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Yokko (Performer, Choreographer, Concept) is an actor, Butoh & Theatre 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 several countries in Europe (Poland, Scotland, Italy, Turkey). Other Theatre credits include: Hide Your Fires (United Solo 2017, Pan Asian Rep's NU WORKS Festival 2017), BALDY (CRS, United Solo 2013, HFF 2013, Fringe NYC 2012), ISIS Variation (Fringe NYC 2014), FACET (Irondale Center, Wave Rising Series, HFF 2013). Yokko also acted in several of local and international films, one of which is the Student Academy Silver Winner film, Cloud-Kumo (2016). She is the associate artistic director of The Ume Group as well as the artistic director of Ren Gyo Soh (www.rengyosoh.com) in NYC. Her work is deeply rooted Japanese culture, and she collaborates with local artists to blend different cultures to create new work. B.A in Theatre (UAlbany), MFA in Acting (Actors Studio). www.yokko-online.com
Awards: Winner of Best One-Woman Show, Best Choreography (Butoh Medea, United Solo 2014); Winner of Best Physical Theatre (Butoh Medea, United Solo 2015; Hide Your Fires, United Solo 2017); Best Actress (Butoh Medea, The TVolution 2018 Hollywood Fringe Awards), International Understanding Award (Blue Sky -if there is a will; there is a way- 2008), Best Female Performer (Antigone, Aggie Award at SUNY at Albany); Nominee for The Asian Arts Award (Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2015), Nominee for Best International, and Best Dance & physical Theatre (Butoh Medea at Hollywood Fringe 2018), Nominee for Best International Performance (BALDY, Hollywood Fringe 2013). Nominee for Outstanding Supporting Actress (Antigone at Planet Connection Festival 2016) |
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Sean Michael Welch (Writer) was awarded the 1999 Kennedy Center / American College Theatre Festival John Cauble Short Play Award for Earl the Vampire, and won the 2000 KC/ACTF Region III Ten-Minute Play Competition for Charleston's Finger. Past productions of his work include Slab, Try Not to Step on the Naked Man,Rise Up You Bloody Animals, All an Act, Staged Reading, and Boise, Idaho. His published work includes Earl the Vampire (Samuel French, 2000), Boise, Idaho (Zoetrope: All-Story, 2000 and Playscripts, Inc., 2012), and Try Not to Step on the Naked Man (Zoetrope: All-Story, 2002). His play All An Act premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2102. His novel 1897: Aliens! Vampires! Zombies! released in 2015
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Brian Rhinehart (Director) is an actor, director and full time lecturer of Acting, Directing, Devising, and Theatre History at The Actors Studio Drama School in New York City. He is Artistic Director of a theatre collective, Dog’s Breakfast, and was awarded a 2012-2013 Fulbright Grant to develop a co-production in Braunschweig, Germany, titled Dispersal: A Gentrification Story, with the City University of New York. An expert in devised theatre and collaborative playmaking, Rhinehart has worked as a freelance theatre director for the last twenty-two years. He is also a critically acclaimed actor (The New York Times, Show Business Weekly), who has performed in over fifty productions in the U.S. and Germany. Most recently, he appeared as a performer in Germany’s Dresden State Theatre’s production of The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other. In 2007 Rhinehart assistant-directed the first national tour of the Broadway musical The Wedding Singer, as well as its Atlantic City production in Harrah’s Casino, 2008. He was named “Best Director” of the 2001 New York International Fringe Festival for the play Einstein’s Dreams, was a member of the 2006 Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab, and a Resident Artist of the Kraine Theater from 2002 to 2005. 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 venues. Brian is an internationally published scholar on the subject of contemporary German theatre, and is co-author of a book, titled Comedy Acting for Theatre: The Art and Craft of Performing in Comedies, being published in 2018 by Bloomsbury/Methuen Publishing. 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. He has given various theatre seminars and workshops on acting and devising in the U.S., Germany, Portugal, China, Japan, and Thailand, and he teaches or has taught Acting, Directing, Devising and Playwriting at such schools as The City University of New York (Baruch College), Marymount Manhattan College, New School University (Eugene Lang College), and Kean University. http://brianrhinehart.info/
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Jordan Rosin (Associate Choreographer) is a physical theatre artist, butoh dancer, teacher, and movement coach. His main butoh teachers are Joan Laage, Vangeline, & Tetsuro Fukuhara, though he has trained with numerous others including Ko Murobushi, Katsura Kan, Diego Pinon, and Daiichiro Yuyama. Jordan was a co-founder & Producing Artistic Director of the NYC-based physical theatre ensemble, The Ume Group from 2011-2016; has been a frequent collaborator with the butoh company Ren Gyo Soh; and is creator of DREAM DANCES™. For Ren Gyo Soh, performance credits include "SHINKA-evolution-", “Yuragi”, and "Hoichi, the earless." He is co-choreographer of Butoh Medea (Winner: Best Physical Theatre, United Solo Festival 2015; Best Choreography, United Solo Festival 2015). Other butoh performance credits include Tetsuro Fukuhara's Tokyo Space Dance Project in New York City (2013). Additional projects include The Ume Group’s Butoh Electra; Facet (Hollywood Fringe Festival); Isis Variations (FringeNYC 2014, CoolNY 2014 Dance Festival); Dream Dances; and Lysistrata Project. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Ensemble-Based Physical Theatre and Dell’Arte International in Blue Lake, CA.
www.jordanrosin.wordpress.com / @JordanRosin
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Deepsikha Chatterjee (Costume Designer) enjoys teaching Costume Design, History, Crafts and Introduction to Theatre to a diverse group of students at Hunter College CUNY in New York City. She has her MFA in Costume Design and Technology from FSU. Originally from India she received her undergraduate degree in fashion design and psychology and worked in the export manufacturing industry. She has been researching and presenting about aspects of film and theatre costumes, textiles and crafts from India. Deepsikha won the the Best Costume Design award at United Solo 2014 for Yokko's Butoh Medea. Deepsikha is a co-curator for Indo American Arts Council's Erasing Borders Dance Festival.She is committed to working with students and places like Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre to see diversity being represented onstage and in theatre audiences.
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Derek Van Heel (Lighting Designer) Based in Brooklyn, NY, Derek’s designs have been seen at The Alvin Ailey Theatre, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum, Off-Broadway, and the kinds of basements, bars, churches, and teeny-tiny rooms where New York theatre is often forged, as well as around the U.S. and in Europe. Recent work includes projects with New York City Opera, Syracuse Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Curtis Institute of Music, Shreveport Opera, Red Fern Theatre, EyeKnee Coordination, LeeSaar The Company, Shamel Pitts, Scandanavian American Theatre, Origin Theatre, and The Civilians. BFA: University of Montana MFA: NYU Tisch. www.derekvanheel.com
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Cihangir Duman (aka “G”) (Assistant Director) is a New York based director and actor. G was born in Istanbul, Turkey where received a BS in Physics from Bogazici University. He is a graduate of Actors Studio Drama School. www.cihangirduman.com
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Alyssa Ciccarello (Speech Coach) works as a speech, voice and dialect coach for new plays, classical theater, and non-actors and also as a performer in creating original work. She holds a BFA from Tisch at New York University and is a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher, currently living and teaching in Barcelona. www.alyssaciccarello.com
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