E|MERGE 2014's 32 incredible collaborators-in-residence are:
Adriana Segurado is an actress, trapeze artist, and social anthropologist. Born in Barcelona, Spain, Adriana went abroad to study Dramatic Arts at ESAD y PD in Asturias, and Anthropology at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona and the Universidade de São Paulo. She has a complementary education in physical theatre, "Masque Neutre," Theatre of the Oppressed, music, dance, and yoga, community organizing, and gender studies. She currently works as an actress in the Spanish experimental theatre company Estudio para Autorretrato (or Study for Self-Portrait), and is simultaneously developing her own artistic projects: a trapeze artist and drummer duo exploring the relationship between rhythmic impulse and music, taking the idea of the fragile feminine in order to find more assertive forms of femininity; and an experimental work using acting, body-writing, and music that delves into feminine divinity in cultures as diverse as India, Japan, Ancient Egypt, Classical Greece, and pre-Columbian civilizations. With regards to E|MERGE, she is particularly interested in the self-managed collaboration of people from different disciplines in the performing and plastic arts; as well as the interrelation between the languages that integrate movement, voice, and image.
Alex Kramer is a instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and dancer born and raised in New York City. Having played music all his life, he became entrenched in folk music and started to play banjo and guitar at the age of 16. He has played in an eclectic group of bands, ranging from folk, to klezmer, to jazz and punk. He is currently a founding member of the New York City based group 5 Mile String Band. His music is highly influenced by the musical traditions of the Appalachian Mountains, Tuvan folk music, the 1960s folk revival, free jazz, and raucous campfire circles around the world. Storytelling, folk songs, improvisation, and overtone singing are all staples of Alex’s concerts. Alex is thrilled to be a part of E|MERGE for the second time as he feels that working with other artists in an enclosed setting is a great opportunity to branch out and create new kinds of art, as well as to learn more about the art he already makes.
Alex Porter is a licensed architect with a diverse background in architecture, fine arts, and design-build construction. She has run a successful design studio in New York City for twelve years completing over thirty built works. Her studio focuses on creating homes that are precisely designed and sustainably built. Her projects have been published in numerous architecture and shelter magazines in the USA as well as in Australia, the UK, and Mexico. She has taught at Columbia and Barnard Colleges and served on the Architecture faculty of Pratt Institute. Alex is excited to explore the topic of “home” while at Earthdance, which has become a home-away-from-home for her over the last three years.
Amy Lee Sanford is a Cambodian-American visual artist working in two and three dimensions, video, and performance. Her work addresses the evolution of emotional stagnation and the lasting psychological effects of trauma, including aspects of guilt, loss, alienation, and displacement. This year, she is a recipient of a PSi Bursary Award through Performance Studies International, for the PSi#19 conference at Stanford University, an International Fellowship through the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Asian Cultural Council, and was an IN RESIDENCE artist during the Season of Cambodia Festival, in New York. Amy Lee Sanford has a degree from Brown University in the Visual Arts, and is based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Amy has joined E|MERGE as a collaborator of Alex Porter to lead the exploration of physical place-making and artifact as an aspect of home.
Angela Santillo is a playwright who writes highly theatrical plays, often extreme in metaphor and poetic in language. Her work is inspired by extensive research into current events, cultural icons, and natural disasters. Her plays have been workshopped and performed at Dixon Place, Pan Asian Rep, Abingdon Theater, The Nightborn, Communal Spaces, foolsFURY Theater, Play on Words Productions, Playwrights Center of San Francisco, Sarah Lawrence College and Saint Mary’s College. Experienced in ensemble created work, recent writing collaborations include: Oh, the MOON! with choreographer CatherineMarie Davalos, Love in a Heat Death Universe with performer Benjamin Stuber, Aftermath, Maine co-created and performed with Jeanette Plourde, member of the Dramatists Guild and associate member of foolsFURY Theater in San Francisco. As a performer, she has worked in everything from ensemble created work to classical theater. Her training and interest, when it comes to performing, is in physical exploration and emotional impulse work. Angela is excited to be a part of E|MERGE as she feels that it is this kind of artistic melting pot that forces her to reexamine the way she makes her work and reminds her that there should be nothing formulaic about the way she creates art.
