: artists' bios by alphabetical order

Douglas Allen is the author of Weathervanes, from Feral Press. A New Yorker since 1998, he was educated at Michigan State University, where he received his B.A. in Theatre. He is possessed by light and dark butoh, a part of Ollom Movement Art, and a teacher with Brooklyn Arts Council. A few of his favorite things are the film Dead Man, the band Fever Ray, and purple owls.

Meiko Ando: Butoh dancer/choreographer. Born in Japan and currently residing in Toronto, is a dancer trained in Butoh dance among other dance techniques.  She received a BA in dance from University of Waterloo in 1987, went to Japan to perform with a Butoh dance company and researched architectural space and Japanese traditional arts in festivals.  Since returning to Canada in 1991, she has choreographed various solo dance performances for dance festivals and theatres in Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Mexico City, Xalapa and St. Louis. Most of her choreography was created by collaborating with musicians and visual artists. Her choreography has simple structures which submerges the viewer in a surreal atmosphere of legends and rituals.

Edoheart (Eseohe Arhebamen) is an experimental African artist and princess. She is the first performer to integrate experimental vocalizations, singing and talking simultaneously with butoh dance and calls this style, Butoh-vocal theatre. She was born in Nigeria and is currently living in New York. Edoheart grew up in a family that sang religious songs together. During her teenage years, she gave poetry-slam performances in Detroit that evolved into free-improvisation vocalization soundtracks incorporating African songs and her own poems. After studying butoh dance and touring with Estonian performance art group, Non Grata, Edoheart created her Butoh-vocal theatre style. Edoheart’s performances combine music, dance, visual projections and performance art and have been called “powerful ritual”. Edoheart pairs her folk and avant-garde music with colorful installations and movement rooted in Japanese ankoku-butoh, Nigerian Edo dance theatre and whatever else she happens to be interested in at the moment. Edoheart performs internationally and in unusual locations; most recently, giving a spontaneous butoh performance in the Ebisu train station in Japan. Edoheart has produced several dance-on-film works, poetry books and music albums, winning prestigious awards. Edoheart’s ultimate desire is to radically expand the definition of African arts. http://edoheart.org

Lo Bil is a performance artist and mover who is continually seeking forms to inhabit. Her process is Grotowski-based and her work is greatly influenced by Pochinko clown. Lo’s“A Professional Occupation” premiered at 401 Richmond during Nuit Blanche 2007. An Ontario Arts Council grant in 2008 allowed her to tour the city with a series of similar site-specific performance actions of sitting in public writing poetry and creating performances that relate to the community that inspired the writing. Lo’s “My Paris of Nothing” invited audiences into an installation and engaged them in a participatory “post-modern salon”. Lo’s “Memory Machine” at the Ontario College of Art & Design was an installation for 600 students with 3 environments that had students encounter one another while in a creative process. Lo has an Honours B.A. from the University of Toronto in Cinema, Semiotics and Philosophy, is a graduate of The Second City Conservatory, and has studied performance methods for the past 10 years with teachers from around the world. www.lbil.org

Robert Bingham is Visiting Artist in Residence in Dance at Alfred University. He holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.F.A. in Dance from SUNY Brockport, where he was a Pylyshenko-Strasser Award recipient. Prior to attending graduate school, Robert danced with several New York-based companies and artists including De Facto Dance, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and Jennifer Monson. His own work was included in programs at various venues, including P.S.122 and The Painted Bride in Philadelphia. More recently he has collaborated in creating dances with Kelly Donovan, dance scholar Sondra Fraleigh, and butoh-based choreographer Lani Fand Weissbach, and he regularly co-creates work with AU colleague D. Chase Angier, with whom he performs frequently throughout the east coast and in Mexico as Angier/Bingham Dance. Robert is a featured dancer in the dance-on-film "Broken Images," which has been shown nationally. Robert has had extensive training in somatic modalities, including certification to teach yoga (Integral Yoga Institute, 1996), and graduation from East-West Institute of Somatic Therapy (2003). He has studied in depth with butoh artist Diego Piñon in both the U.S. and in Mexico. For over a decade Robert has traveled regularly to India where he has studied dance, yoga and meditation and where he has also taught, choreographed and performed.

