ERIKA TSIMBROVSKY
audio-visual-kinetic
On April 19-21 2018, Erika Tsimbrovsky/Avy K’s Red Wind/Ruah Aduma comes to the Joe Goode Annex in San Francisco after premiering at the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University. Red Wind / Ruah Aduma is a structured improvisation combining dance, visual art, and music in a poetic abstract installation-performance. The project centers around the Russian Avant-Garde art movement and how the work of these artists can comment on our present and future possibilities. Red Wind continues the search for what is beyond form and what lies beyond the mind, between the sky and the earth—exploring the horizon of the possible. The multimedia approach of Tsimbrovsky/Avy K, as well as the lineages of time created through the artists' collective research, offers to engage with the work of artists' past while investing in the future possibilities of art.
Red Wind conceived and choreographed by Erika Tsimbrovsky. The work features the dancing of Erika Tsimbrovsky, Ronja Ver, Rebecca Lillich, Kristen Greco, Mihyun Lee, Cayla Puyandaev, Jenny Beth Schaffer, live painting & installation by Vadim Puyandaev, live music by London-based musician Grundik Kasyansky, and lighting design by Maxx Kurzunski.
Vadim Puyandaev’s exhibit of Dancers paintings series accompanies the Red Wind/Ruah Aduma installation-performance.
When: April 19, 20, 21 THU-SAT at 8 pm
Where: Joe Goode Annex 401 Alabama St, San Francisco, CA 94110
Tickets: $20-35 to buy online:
This performance/installation has been supported by the Joe Goode Annex rental sponsorship program.
Exploring the Horizon: The Red Wind Within Us
By Rebecca Lillich (a participant of the project)
APRIL 1, 2018, PUBLISHED BY IN DANCE
Erika Tsimbrovsky
is an innovator in the field of improvised dance performance. Born in Kazakhstan, she studied modern and contemporary dance in Belarus, Moscow, and Amsterdam. In Israel she co-founded the award-winning experimental performance group EVM Laboratories to research the interaction between diverse media structures and to develop specific improvisational performance techniques. Avy K Productions is the San Francisco-based incarnation of her and visual artist Vadim Puyandaev's over 30-year collaboration, featuring their signature “audio-visual-kinetic” approach, which brings together contemporary dance, live painting, evolving material installation, video projection, and live music to create unique and vital performances. The core idea is to facilitate a dialogue between artists of different media and unite them under a common theme. Everything occurs in real time so a conversation between artists can emerge.
Vadim Puyandaev
Vadim Puyandaev has worked as a painter, sculptor, and designer for over thirty years and has been participating in multi-media installation-performances since 1994.
His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Russia, Israel, Japan, Switzerland, France, Spain, Canada, and the US. He has also produced numerous pieces of monumental art. Puyandaev was commissioned to design a bridge over the Red Sea as well as a sculpture ensemble for the entrance to the city of Eilat in Israel. He was commissioned to create murals in the Eilat Airport and the Taba border of Israel. Puyandaev has been the recipient of numerous awards from prestigious institutions including SOMArts, Stanford Arts Initiative, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Tourism in Israel, Salon des Leopards, Saint-Tropez, France, Festival Palmares des Blues en Peinture, Saint Tropez, France.
With his partner, Erika Tsimbrovsky, he is a founding member of the creative groups of artists EVM Laboratories (Israel) and Avy K Productions (US), dedicated to investigating what emerges in performance at the nexus of different genres.
www.vadimpuyandaev.com
Mihyun Lee
began to work with Avy K Productions since 2011. Mihyun appreciates the integration of dance and psychology. She has trained in dance since 1992 in South Korea. The root of her movement principles came from learning Korean traditional dance at Sunhwa Arts school. After she moved to the Bay Area in 2009, she began to explore contact improvisation and improvisational forms of dance. She discovered therapeutic aspects of improvisation, and this brought her to study Expressive Arts Therapy and Somatic Psychology under Counseling Psychology program at California Institute of Integral Studies. Mihyun's website: www.movementflow.org
Grundik Kasyansky
(b. 1974, Moscow) is a London-based artist and electronic musician who works in experimental improvisation, live installation, audio collage, and designs sound for dance, theatre and film. He wrote poetry before switching to electronic music and it deeply influenced his current practice.
“I am looking for the sound, which is ever present, barely audible (not necessarily quiet). It is hardly felt, until it is taken away, like an atmospheric column. It is highly directional, but its center is everywhere. It seems static, but it is in a constant flux, forever developing, instantly resolving. It is not pushed, its flow is unpredictable, and still it develops in the most logical, most rational, gradual, slow way. It is one, but it is many. I am looking for the interval. For one fraction of a second the whole history of music can be heard between the sounds. The phantoms of the symphonies from the magnificent past, the bleak shadows of the opera arias materialize and immediately disappear. These metamorphoses are so momentary, that one wonders whether our senses are being deceived by the vicious game of psychoacoustics. I am not afraid to fall as a victim to an illusion, as long as this illusion is being conveyed in a clear and cohesive manner.“ http://grundik.tumblr.com
Ronja Ver
Ronja Ver is a dancer, dance maker, teacher, parent, and organizer. A perpetual student of performance as a way of participating in community and a tool for social change, they are deeply inspired by physical, social and mass movement, and its capacity to create meaningful impact on a personal and global scale. A native of Finland, Ver has worked and performed throughout Europe and in the United States, including with Nancy Stark Smith and Mike Vargas in Seattle and New York City; NAKA Dance Theater, Avy K Productions, Sara Shelton Mann, Piñata Dance Collective, Scott Wells and Dancers and Risa Jaroslow & Dancers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Previous posts include the National Theater of Finland and Riitta Vainio Dance Company, and Ver is proud to be featured spinning underwater in Steve Paxton’s DVD Material For The Spine.