Benjamin Korta is a poet, teacher, and translator. His writing explores encounter and transformation and often tends toward visual experimentation. Recently, he completed Unwilds, his first book-length collection of artwork and poetry. He received his BA in History, Philosophy, and Literature from the University of Arizona. He worked with Merleau-Ponty scholar Renaud Barbaras at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and completed his philosophy thesis on Merleau-Ponty while attending courses there. He is also training as a chaplain at the Beth Israel Medical Center and the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. As part of E|MERGE, Benjamin is interested in placing his poetry in a wider collaborative context. In addition, he has become increasingly interested in the nature of encounter and intimacy between persons.
Carolina Ravassa is an actor, dancer, and voice over artist. She has lived in many different countries and is fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian. She spent her childhood between Colombia and the US, where she developed a passion for acting and an addiction to salsa dancing. She went on to study in Spain and Italy where she discovered the power of sociopolitical change through Theatre of the Oppressed with Augusto Boal. She studied theatre at Boston College and is now pursuing her acting career in NYC. Her interest in E|MERGE comes from her tendency to work better with a team; she feels it’s a more enjoyable way to express and create, and can’t imagine a more perfect setting to come together with other talented and unique individuals.
Charles Dietrich is a multimedia artist interested in exploring how interactive technologies can inform dance practice. He is interested in exploring how digital technologies can be used in the choreographic process and to create visual art that reflects the essence of dance. He has recently worked on sonifying human movement, both in real-time and from recorded data, and has also worked on projects that investigate distributed computation and optical effects. During E|MERGE, he looks to collaborated with dancers, choreographers, and visual artists to leverage his technical skills.
Christos Galanis works at the intersection of several artistic mediums and research methodologies. Christos is also a researcher and teacher and recently completed his MFA in Art & Ecology from the University of New Mexico. He has a BFA in music from Concordia University, and a film degree from Sheridan College. He has created and performed work in Canada, US, Greece, France, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, Norway, and Puerto Rico, with work included in the permanent collection of the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno. Christos' current work is developing pedagogical and experiental workshops focused on understanding the evolution of consciousness and ritual through bipedalism. To this end, he is constructing a framework for the use of walking as both a research methodology (embodied ethnography) as well as performance medium. Christos is excited to return to Earthdance where he has a deep relationship to the land and community. 
Cory Neale is an architect, double bassist, composer, sound designer, and visual artist. He is a native Philadelphian and graduate of Temple University School of Architecture. He has worked with a number of choreographers and theater groups, including the Walnut Street Theater, Plays and Players Theater as part of their program for 2011 PIFA, Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers, keila cordova dances, the E|MERGE Interdisciplinary Collaborative Residencies of 2012 and 2013, and Krista DeNio. He was the recipient of the American Association of Community Theater Sound Design Award in 2011 for Bootless Stagework’s production of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. Together with Nicole Nigro, Cory is excited to continue a co-directed project engendered in E|MERGE 2013, Oracle, focusing on the special role the Oracle plays in one's existence and the individual's journey toward enlightenment.
Dana MacPherson was born in Culloden, Inverness, Scotland. Her early years were spent living in various Camphill communities based on Karl Konig and Rudolph Steiners anthroposophy where people with special needs live alongside those without. She is an interdisciplinary process/research led movement artist with the majority of her creations happening outdoors in rural landscapes. She likes to work with whatever materials suit the idea that is being processed – from fabric to film, chalk to twigs, text and humming. Telescopes and microscopes are her most recent tools. Her work is driven by her curiosity about how we relate to rural landscape and its effect on humans, as well as the potential it has to transform society. Dana looks forward to E|MERGE as it is beautifully located, has a history of healthy creative expansion, and is supported by a foundation of ethically-sound investigative art research. Such ingredients attract curious, intelligent and compassionate humans and it is with such people that she likes to collaborate and develop her practice in order to explore the connection between art, nature, and society.