Jeffery Byrd is a performance and video artists who has presented work all over the globe. He has exhibited in over 75 group exhibitions and 15 solo exhibitions and has performed at such notable venues as Lincoln Center in New York and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Byrd has participated in performance and video festivals in major cities throughout the US and in China, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Columbia, Mexico, Italy and the UK. His art explores the metaphoric potential of the human body the relationships between reality and artifice through video, movement, original music and otherworldly vocals. Byrd is a frequent lecturer at art schools and universities, including Parson’s School of Design in New York, University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been featured in various books published by Brown & Benchmark, Simon & Schuster, Routledge Press and Rizzoli International. Byrd has studied Butoh with Akira Kasai, Anzu Furakawa and several other masters. He also studied performance art with Rachel Rosenthal and experimental music with Pauline Oliveros.

Yves Candau: I am a not-butoh dancer who has had a long time fascination with butoh. A transfuge from hard sciences, I left mathematics for dance after a little revelation, to pursue what I would call embodied research. My exploration has been invaluably nourished by a number of practices: Contact Improvisation, Aikido, Vipassana meditation, and most importantly the Alexander technique, of which I have just become a teacher. As a movement artist, my foremost motivation is this embodied research, with the hope of sharing some of its fruits with others, through performance and teaching. I am fascinated by how our internal dynamics of mind and body give rise to manifested external movement. As an interpreter I have worked in Toronto with Rebecca Todd, Eryn Dace Trudell, Newton Moraes, Holly Small and most frequently Peter Chin.

Dawne Carleton: I live here, in Toronto, and the basis of my artwork is a very simple movement listening practice. When I speak about what I do in performance people often ask, “Is it like butoh?” I’ve always danced, but figured out that what I was doing was dance in 1989, when Françoise Chedmail, my teacher at the University of Nantes, France (where I was studying French) asked me to improvise. I enjoy performing, creating, teaching, writing and working as a creative facilitator. I like identifying and describing what is. Important influences early on were Nina Martin, who turned me on to working rigorously with improvisational scores, and the developmental movement component of Body-Mind Centering. I had the good fortune of attending a school - the European Dance Development Center in Arnhem, the Netherlands - where I was given a key to the building and 24/7 access to studio space. Another crucial space has been Toronto’s unfailing Sunday Contact Improvisation Jam. Music is recently back in my dance life thanks to Colin Anthony’s coexisDance series, the Association of Improvising Musicians of Toronto and valued collaborations with percussionist D. Alex Meeks and bassist Rob Clutton. I’m interested in vision re-education.

Paul Couillard has been working as an artist, curator, and cultural theorist since 1985, focusing on performance art with forays into installation and various media arts. He has created more than 200 solo and collaborative performance works in 21 countries, often working with his partner Ed Johnson. His work seeks to build community and address trauma through explorations of our bodies as vessels of sensation, experience, knowledge and spirit. He has a particular interest in considering the shared borders of our separate existences, searching for a language that can convey complex layers of personal history and cultural specificity while questioning the notion of shared or universal experience.  His practice is often focused on duration and the effects of time. Couillard was the Performance Art Curator for Fado from its inception in 1993 until 2007, and is a founding co-curator of Toronto's 7a*11d International Performance Art Festival. He is the editor of Canadian Performance Art Legends, a series of books on senior Canadian performance artists. Couillard has been a lecturer at McMaster University and the University of Toronto Scarborough, and is a doctoral student in the York Ryerson Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture.

Michael Freeman is a New York based choreographer who is no stranger to Toronto. He has studied Native American clowning with the Theatre Resource Centre here since 2003. His dance background dates back to the early 1990's when he was a scholarship student with Martha Graham. He mentored in composition with the late Bessie Schonberg. He has performed as a clown in Toronto but this is his first in showing choreography, so he is excited and happy to be performing in the 24th of Butoh. Thanks to Claudia for putting this together!
Michael Freeman has presented works for Ralph Lees Metawee Theater Company, the Brick Theater HELL Festival, HERE Arts Center FUSE Festival, Robert Jackson's Twilight Theater, Dixon Place, Mulberry Street Theater New Steps Series, From The Hip Horror Festival, The Flea Theater, the 2009 inaugural Wilmington Fringe Festival, BAAD In the Bronx, "The Asshole Differential" at the WOW Cafe Theater and the off Broadway horror spectacle "Club Purgatorio".www.youtube.com/queerchoreography

Fiona Griffiths (MFA, MA), an acclaimed multimedia artist, has extensive performing and touring experience in dance, theatre and clown. She has created work for solo artists and theatre companies as well as formulating a unique methodology for self-scripting. Fiona has taught in dance, theatre and clown programs and also coach’s performers in creating and performing work. Currently she teaches at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, University of Toronto, Hart House and the Clown Farm as well as running independent workshops.

