Heather Perkins (Portland)
Musicians
Amy Denio (via Skype from Croatia)
Christi Denton (Portland)
Leah Hinchcliff & Nancy Breaux (Portland)
Kaya Oneida (Portland)
Perri Lynch (Seattle)
Heather Perkins (Portland)
Timmy Straw (Portland)
Sugar Shortwave (Sunny Valley)
Myshkin (Medford)
Music/Movement:
Linda Austin (Portland)
Video:
Rose Bond (Portland)
Kersti Grunditz (Sweden)
Christi Denton (Portland)
Heather Perkins (Portland)
Installation:
Mary Wright (Portland)
Artist Bios
Amy Denio has been recording in her own Spaciouser Spoot Studios since she was a teenager. She has produced 43 CDs - solo, and with other musicians worldwide. She is also a polyglot, photographer and cineaste. She tours internationally with the Tiptons Sax Quartet, Die Resonanz (Austria), Latin duo Correo Aereo, and in Fall 2009 played 40 concerts between London and Istanbul with Balkan gypsy core band Kultur Shock. She's toured in and collaborated with musicians from East & West Europe, North America, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.
She's a founding member of Tone Dogs, Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet, Danubians (Hungary/Czech), (ec) and Pale Nudes (UK/Switzerland), FoMoFlo (Japan), Quintetto alla Busara (Italy), and her accordion quartet Hell's Bellows! She's been guest vocalist on numerous recording projects.
She's been commissioned by Italian National Radio, the Berkeley Symphony, The New York Festival of Song, Relache Ensemble, Die Knodel (Austria), and over a dozen choreographers. Her work has been heard at Brooklyn Academy of Music, Seattle Opera House, Roman Theater in Trieste, Carnegie Hall, in the John Cage Exhibit at the 1993 Venice Biennale, and from the top of a Seattle METRO Bus.
Awards received include a 1997 NYC Bessie Award for 'Sky Down,' her soundscore for David Dorfman Dance. She did the soundtrack for Jamie Hook's 'The Naked Proof,' which was named 'Best Undistributed Film,' in the Village Voice 2003 Annual Critics' Poll. In 2004 she was a Fellow at Civitella Ranieri in Umbertide, Italy. In February, 2008, she was a Paul Goode Fellow in Westport Ireland, through Artist Trust. In December, 2009, she presented her musical interactive 'Sonic Bench' at the Seattle Center's Monorail Station, funded by Seattle Mayor's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and 4Culture.
She has taught workshops on improvisation and composition at social centers, colleges and prisons worldwide.
Christi Denton graduated from Mills College in 2000 with a degree in Music Composition and obtained a graduate certificate from the Centre for Composition of Music Iannis Xenakis in 2004. She's worked on several installations in San Francisco including building giant wind chimes in the Castro district, and amplifying exhibits in the Exploratorium. Her arrangement of Lou Harrison's King David's Lament for Jonathan was played at Other Minds 9 (2003) by the SF Opera Singers and SF Gay Men's Chorus. Her piece merge was played at the Spark Festival of Electronic Arts and Music in Minneapolis in 2008, and is featured on flasher.com. Her music is also included as part of the exhibit "Six Seconds Around Me" in the CAM_Casoria Contemporary Art Museum in Italy.
Kaya Oneida is a duo currently consisting of Cyndy Chan (bass), Lindsay Kaplan (keyboards, vocals), and an SP-303 sampler (drums). The name came to Lindsay one night just as she was falling asleep, but the songs have been a long time coming- these two have each been making art and music for decades. Lindsay got to know Cyndy while the two were playing in the post-punk party band Snails (www.myspace.com/snailsnailsnails), and at some point recruited her to play bass in a side project. They clicked right away- Lindsay's idiosyncratic pop riffs grounded by the funky realism of Cyndy's basslines. The result was a gritty, electronic R&B sound that made them both pretty freakin' excited. Listen carefully and you'll catch the stories (mostly about troubled youth and outdoor sports), as well as shout-outs to the band's musical idols and proclamations of love for good-looking time-signatures."
Perri Lynch is a Seattle-based artist. Her work examines the relationship between human perception and sense of place. Issues of navigation, intuition, and physical proximity are key components of these investigations. Through combined techniques in sound, light, sculpture, and image, Perri explores many attributes of a place simultaneously.