Deborah Black is a dance and theatre artist, currently on the faculty of the Fontys Hogeschool in Tilburg, NL. Recently, Deborah performed in Ann Hamilton’s exhibition, An Event of A Thread, at the Park Avenue Armory with Deborah Hay, Susan Rethorst, Fitzgerald and Stapleton and others. Her collaborations have been presented at the TANK, Judson Church, Lucky Trimmer Tanz Performance Serie (DE), ArToll (DE), Roulette, Joyce SoHo, Manhattan Repertory Theatre, Dixon Place, AUNTS and more. Deborah, along with Karl Cronin received research funds from the Jerome Foundation in 2010. Deborah is interested in the E|MERGE residency as she would like to research what happens when people work together to create. What do artists give up? What points of view do they come from? How do they treat themselves and their colleagues? And how does the culture they create find its way into performance?
Eben Kowler is an undisciplined artist, educator and entrepreneur living in Minneapolis. When he was 10, Eben joined Young Dance where he performed in the work of Gretchen Pick, Erin Thompson, Kaori Kenmostu, and Justin Jones. Young Dance’s values of community engagement and artistic exploration were a formative part of his youth. In 2008, Eben canoed in the Arctic for 50 days. This remote and seemingly alien landscape left him with an appreciation for scale, natural systems, tools, expeditions, work, remoteness, and habits. Now Eben’s practices include Contact Improvisation, Authentic Movement, modern dance technique, as well as mobile urban video projection, Minneapolis Art on Wheels, progressive sex education for teenagers, puppetry teaching, shadow puppeteering, cowboy carpentry, and set building. He performs in dances, puppet shows, garages, and classrooms. His motto is: don’t deny your extra senses. Eben is interested in participating in E|MERGE as a small-letter system with structures that rely on interpersonal networks of knowledge, skills, and interests instead of centralized resources.
Goldie Peacock is a movement-based performance artist whose work is comprised of dance and drag. Goldie who has created and performed original dance and drag works, taught, produced/curated, and served as a professional artistic muse for nearly a decade. Goldie was dubbed "Best Dance Performer" [the Portland Phoenix], as well as "the most flamboyant, regal bird in the menagerie" [Johnny Blazes]. Goldie performs locally and nationally and has taught at Oberlin College (OH), Pure Movement Portland (ME), Cultivate Contemporary Dance Festival (NH) and Chez Bushwick (Brooklyn). Most recently, Goldie won the XYZ NYC Dance Competition and co-hosted Tufts Drag Ball with Jujubee of Rupaul's Drag Race. Manipulating zie/hir/their body, gender presentation, costumes and music, Goldie touches upon the conceptual, socio-political, and the whimsical. Goldie feels that collaborations, intensives, and getting out of dodge are sites of artistic magic-making so doing a collaborative residency is a dream come true.
Gregor Krammer was born in 1991 and grew up in Austria. At age 16, he got in touch with the urban dance scene of Europe, and upon graduating from high school, spent half a year travelling to New York and around Europe. Gregor moved to Winnipeg to study modern and contemporary dance at the School of Contemporary Dancers for two years, where he performed and choreographed numerous works. He now works as a freelance dancer, author, singer, drag queen, choreographer, maker of short art films, composer, and dance teacher. Having done the residency last year, Gregor’s whole year has been strongly informed by the skills he acquired through the residency. He is excited to continue gaining creative input from the various talents at E|MERGE and to create relationships that will be relevant after the residency.