Donald Himes has been both a dancer and musician for over 40 years in Canada and internationally. Some are longstanding associations, such as with the Toronto Dance Theatre. He combines both his loves in his work with the Dalcroze teaching and choreography with a group of senior dancers in L'Animé Plastique.

Robin Howell, bassoonist, was born in LA in 1955 into a family of artists. A student of Don Christlieb, Walter Stiftner, Fredrick Moritz, Michel Piguet and Abraham Milstein, he began his professional career at age 11. With dual specialties in Early and Contemporary Music, he has played with some of the world’s top ensembles, including Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Tafelmusik, Apollo Ensemble, Smithsonian Chamber Players, to name a few, and was formerly a member of the Sinfonica Nacional de Peru. Robin is a graduate of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Currently, he lives in Toronto as a freelance player, instrument restorator, designer, composer and teacher.

Keiko Ninomiya: "A dramatic dynamo" -Now Magazine. At the age of seventeen and knowing very little English, Keiko left her home in southern Japan and travelled to England to study at the London Studio Centre and the London Contemporary Dance School. Keiko then came to Toronto, Canada where she graduated from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. Keiko and Butoh Master Kinya "Zulu" Tsuruyama (ZUKE) were nominated for a 2007 Dora Award for Outstanding New Choreography. Keiko has studied Butoh since 2004 in Tokyo, Berlin and Canada and has hosted several successful Butoh workshops in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal with "Zulu". She is currently studying and teaching traditional Balinese Dance from Court repertoire to contemporary compositions. 

Minae Omi was born in Tokyo, Japan. Omi began dancing at the age of three, taking ballet classes. In 2002, Omi began dancing contemporary dance under Miyako Kato, a Japanese modern dancer. Omi has been performing with Kato Miyako Dance Space since 2004, where Omi has also presented her own choreographic works. In 2007, Omi studied Butoh in a training program of the institute of Akira Kasai at Tenshi-kan in Tokyo. In 2009, Omi started her own projects collaborating with the experimental band, ANAEQ, and performed at the Halo Halo Exhibition and Fundraiser, Inner Ears Terror Drome, and WASSHOY, PERIPHERAL REDUNDANCE  the other in the every day in Toronto. Omi is in search of mystery of spirits, human body through dancing. However, Omi does not limit her expression to dancing, but seeks different forms of expressions including her musical experiments with other musicians. Also Omi danced for a Toronto’s local band called Parkdale Revolutionary Orchestra. Omi expanded her interests to multi-media as well, which she was introduced by working with video/film artists. In 2010, Omi performed as one of Butoh dancers in the opening act of a film, Vermilion Soul filmed by a Butoh dancer, Masaki Iwana, presented by the Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow. In Addition, Omi collaborated with Jessica Cimo and Jol Thomson, local artists from Toronto to create an art event called TOMORROW TODAY ALARM CLOCK at Gibsone Jessop Gallery in the Distillery Historic District. Omi graduated from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre where Omi trained her dance technique in May 2010.

Yumi Onose was born in Japan who is visual artist and performer. She was invited to be artist-in-residence and exhibited in Poland in 2003, created art for contemporary dance piece “Red Dream” in 2006, exhibited  “Evolving Forms” in 2007. In 2009, she performed "we see their work on friday and, on saturday they respond to it" directed by Claudia Wittmann in Toronto.

Pam Patterson (PhD) has, for 35 years, been active in the art, dance, theater and women’s communities. Her research, performance and teaching have focused on embodiment in art practice, the body in art, disability studies, women & gender studies, and feminist culture. She taught movement for theatre for 20 years and performed as a corporal mime, dancer, and actor. Since 1983 her artistic practice has been in performance art. She is currently Artistic Director for the interdisciplinary arts research, practice and presentation program, WIAprojects (www.wiaprojects.com) at OISE/UT and teaches at the University of Toronto and the Ontario College of Art & Design University. As a performance and visual artist she was a founding member of FADO Performance and ARTIFACTS and has exhibited and performed internationally.

Simon Rabyniuk is a Toronto-based visual artist who occasionally sub-contracts himself to Department of Unusual Certainties. He predominately creates context specific projects exploring urban form as both process and object. His work takes a variety of forms including walking-based projects, participatory events, performance for video, as well as more traditional graphic work. He has recently completed two 1-month long residencies in Windsor, ON, the first at the University of Windsor, the second as part of Broken City Lab's Storefront Residency for Social Innovation. He has presented work across Canada including as part of the Harbourfront Centre's Hatch Emerging Performance Series, at the U of T Art Centre, as well as Ryerson University's Modernity Unbound Symposium. He has a forthcoming article in Onsite Magazine's fall 2010 migration issue. His project 5 Walks, is on display in Gallery 1313's courtyard window space until Oct. 18, 2010.