Perri's public artworks draw attention to thresholds where land meets sky, sea meets shore, and where one's inner landscape converges with the outside world. Emphasis is placed on the human need to explore, revealing familiar contexts in a new light.
In addition to her studio practice and public artworks, Perri performs with the Seattle Phonographer's Union and has recently returned from a research project in South India as a Fulbright Scholar. She has served as a visiting artist at many colleges and universities and is committed to furthering her own professional development through courses and workshops on environmentally sound building practices for local and global communities. Her favorite instrument is a handheld compass.
Listening to "State Parks", the debut record from seasoned musician Timmy Straw, one isn't surprised that at one time the soulful singer had been on her way to becoming a Presbyterian preacher. Themes of redemption, spirituality, and humans' incessant quests for love play out over a backdrop of piano, banjo, bells, cellos, and programmed and live drums. Growing up in the 1980's in Corvallis, Oregon, she chose at age twelve to be baptized in a conservative branch of the Presbyterian church, intent on becoming a preacher. "I ate the Bible for breakfast," she says. "I wanted to be the preacher's son." Similar to James Baldwin, one of her inspirations, Timmy left the church in her teenage years, mainly due to the church's views on homosexuality. She instead found connection and spirituality in music playing and creation. As a touring musician, Straw has supported Carla Bozulich (Geraldine Fibbers), and Emily Wells. She has shared bills with A Silver Mt. Zion, Bitch and Animal, Blackheart Procession, and more.
It is easy to hear the wide range of infuences Timmy has absorbed as an avid student of music. Her infuences include Steve Reich, Neil Young, Lil Wayne, J.J. Cale, Biggie Smalls, and producers like Mannie Fresh, Organized Noize, The Books, and Prefuse 73. Preprogrammed beats interplay with banjo chords, and melodic pop songs break down, interrupted by samples of synths and crowds, only to swell back up again into hooks.
Since the time she was four, tape recorder in hand, sugar short wave has been exploring and experimenting with the possibilites of recorded sound. Hailing from the tobacco fields of kentucky, she is now an Oregon based musician, engineer, producer, and film maker. Her past projects have included collaboration with pianist, Timmy Straw, in the Oregon based band, Kid Quiz and European tours as upright bass player for Myshkin's Ruby Warblers. Currently focusing on her multi-instrumental solo project, sugar short wave is known for her eclectic style of throwing down beats, layering synth patterns, mixing samples that range from AM radio, to Tchaikovsky, to the streets of Dublin--all while playing upright bass, guitar, and keys. Her shows often incorporate a surprise element of film, shadow play, or dance.
Linda Austin has been creating, performing and producing dance and performance since 1983 and has been supported by numerous grants and residencies. After a couple decades based in NYC and Mexico, she returned to Oregon in 1998, and with Jeff Forbes, founded Performance Works NorthWest, one of Portland's most beloved incubators for experimental performance. Recent works include a site-specific dance for Portland's Lovejoy Fountain in 2008 as part of City Dance, and her 2009 collaboration with Seth Nehil, Bandage a Knife. As a maker and performer, Linda continues to find fascination in the the puzzle of the human body's awkward, lyrical and often accidental beauty, all of which comes into play for her June performances of Paired Spectacular at Performance Works.
Rose Bond is an internationally recognized animator and media artist specializing in time-based art. She has received honors from the American Film Institute, Bloomberg L.P., The Princess Grace Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her large-scale, site-specific installations include "Gates of Light", Museum at Eldridge Street, NYC, 2004; "Intra Muros", shown during the 2007 Platform International Animation Festival and during the Holland Animation Film Festival in 2008 and "Broadsided!" which opened the 2010 Animated Exeter Festival in Exeter, UK. She is an associate professor in Intermedia at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.
Kersti Grunditz received her MFA in choreography from Mills College, CA in 1996. While there she collaborated with Heather Perkins among others for choreographic projects for both stage and film. Mixed media and realtime editing has been a trade mark of her work. She now lives in Sweden, working mainly with film with an emphasis on documentary and dance. Works include 'Rachmaninov's Vesper'- realtime editing of dance with live choir, 'Four days' - dancefilms for children, 'Per Jonsson' - documentary about Swedish star choreographer, the editing of several experimental documentaries and short films. She is currently working on a film about American choreographer Vincent Paterson.