Jake Wise is an improviser, creator, musician, composer, dancer, mover – an interdisciplinary artist. He is also an Earthdance Staff member. As a musician and clarinetist, Jake's practice has taken him through a degree program, through improvising and creating in many different paradigms, and into dance, because, after all, music and movement are one and the same. He studied with Richard Hawkins, Gary Bartz, John Mallia, and Anthony Coleman, among others. He has played in many different settings, from solo to accompanying singer-songwriters to jazz to klezmer to improvisation to notated “classical” and “contemporary” chamber and orchestral music, presenting original work and premiering others'. His musical journeys have led him into improvising with dancers and a whole world of somatic practices and Contact Improvisation. He has studied dance and interdisciplinary performance with Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson, Frey Faust and company, Chris Aiken, and André Gribou, among others. He has played, performed, and composed written and electroacoustic music extensively with and for dancers, and has written sound scores for theatre. He participated in Mirva Mäkinen's The Aesthetics of Contact Ph.D. research project. He has founded and performed in klezmer, improvisation, classical, jazz, and interdisciplinary ensembles, and has premiered new works written by others. He has performed or presented work at Zankel Hall, Merkin Hall, Miller Theatre, The Stone, Judson Church, Baryshnikov Arts Center, The Tank, Elastic Arts Foundation (Chicago), and with Tatyana Tenenbaum, thingNY, Cuddle Magic, Jonathan Vincent, Ross Feller, Fred Frith, Christie Svane, and Odeya Nini, among others. In keeping with the notion that one way towards a better world is to propose a new paradigm, Jake hopes that his work at Earthdance will increase awareness of its message in the world and help spread a new way of being together, relating in work and play, and building community. He enjoys drawing upon and helping further the body of knowledge and wisdom that the Earthdance community and others have spent almost thirty years (and more) learning and discovering, often the hard way.
Jeca Rodríguez-Colón is a Puerto Rican choreographer and dancer. In 2002 she moved to New York City where she completed her BA at Hunter College with a double major in Dance and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She is the recipient of Hunter College’s 2005 Choreography Departmental Award. Jeca is pursuing her MFA in Creative Practices at Transart Institute. As a member of the EMERGENYC 2013 cohort at the Hemispheric Institute she explored different aspects of performance arts and artivism. Jeca currently works with performance art, video and public interventions. She creates work related to the maternal kinesthetic language in space. Jeca has come to E|MERGE as she is interested in the possibility of interacting with the larger Earthdance community, learning from the environment, and allowing such learning to feed her creative process in a new and nurturing way.
Kensaku Shinohara was born in Sapporo, Japan. He started dancing and creating his own work while studying Anthropology at International Christian University in Tokyo. He moved to NYC in 2009 and has worked for Jennifer Muller, Daria Faïn, Tiffany Mills, Darcy Naganuma, Lovid, Philippa Kaye, Giada Ferrone, and others. He has presented his dances for many venues and his work has been described as, “A spirited and fun take on urban experience,” (Art Values Education) and, ''Filled with humor'' (OFFOFFOFF.com). Living in the fast pace of New York City and intensely focusing on his own work, it has been hard to meet people who might stimulate, challenge, and further cultivate his work. The opportunity to work "cross-disciplinarily'' in E|MERGE will enhance the development of fresh ideas and communications among the artists. Rather than just supporting his individual creations, Shinohara is excited to work together with others, giving way for unpredictable discoveries and explorations.
Kentaro Kumanomido is a transdisciplinary artist/healer who seeks to make life more interesting and less of a downer by being nice and making weird art dance. His work is informed by improvisation, queer anti-urbanism, YouTube, and somatics. He wants you to trust your body and be okay not knowing. His spirit animal is probably a bobcat. He creates improvisational dances, dance videos, performative installations, participatory installations, sculptures, photographs, and poetry. He is interested in embodiment, somatics, the relationship between the body and social/political structures, the body in nature, and the nature of improvisation. He sees dance/improvisation/art as a way of engaging in research and critical dialogue around these issues. During E|MERGE, he is excited to refine his practice in a way that allows him to synthesize multiple fields of study into an articulate body of work.