David Rendall is a multidisciplinary artist who works principally in visual art, painting/filmmaking as well as writing. Self-taught and centring on abstract expressionism, David taps into deep emotion in a layering process, to produce catharsis. Meditative and surreal, he also ventures into performance, that he meshes with his visual pursuits, in addition to Butoh. This performance involves dance, and channeling spontaneous sensation in a non-narrative function. Believing strongly in balance, David also pursues narrative dramatic performances in theatre and film as well as realist painting. He has mounted several plays, short films and visual art exhibits around Toronto, including 100 Juiceboxes (2009) and Dynasty of Sores (2010). Most notably he has performed at the Tarragon Theatre and Extermination Music Night. Currently, he is developing abstract video/performance art. 24h of Butoh will exhibit this.

Aimée Dawn Robinson is an improvising dancer, musician, landscape gardener, writer and visual artist/video maker. She has performed, studied and taught dance in Canada, the United States, Malaysia and Japan. Aimée spent the summer of 2008 in Hakushu (Japan) farming and studying dance with Min Tanaka on Body Weather Farm. She returned to Tanaka's farms (Body Weather and Tokason) in September/October (2009) to continue her studies. Before studying with Tanaka, Aimée participated in butoh workshops with Yukio Waguri, Yoshito Ohno, SU-EN, Joan Laage and Denise Fujiwara. Aimée holds her Master’s of Arts from York University. Her current research project, A Body of Memory, explores memory and forgetting in improvising, butoh and Canadian Aboriginal dance. Aimée co-founded the dance series Up Darling and is the founder/director of the multi-disciplinary performance series, A Month of Sundays.

Cara Spooner has been involved with many performance related projects as a dancer, choreographer, designer and curator.  She has presented work at Toronto's Nuit Blanche, XPACE Cultural Centre, The Harbourfront Centre's HATCH Emerging Performance Project, Cinecycle, Pleasure Dome, Nuit Blanche Devereaux, Extermination Music Night, The Festival of New Dance in St. John's Newfoundland, the Thompson Public Library  in Northern Manitoba, and the International Day of Dance Festival.  She has worked with Diane Borsato, Matthew Romantini,  Robin Lasser/Adrienne Pao, Tegan and Sara, David Frankovitch, and has worked in close collaboration with Alicia Grant.  Her interest in site-specific work and subjective mapping has lead her to create interventionist, installation-based performances which have been performed in abandoned factories, alley ways, parks, libraries, private homes and public eating establishments.  She has been an artist in residence at the Caldera Arts Centre in Centreal Oregon and will be working at the Banff Centre for the Arts in the coming year.

Jane Wang is a composer/multi-instrumentalist/artist/pedestrian mover and a member of the experimental multi-media artist collective the Mobius Artists Group in Boston, MA, USA: www.mobius.org. She has been experimenting with movement and sound in various forms since the late 90's and is heavily influenced by butoh as a form of expression and improvisation ever since she first collaborated with Sawari and Anika Tromholt Kristensen, a butoh influenced artist many years ago. She has performed with butoh and butoh influenced artists including Anika Tromholt Kristensen, Nathan Andary, Ellen Godena, Liz Roncka, Deborah Butler, Shizu Homma, and has composed music and soundscapes for dance, theater which has been performed in the North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Her bio may be found at: www.mobius.org/content/full-bio-jane-wang.

Claudia Wittmann was born in Switzerland and lives in Toronto since1998. She has presented self-produced solo work in Toronto since 2003 and has performed in the framework of Subtle Technologies Festival (2007), Dance Matters (2007), genderTROUBLING (2008), FADO Escapist Actions (2009) and Aimée's Sundays (2007 and 2010). Her work deals with body memory and it aims at exploring vulnerability, transformation and issues of intimacy, currently in the context of projects on gender identity. Her process is based on her butoh training with SU-EN (Sweden) and on her regular work with Toronto-based performance artist Paul Couillard who has guided her through the curriculum of Jerzy Grotowski since 2006. Claudia has also studied for short periods of time with Osanai Mari, Nakajima Natsu, Waguri Yukio, Yoshioka Yumiko, Kaseki Yuko, Denise Fujiwara, Paul Ibey (UK/CA) and Jocelyne Montpetit (CA). In the last few years, Claudia has taught workshop-performances in Toronto, Calgary and the United States. Claudia holds a PhD in Biology (1997) and a Master's degree in the History and Philosophy of Science (2000).