of the soul in consumerist society. He is currently working towards a PhD at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, researching techniques for shifting our sense of self from Individual-Consumer to Interdependent-Ecological. www.paulmichaelhenry.com
Hiroko Komiya (Singer & Music for Scene 8 & 9) creates music including object sound, percussion, voice. She expresses the sound from the air, space, movements, inner body, memory, without bound melody or rhythm. Since 1999, she collaborates with a Butoh artist, Atsushi Takenouchi through Jinen Butoh, and compose sounds and music for his work, and tour with him nationally internationally. She also collaborates with film artist, sculptor, painter, poet, story teller, costume designer, and performers for exhibition, installation and performance.
https://sonore.exblog.jp/ |
Jordan Rosin (Co-Choreographer) is a director/choreographer, actor-creator, and researcher/teacher, specializing in applied & ensemble-devised physical theatres. Since 2010 Jordan has trained with over twenty different first, second, and third-generation Butoh teachers both in the USA and Japan including Joan Laage, Vangeline, & Tetsuro Fukuhara, as well as Yoshito Ohno, Ko Murobushi, Katsura Kan and many others. ordan is a co-founder and co-artistic director of the New York City-based physical theatre ensemble, The Ume Group and has been collaborating with Yokko as part of The Ume Group since 2011 and RenGyoSoh since 2014. Other collaborations with Yokko include The Ume Group’s Facet, Isis Variations, DREAM DANCES, and Lysistrata Project and RenGyoSoh’s Hide Your Fires, Shinka-evolution, Hoichi-the earless, and Yuragi. Jordan holds a BFA in Drama from Syracuse University and an MFA in Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre from Dell’Arte International.www.jordanrosin.net
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Deepsikha Chatterjee (Costume Designer) is a tenured faculty of Theatre at Hunter College CUNY. Very recently she finished her Ph.D. from CUNY Graduate Center. She received her undergraduate degrees from University of Madras and National Institute of Fashion Technology before moving to the US for her MFA in Costume Design from Florida State University. Her costume designs have received the Best Costume Design award at United Solo in 2014 and 2017 respectively. Her designs have been seen recently at Barnard College, Mabou Mines, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Women’s Project, New York Musical Festival, Drive East, United Solo, Pan Asia Repertory, and Capital Fringe.
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Derek Van Heel (Lighting Designer) Based in Brooklyn, NY, Derek’s designs have been seen in venues large and small; from Jazz At Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, to the kinds of basements, bars, churches, and teeny-tiny rooms where New York theater is often forged. He is especially drawn to new works, and has contributed to dozens of premieres and workshops. Notable collaborations include New York City Opera, Madison Opera, Doug Varone and Dancers, Finger Lakes Opera, Syracuse Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Actor’s Studio Drama School, Scandinavian American Theatre, Origin Theatre, and The Civilians.
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Dianna Cortez (Production Speech Coach) is a New York City based interdisciplinary artist-actor, singer, director and voice/dialect coach. She has also coached actors On and Off Broadway and in Liverpool, including work at The New Group Theatre with Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, and Vincent D’Onofrio. She also worked with Sam Rockwell in the Broadway premiere of A Behanding in Spokane, and “Sex and the City” star, Kim Cattrall in the title role in Antony and Cleopatra directed by Janet Suzman at the Liverpool Playhouse in Liverpool, England, and coached for Shakespeare On The Sound (in CT)—most recently, MacBeth, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She also coaches Solo Performance Artists: Susan Stein in Etty; Alana Ruban Free in The Beginner at Life, and Yokko in her solo performance pieces.
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