Latasha Wright received her Ph.D. from NYU Langone Medical Center in cell and molecular biology. She went on to continue her scientific training at Johns Hopkins University and Weill Cornell Medical Center. She has co-authored numerous publications and presented her work at international and national conferences. She is an experienced grant writer and received her training in development at the Park Avenue Armory under the direction of the Manager of Institutional Giving. The BioBus – mobile science laboratory that brings science to kids throughout the New York City Area – enables her to share her love of science with a new generation of potential scientists. The BioBus creates a setting that fosters innovation and creativity; students are encouraged to ask questions, formulate hypotheses, and design experiments. Everyday that she spends teaching students about science in this transformative environment helps her remember that science is fun. She loves sharing the journey of discovery with students of all ages. Latasha had the opportunity to be a part of Pavel Palissomo’s Painted Bird this past summer. The experience instilled in her the determination to continue to find ways to perform and collaborate with other talented artists.
Mara Mayer is a clarinetist/bass clarinetist currently living in Brooklyn. Mara performs with groups including the Nouveau Classical Project, Gamelan Dharma Swara, Banda de los Muertos, and Little Band of Sailors. This past summer she played in Dave Malloy’s immersive theatre piece Natasha, Pierre, and The Great Comet of 1812. Her duo project Feral Children will be recording its first album this fall. She has composed works for chamber groups including a trio for violin, cello, and bass clarinet that was released last year on vinyl on the Musique Impossible label. Mara is the creator and curator of Home Audio, a house concert series that hosts monthly shows in Brooklyn dedicated to new music. She graduated from the Eastman School of Music in 2008. Mara makes improvised and experimental music as well as classical music. She has collaborated with dancers in the past and is interested in exploring this further and incorporating movement into her own work. She is also a yoga teacher and would like to pursue the connection between pranayama (breath work) and the use of the breath as a wind player. Mara is excited about E|MERGE as she is at her most creative when she is in a setting surrounded by nature and the energy of other creative and positive-thinking people.
Maré Hieronimus is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary dance artist, performer, and teacher whose work weaves together her interests in movement, light, sound, poetry, and perceptual awareness. Her choreographic/improvisational performance experiments have been presented both indoor and outdoor, in proscenium, gallery, and site-specific settings in NYC and beyond. As a performer, she has worked with many experimental and cross-disciplinary artists, including Noemie Lafrance, Peter Sciscioli, and Sharon Mansur, touring internationally to Russia, Siberia, Canada, Brazil, and Mexico. Maré is an Adjunct Professor at Long Island University/Brooklyn, and teaches publicly under her umbrella, The Body Archive. Maré is interested in how we can experience the body not as an object or form, but rather as a field or instrument through which forces of sound, light, thought, memory, space and time are passing though. Increasingly, she draws inspiration directly from the interplay of body and landscape, and the observation of the movement of the forces of the natural world, with its innate impermanence. Maré had the privilege of being involved in Moving Arts Lab at Earthdance in August, 2013. She found the experience to be thrilling and inspiring, and so wants to come back to spend some more concentrated time dedicated to the creation of work, generating new ideas, and collaborative exploration. Maré also found the Earthdance environment to be particularly supportive as she sees her creative interests shifting towards increasingly non-traditional, non-proscenium, outdoor, site-specific, and rural and natural settings.
Marisa Clementi is a dancer, singer, choreographer, and adventuress living in Brooklyn. She recently earned her MFA from the Sarah Lawrence College Dance Program, and earned her BA in Vocal Performance from Dartmouth College in 2005. Marisa has performed in works by Yvonne Rainer, Martha Graham, Laura Dean, Geraldine Cardiel, Rashaun Mitchell, and most recently with Pipaluk Supernova (Denmark). Her work has been performed at Dance New Amsterdam, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Abrons Arts Center, Dartmouth College, Deerfield Academy, and Ponderosa (Germany). Marisa has been a teaching artist at the Brooklyn Performing Arts Intensive and at Sarah Lawrence College. In January, Marisa held a residency in the Marshall Islands with Youth Bridge Global. Through E|MERGE, Marisa is interested in collaborating with artists and performers who are as eager to blur the boundaries between music, dance, theater, and visual art as she is.
