ENSEMBLE THINKING - Key Persons
By experimenting with aleatoric processes, Andrew Wass finds that movement reveals an inherent awkwardness, a humor that echoes our own vulnerabilities. He formalizes the coincidental and emphasizes the conscious processes of composition that are the generative source of much of his works. Influenced heavily by his undergraduate studies of Biochemistry at U.C. San Diego, Andrew works by creating a defined, almost crystalline palette in order to generate a myriad of possibilities. The possibilities are reduced and concentrated in the moments of execution and reception. A member of the performance groups Non Fiction and Lower Left he is a graduate of the MA program of Solo/Dance/Authorship at the Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum für Tanz in Berlin.
Nina Martin, PhD, MFA, (Ft. Worth) is a choreographer and master teacher having worked in New York City, across the US, Europe, South America, and Asia. Performance credits include David Gordon Pick-Up Company, Mary Overlie, Deborah Hay, and Simone Forti, Martha Clarke, and PBS Dance in America Beyond the Mainstream with Steve Paxton and others. She was a founding member of Channel Z performance collective, New York Dance Intensive School, Lower Left Performance Collective, and presently is board president of Marfa Live Arts. Martin is an independent artist and assistant professor at TCU School for Classical & Contemporary Dance.
Leslie Scates (Houston) is a movement educator, consultant, choreographer, and licensed massage therapist. Through her work with individuals, professionals, and collectives of all kinds, Leslie facilitates enhanced performance and collaborative communication through Improvisational Movement Practices. Leslie practices Wellness Massage Therapy and Thai Yoga Massage Therapy in Houston, Texas. Leslie is an improvisational dance specialist, and teaches Contact Improvisation, Ensemble Thinking ReWire/Dancing States techniques, all of which she has learned from extensive studies with Lower Left Performance Collective and Master Teachers from around the world. Leslie is Adjunct Faculty at the University of Houston's Department of Theatre and Dance, serves on the Artist Board for Diverseworks Artspace Houston, and is a faculty member of the Texas Dance Improvisation Festival. Leslie has created original dance works in Houston and the US since 1991 as an independent choreographer, performer and guest artist.
Known for her "wonderful insistence on making art about complex ideas" (Janice Steinberg, SanDiego.com), Rebecca Bryant addresses current societal phenomena while blurring the distinctions between artistic disciplines. Coming from a visual art background, Bryant creates performances that combine both pre-determined and improvised movement with text, video, sound, technology, and objects. Critics have called her work "humorous, subtle, and provocative" (David Lemberg, Artscape Media), "exploding with suggestions" (Zachary Whittenburg, Chicago Dancemakers Forum), and "a stunning and witty experience" (Nancy Wozny, Dance Source Houston). Bryant has performed her work in 26 states across the U.S. and in Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Spain, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Her projects have received support from residencies at Djerassi Resident Artist Program (California) and Guapamacátaro Art and Ecology Residency (Mexico), as well as a Puffin Foundation grant. Recognized for her intelligent dancemaking, Bryant's work has been selected for Gala Concerts at multiple American College Dance Association conferences (2000, 2012, 2013, 2016). Her piece on gun culture, ASKQUESTIONSLATER, was selected for the 2016 National College Dance Festival held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
In addition to numerous solo projects, Bryant is an active collaborator. She is co-founder of the Past Modern Performance Duo (dance/percussion/new media) and worked extensively with the Lower Left Performance Collective for 13 years. Bryant's frequent projects with musicians, visual artists, theater artists, poets, and dancers have brought her into creative relationships with over 120 artists from diverse backgrounds, including the multi-national music collective Trummerflora, African-American poetry group Collective Purpose, Chicano/Latino collective The Taco Shop Poets, Korean-American hip hop choreographer Grace Jun, Argentine filmmaker Paula Zacharias, Polish theater director Jurek Sawka, and German visual artist Fabian Winkler. She has danced with renowned and emerging choreographers including Victoria Marks, Nina Martin, Wally Cardona, Kim Epifano, Shelley Senter, Lionel Popkin, Liam Clancy, Marianne Kim, Sandra Mathern, Randé Dorn, and Manuelito Biag. She has set her work on dance ensembles in the US and abroad, inclusing students at University of Florida, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Winthrop University, Western Washington University, California State University Long Beach, California State University Fresno, University of California San Diego, and Purdue University.
Bryant has taught both nationally and internationally, with workshops and classes at festivals, universities, community colleges, K-12 public schools, and in the community. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at California State University Long Beach, where she teaches contemporary dance praxis, improvisation, and pedagogy. Bryant has taught workshops in New York, Stockholm, Oslo, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Philadelphia, San Diego, and at the Los Angeles Improvisational Dance Festival, West Coast Contact Improv Jam (Berkeley, CA), Texas Dance Improvisation Festival (Houston, TX), Contact Festival Freiburg (Germany), TransContact Festival (Romania), Kontakt Budapest Festival (Hungary), and at 23 universities across the US.