Collaborators
Simone Forti
Simone Forti (b. 1935 Florence, Italy) is a dancer/choreographer/artist/writer based in Los Angeles. A seminal figure in the history of dance, performance, and body-based practices, Forti has been at the forefront of artistic investigations relating to movement improvisation. Forti’s work informs viewers to experience the intricate dynamics between movement, bodies, objects, language and sound that she has pioneered for more than five decades.
In 1955 she began dancing with Anna Halprin who was doing pioneering work in dance improvisation. In 1959 Forti moved to New York where she studied at the Merce Cunningham Studio, and began working informally with choreographers including Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, and Steve Paxton. In the spring of 1961 Forti presented a full evening of pieces she called Dance Constructions, at Yoko Ono’s loft studio. These pieces proved to be influential in both the fields of dance and visual arts, and have been performed around the world since their development.
Terrence Luke Johnson
I have been improvising since 1970. Until the late 1980’s, I did theatrical improvisation in the Second City/Viola Spolin tradition. Then I took a break and finished a Ph.D at ULCA in Gay Studies/Theater History. After finishing the Ph.D. in the early 90’s, I resumed doing Contact Improvisation practice which I had started in the mid-seventies. Then I began working with choreographers. I have collaborated with Simone Forti, Carmela Hermann Dietrich, Sarah Swenson, Caroline Waters, Dana Hirsch, Rudy Perez, and Emily Mast.
Tom Moose
Tom Moose is a Los Angeles based multi-instrumentalist and composer. He studied classical violin for 11 years with Dimitrios Papanikolau (Staatstheater Kassel, Germany), studied Jazz with Dr. Reed Gratz and Steve Chase and received his BA in Music and Theater from University of La Verne. Off the academic grid he has benefitted from years playing Saturday night gigs in the punk rock and funk scene in Germany as well as playing chamber and sacred music on Sunday mornings. He has composed and performed music for choreographers Deborah Rosen, Carmela Hermann, Sarah Leddy and Liz Hoefner, and his music for "The Space Between" by Deborah Rosen was nominated for a Horton Award. Last year he performed in Wilfired Souly’s “Saana” as part of the NOW Festival at the REDCAT. He wrote the soundtrack to the independent film "Tuesday's Dead". His jazz trio Cool Beat Borscht released their first full-length album “Savannah Sessions” in 2013, to which he contributed five original pieces. He has played with the gypsy jazz group The Vignatis, the funk collective The Pretentious Pidgins, R&B singer Monique Debose, Cape-Verdean band Cabo Verde Crecheu, folk singer/songwriter Steve Kinzie, Philly-soul singer LaRombe and the soul band Joanie & The P-Tones. Over the last 10 years he played bluegrass, classical, Irish and jazz music on mandolin, violin and guitar all over Southern California, including the Annenberg Beach House and the 2014 and 2015 Golden Globes. He has performed with the Klezmer band Mostly Kosher for a 6-week run at Disney World, FL. In 2018 he has toured with the band Mommy Tonk in Kansas, Kentucky and Tennessee and His band Cuñao released their second full length album and performed at SXSW in Austin, TX. His original music was featured as part of Sarah Leddy’s work at the 2019 American College Dance Assosiation (ACDA). Since the pandemic, he has spent a lot of time in split screen videos, in zoom squares and doing remote recordings and collaborations.
Shelby Williams-Gonzalez
Shelby Williams-Gonzalez (choreographer / dancer) is a proud native Angelino, Mom, Wife, and company member of the national touring Afro-Brazilian dance company, Viver Brasil. As a member of the company for over 14 years, Shelby has served as their Rehearsal Director and is currently the company’s contributing Choreographer. Her most recent works with the company include, “Revealed (2016)” which explored the intersection of traditional Orixa (Afro-Brazilian Deities) dance and current racial and social inequities resulting in over-policed communities and mass killings of black bodies both in the United States and Brazil. “Duas Aguas (2019)” premiered as part of Grand Park’s LA Voices Series as a site specific piece that celebrated the energies of the female water Orixas; Yemanja and Osun. Shelby has also danced with LA-based groups such as The Yorke Dance Project, Louise Reichlin and Dancers and Suarez Dance Theater. She has a Bachelor’s in Dance and Anthropology from UC Berkeley. While attending Berkeley she was a member of the Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble, Patricia Reedy Dancers and Robert Moses’ Kin. Shelby completed the Silvestre Technique program in Salvador, Bahia, where she was certified as an instructor of the Brazilian based modern dance technique. As an arts educator, Shelby serves as the President and CEO of Inner-City Arts, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing the arts to young people during the school day and beyond. As an artist, she draws from her diverse foundation in contemporary dance, martial arts, and traditional and contemporary Afro-Brazilian movement.
Claire Filmon
Claire Filmon, dancer, improviser and international pedagogue based in Paris, artistic director of Asphodèle Danses Envol, Claire Filmon has been dancing professionally since 1985. In 1990, with a grant from the French Ministery of Culture, she travelled to the United States in order to study Horton technique with Bella Lewitzky and improvisation with Anna Halprin. Following this year of study, she developed her practice among the dancers of Trisha Brown’s company, completing it with contact improvisation, finally to invest herself in performance-improvisation in Europe and in the U.S.A. Since 1995, Claire Filmon has created and/or participated in improvisation performances with, among others, Barre Philips, Julyen Hamilton, Simone Forti, Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, in such spaces as the Bastille Theater in Paris, the Bauhaus Naunynstrasse in Berlin, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Anvers, the Muider Poort Theater in Amsterdam, the Judson Church in New York, and the Mark Taper Auditorium in Los Angeles. She is regularly invited to share her dances, and her knowledge of improvisation and pedagogy in France, particularly in universities, as well as in Switzerland, Estonia, Finland, Brazil, South Korea, Japan and the USA.