Maurizio Campani is a physical action based actor, primarily working with an essential, sober, “poor” theatre. Born in Florence, Italy, he started to write texts during high school. He studied archaeology for three years, and in 2004, started his personal, not-academic form of artistic research. In 2008, he started collaborating with Teatro della Pioggia and Anne Zénour. Maurizio also works as a cook. Through E|MERGE, Maurizio would like to meet curious people to help enrich his realm of possibilities. In this work, in solitude, it's very hard to find oxygen without colleagues to work and connect with.
Meredith Bove makes performances utilizing choreographic, dancing, and singing skill sets. She hails from a small town in Vermont, and from 2008-2011 lived and worked in Berlin, where she presented work at adastudio, Salon Bruit, K77, Die Kunst Apotheke, and with the Gruntwork collective. She has performed in the work of Luis Lara Malvacías, Jérôme Bel, Zinzi Buchanan, Jillian Peña, Sarah Dahnke, and has enjoyed collaborations with dancer/choreographer Andrea Jenni and conceptual artist Luke Munn. She holds a BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and an MFA from Hollins University in Roanoke, VA. Her daily practice consists of investigating embodiment through somatic, experiential, sensorial, and vocal techniques and strategies. In her work, she gravitates towards a moving body that is grounded in state, where movement occurs in relation to a physical state or situation. Meredith is returning to Earthdance for E|MERGE after participating in Moving Arts Lab this past summer. During this workshop, she was inspired by the dismantling of spatial, temporal, and educational hierarchies, as well as by communal models of sustaining an infrastructure. Within this environment, she felt freed of the notion that work must happen within a studio space. Meredith is interested in returning so that she might have the chance to dive deeper into questions of community, work, place, and creativity.
Michael Rau is a live performance director specializing in new plays, re-imagined classics, and opera. Since 2007 he has been working internationally in Germany, the UK, Ireland, Canada, and Greece. He recently made his German language directing premiere with Thomas Bradshaw’s Was Ubrig Bleibt at Theater Bielefeld. He has also created work in New York City at PS122, HERE Arts Center, Ars Nova, The Bushwick Starr, The Brick, Culture Project, 59E59 and Dixon Place. He is the artistic director of Wolf 359, a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, and a graduate of Wesleyan University and Columbia University. Michael is interested in the E|MERGE residency because it creates possibilities to meet new collaborators and explore new ideas with a diverse group of people within an artist-run process.
Nicole Nigro is a contemporary dance artist based in Toronto, Canada. She is a performer, choreographer, educator, and workshop facilitator. Nicole began her training in Edmonton, Alberta, and has since graduated from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, obtained an Honours BFA from York University, and is currently enrolled in the Diploma in Dance Teaching Studies with The Royal Academy of Dance in London, England. She has had the privilege of dancing with The Danny Grossman Dance Company, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, Toronto Dance Theatre, and several independent choreographers. Her work has been presented across Canada, Mexico, and Central America. Together with Cory Neale, Nicole is excited to continue a co-directed project engendered in E|MERGE 2013, Oracle, focusing on the special role the Oracle plays in one's existence and the individual's journey toward enlightenment.
Rebecca Lloyd-Jones is a performer, choreographer, and improviser based in NY. She has worked with artists and companies such as Marianela Boan, Leah Stein Dance Company, Yelena Gluzman’s science project, Abigail Levine, Nicole Bindler, Sasha Welsh, Merian Soto, and many others, and has performed in various cities in the United Sates, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and Puerto Rico. Her own choreography has been shown at Movement research at Judson Church, Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, Studio 34, Dixon place, Dance New Amsterdam, Ulah’s House, Green Space Studio, Temple University, Smith College, and many others. Currently she is collaborating in a project PISO with Noemi Segarra to investigate the body’s relationship to places and displacement in public and private places. Rebecca is excited for E|MERGE as she feels the collaboration process will teach her how to support, listen, share, challenge, compromise, and work with others which will lead her to making work that she would not be able to create alone.
Susan Myhr-Fritz was born and raised in Montana. At 18, she stormed the east coast for the University of Pennsylvania where she met the inspiration for her current work, her late husband Dan. Select life/work highlights include: certified yoga instructor (Ashtanga), Late Show intern, Michael Crawford backup singer, Italian middle school English teacher, once-upon-a-summer manager/maid/unpaid laborer at her mom’s motel on the Oregon coast, documentary film/photo-maker, and a card-carrying member of the Screen Actors Guild and Actor’s Equity. She transferred to NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study where she received her BA. She currently couch/futon/bed surfs as she types away, and has been a nomad for the past 4.5 years. Susan always operated in an “interdisciplinary” manner which is what lead her to skip music school (vocal performance) in exchange for 1.5 years in the Ivy League (not for me), followed by 3 years at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study (and, finally, graduation). The work that happens in and comes out of the E|MERGE Residency seems in line with this interdisciplinary thread – only taking it steps further to produce, or simply practice, work that has the potential to impact communities as much as the individuals producing it.
Tang Ling Nah is a Singapore-based visual and movement artist. She is fascinated with the city’s transitory spaces. Her work seeks to reflect and address the conditions of the modern city, particularly its speed and the lack of interpersonal intimacy in urban life. In 2008, she represented Singapore in the 2nd Singapore Biennale and also exhibited a work in the 11th International Architecture Biennale in Venice (Singapore Pavilion). Her accolades include the Juror’s Choice in the Philip Morris Singapore-ASEAN Art Awards 2003, the Della Butcher Award 2000 and the Young Artist Award (Art) 2004 conferred by the National Arts Council, Singapore. Tang is also an independent curator. She has been instrumental in her capacity as Artistic Director of the Drawing Out Conversations exhibition series. Tang believes the inter-disciplinary sharing and working of E|MERGE will open up her mind and provide her with new inspiration.
Tanja London is a choreographer/filmmaker based in Salt Lake City. She grew up in Germany rummaging around in the beautiful wide spread forests of the South and in the WWll family history. Her curiosity always drives her to ask questions at the wrong time. Querying hierarchical constructs is an integral part of who she is. Her work has a feminist viewpoint and explores sociopolitical and ecological discourses like inherited guilt, bioengineered skin, autonomous robots, erosion of US democracy, and sustainability. Besides a BA in Social Pedagogy and Contemporary Dance she holds an MFA in Modern Dance including a Screendance Certificate. The E|MERGE Residency offers an ideal work and play environment for Tanja because she is very interested in the intersection of different disciplines, collaborative leadership structures, and creativity. She believes discussion and achieving group consensus to be an improvisational, creative and clarifying process that strengthens any artistic process and creates depth in content and aesthetics. She finds it essential to explore different forms of collaboration not only to expand her own arts practice but also to further investigate leadership structures that might be useful in a broader societal context.
Y.E. Torres (ms. YET) is an improvisational muscle dancer, visual/performance artist, teacher, model/muse, experience connoisseur of violent delights, and a very Bad Unicorn. Y.E. began her study of Oriental Dance at the age of 17 and holds dual BFA degrees in Drawing & Painting and Fashion Design from the University of North Texas. She is a Yoga instructor (200 RYT), Bellydance instructor, and has completed Rachel Brice's 8 Elements™ Phase 1: Initiation. Y.E. has exhibited her artwork and dance films throughout the US and was named one of Houston's Top "100 Creatives" by the Houston Press in 2011. Her whose primary artistic focus is the creation of on-going, evolving, site-specific performance installations. She produces collaboration driven projects that merge musicians, dancers, filmmakers, and photographers, visual and performative artists into one event. She is interested in the E|MERGE Residency becoming a platform for her to further develop, mold, experiment, and inspire her own journey as a performing and visual artist.