Team - BUTOH MEDEA

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). Yokko also acted in several of award winning films, such as Cloud-Kumo (2016), planet b234 (2019). Recently she has been appearing several music videos including Ready To Let Go (2019) - Cage The Elephant, AUSENCIAS (2019) - NOIA, Dream Decay (2019) - POW! I Don’t Know Where We Went Wrong (HOKO, 2020) The latest her work is collaboration with the costume artist, Eric Bergrin. She is appearing his video work for his costume exhibition, "The 8 Dissolutions" at Morris Museum. (Jan. 28, 2022-June, 2022) She is the artistic director of Ren Gyo Soh, and the producing artistic director of UNFIX NYC: creating an awareness of ecology through arts. She enjoys to create new work through collaboration especially synthesis of several different disciplines and culture. B.A in Theatre (UAlbany), MFA in Acting (Actors Studio). www.yokko-online.com, Lists of Awards and Nominations

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Brian Rhinehart (Director) is a freelance actor and director, and a full-time lecturer at The Actors Studio Drama School in New York City. Rhinehart’s directed productions have been seen in seven countries and all over the U.S. He is a TEDx and Fulbright teaching scholar, and for the past ten years has worked as an actor with the company “Forum for Arts and Culture” in Heersum, Germany. He was a member of the 2006 Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, and the plays he has written or co-written have been seen in the New York International Fringe Festival and a variety of Off-Off Broadway and site-specific venues. Brian is an internationally published scholar on the subject of contemporary theatre, and is co-author of a book on comedy acting, titled All Joking Aside: The Art and Craft of Comedy, published by Bloomsbury/Methuen. He has given various seminars and workshops on acting, comedy-improvisation and devising in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and he teaches or has taught at various schools in the U.S., including the City University of New York, Marymount Manhattan College, New School University, and Kean University (New Jersey). He holds an M.F.A. in Directing from The Actors Studio Drama School, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida.

Paul Michael Henry (Music Composer for Scene 4 & 7, Music Arranger for Scene 8) makes performances. His starting points are dance, music, writing and ritual; his artistic approach grows out of punk rock and Butoh. Most of the time this ends up on a stage, but he also makes recorded music, films and collaborates on other artists' projects. He is the artistic director of UNFIX Festival and teaches dance workshops called The Dreaming Body. His themes are political, social & spiritual, dealing with love, neglect of the body, destruction of the environment and atrophy of the soul in consumerist society.

Hiroko Komiya (Singer & Music for Scene 8) 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. Focusing primarily on the avant-garde art form of Butoh since 2010, Jordan has trained with over twenty different first, second, and third-generation teachers both in the USA and Japan including Yoshito Ohno, Ko Murobushi, Katsura Kan, Daiichiro Yuyama, and Seisaku. Among Jordan’s primary teachers / influences are Joan Laage, Vangeline (NY Butoh Institute), & Tetsuro Fukuhara. Jordan 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 連翹奏 Ren Gyo Soh since 2014. Jordan has choreographed nearly two dozen original dance/theatre works using Butoh-based methodologies such as the internationally acclaimed Butoh Medea (Best Physical Theatre, United Solo Festival 2015; Best Choreography, United Solo Festival 2015); The Ume Group’s Butoh Electra; Facet (Hollywood Fringe Festival); Isis Variations (FringeNYC 2014, CoolNY 2014 Dance Festival); Dream Dances; and Lysistrata Project. Other collaborations with Ren Gyo Soh include Movement Consultation for Hide Your Fires, and principal dance roles in 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. Jordan is a member of the Association of Theatre Movement Educators and winner of their 2019 “Integrated Artist-Scholar” & 2020 “Innovation Fellowship” awards. They are also a member of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education; Playback North America; Network of Ensemble Theaters; and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC Associate). Jordan completed a 2-year Post-MFA in the Dept. of Theatre & Cinema at Virginia Tech where they published Storytelling on Screen: An Online Playback Theatre Archive and Guidebook while teaching acting and applied theatre, and is presently on faculty at the Northwest School of the Arts in Seattle, WA teaching theatre and dance. www.jordanrosin.net / @jrosinmoves

Deepsikha Chatterjee (Costume Designer) is a tenured faculty of Theatre at Hunter College CUNY and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at 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.

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 and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, to the kinds of basements, bars, churches, and teeny-tiny rooms where New York theatre is often forged. He is especially drawn to new works, and has contributed to dozens of premiers and workshops. Notable collaborations include New York City Opera, Under The Radar at The Public Theatre, Syracuse Opera, Red Fern Theatre Company, Palm Beach Opera, Actor’s Studio Drama School, Scandanavian American Theatre, Origin Theatre, and The Civilians. He also serves as the touring Production Manager and Lighting Director for Doug Varone And Dancers.

Dianna Cortez (Production Speech Coach) is a New York City based 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 is a coach for Shakespeare On The Sound (in CT)—most recently coaching 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 Usami in her solo performance pieces. She, also, served as the Artistic Director for her theatre company City Attic Theatre. She currently teaches at the New York Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, Syracuse University/Tepper Program in NYC (B.F.A), Circle in the Square Drama School, PACE University (B.F.A.-Film/TV/Commercial/Voice Over), The Linklater Center for Voice and Language, and works with clients in her private studio in NYC. She’s taught NYU students at The Lee Strasberg Institute The Actor’s Studio, LAByrinth Theatre, The New Actor’s Workshop, and The Hagen Institute—HB Studio. She’s previously taught classes in the M.F.A program at The Boston Conservatory and the B.F.A program at Montclair State University. She’s, also, created Voice into Shakespeare month-long summer intensives at Eastern Washington University. She is a member of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA), has her MFA in Acting from Southern Methodist University, and a BA in Vocal Performance and Acting from Central Michigan University. She is a Designated Linklater Teacher and Louis Colaianni Speechwork teacher. Dianna is the Artistic Director of The Black Forest Rose Theatre, NYC.