Ronja Ver is continually inspired by the art and practice of Contact Improvisation, which provides a place for play and magic in their life. They are faculty at Moving On Center School for Participatory Arts and Somatic Practices, and adjunct faculty at St Mary’s College LEAP program. Ver is a graduate of Moving On Center, and holds an MFA in dance from Hollins University. http://ronjaver.net
Kristen Greco
is a bay area based artist who investigates the subtle and poetic layers of the body and psyche through somatics, improvisational movement, contemporary dance and physical theater. Kristen has directed, performed, and taught internationally in the US, Mexico, Canada, South America, and Europe. She has a deep love for collaborating with other artists in intensive creative research processes in rural and urban settings. Kristen teaches somatics at the Luminous Awareness Institute. She is a specialist in trauma resolution and has a private bodywork and Somatic Experiencing ® practice in Oakland, CA. www.kristengreco.com
Rebecca Lillich
was born in Bad Soden, Germany and grew up in Syracuse, New York. She got her BFA from the Alonzo King LINES Ballet BFA Program in San Francisco, California with a minor in English. She is an aspiring artist and MFA candidate attending the Hollins University Residency Program in Roanoke, Virginia.
Jenny Beth Schaffer
is a physical theater performer, writer, and director. Her performance practice focuses on cultivating moment to moment presence and awareness to allow unexpected, exquisite narrative and images to emerge. She is artistic director of 26 Hens, a performance group and teaching / directing studio. A former member of the International Action Theater™ Ensemble, Jenny Beth has practiced, performed, and taught Ruth Zaporah’s Action Theater improvisation form for over 20 years, in the U.S. and in Europe. (www.actiontheater.com).
Lucas Krech
is a multi-media artist working in light, video projection, and code. He has designed over 300 operas, dances, plays and performance pieces across the United States, Romania, and the UK. His work has been nominated for the New York Innovative Theater and Bay Area Critics Circle Awards. Lucas received a 2011 Lighting Artist in Dance award. His design work has been featured in American Theater Magazine and his writing on aesthetics and performance appeared in Stage Directions, On Stage Lighting,Parabasis Blog, and PLSN magazines. He has been a guest artist at UC Berkeley, Williams College, and USF. His installation work has shown at various venues in New York, California, and Nevada. He received an MFA in design from NYU.
His portfolio is available at www.LucasKrech.com
Maxx Kurzunski
is an Oakland based lighting designer. He has designed for many companies in the bay area including: Custom Made Theater, 42nd St. Moon, New Conservatory Theater Center, Oakland Ballet Company, FaultLine Theater, Musical Theatreworks, CMT San Jose, and many more. Awards include: SFBATCC Lighting Design for "The Ice Cream Sandwich Incident" at FaultLine, SFBATCC Lighting Design for "Next to Normal" at CMTC, SFBATCC Video design for "A Bright Room Called Day" at CMTC Nominations include: SFBATCC for Lighting Design "Slaughterhouse-Five" at CMTC, TBA Awards for "Shiner" and "Maggie's Riff" at FaultLine Theater. Recent credits include Lighting Design for "Sam & Dede (World Premiere)" produced by CMTC and 59E59 NYC, "Still at Risk" at NCTC, "#bros" at FaultLine, "Hooded: Or Being Black for Dummies" at CMTC. Maxx is the Managing Director for FaultLine Theater and Resident Lighting Designer at Custom Made Theatre.
Photo gallery of Red Wind / Ruah Aduma #2, an installation at Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University, June 2017
Red Wind / Ruah Aduma was presented as an installation at Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University from 20 June 2017 to 2 July 2017.
Performances took place on 22 June 2017 and 2 July 2017.
Directed/choreographed by Erika Tsimbrovsky in collaboration with dancers Ronja Ver, Rebecca Lillich, Kathryn Schetlick, Cayla Puyandaev, visual artist Vadim Puyandaev, video artist Lucas Krech, musician Grundik Kasyansky.
Red Wind explores the revolutionary spirit through time and questions how the Russian Avant-Garde can inform artistic investigations today. The projects’ investigations focused on themes of the movement that experienced a resurgence in the U.S. during the 1960s-70s, dismantling codified forms and abstracting them as a means of research. Abstraction became a means for envisioning possibility. The power to invest in abstraction was a spiritual awakening to otherness in the world and a resistance to given oppressive structures. Queer and feminist forces used abstract art as a means of reflecting on radical change throughout society.
RAW presented Avy K Productions/Erika Tsimbrovsky
Avy K Productions performed Red Wind as work in-progress at SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts
Directed/choreographed by Erika Tsimbrovsky in collaboration with dancers Ronja Ver, Mihyun Lee, Kristen Greco, Cayla Puyandaev, visual artist Vadim Puyandaev, video artist Lucas Krech, musician Grundik Kasyansky.
Weds-Thurs May 24 - May 25, 2017, at 8 PM
Address: 1 Grove Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Sponsored by RAW (resident artist workshop), a residency program of SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts.