JUDDERTONE 2009 participants
Last year’s collaborating partners were:
Nathan Andary and Jane Wang
In 2001, Nathan Andary established Andary Dance, a nationally touring modern dance company that has debuted work in Chicago, New York City, Boston, Providence, Connecticut, and Kentucky. Andary builds multimedia dance performances utilizing all forms of both fine and performance arts. Nathan has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence College, Rhode Island College, University of Rhode Island, and Ohio University. Since its inception, Andary Dance has performed the striking and complex choreography of Nathan Andary. Andary is a two time recipient of the prestigious Merit Award for Choreography from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA). His work has also received support from: NG Systems, World Music/CRASHARTS, the Green Street Studio’s Emerging Choreographers Program, Fusionworks Dance Company, Island Moving Company, Groundwerx Dance Theater, Rhode Island College, Providence College, Rhode Island School of Design, Salve Regina University, University of Rhode Island, Ashland Youth Ballet Company, Ohio State University and Ohio University.
Composer Jane Wang composed and performed several solo double bass and vocal pieces
for her long-time collaborator performance artist Hanne Tierney including Ms. Tierney’s
Obie- award winning Salome (with Sabir Mateen) at five myles and the International Festival
of Puppet Theatre. Jane composed and performed music for Hanne Tierney’s How Wang-Fo
Was Saved (“Tierney and her collaborators-especially wonder-making musician Jane Wang
have created a work of incandescent and unworldly beauty.” –Village Voice), and for Ms.
Tierney’s Man, the Flower of All Flesh (2005 Henry Hewes Design Award nominee). In May
2008, she composed and performed music for four toy pianos for Ms. Tierney’s Das
Triadische Ballet at the 8th International Great Small Works Toy Theater Festival at St.
Ann’s Ware- house in Brooklyn, NY. Jane created music for Renita Martin’s one woman show Five Bottles In a Six Pack, performed at Theater Offensive in Boston, directed by Daniel Alexander Jones, the Cherry Lane Theater in NYC and JumpStart in San Antonio, Texas, directed by Laurie Carlos. She is currently a member of the electronic composers consortium cdzabu and her compositions were selected for the 2007 and 2009 60x60 International Mix. Recently, she composed and performed music for Danny Swain’s In Passing (2008), 5000 Miles to Blue (2008), Kee Chin’s All in One, Somewhere Somehow, Voost/Voots and Liz Roncka’s Rogue (2009), Inside/Out (2006). Jane is a member of the Mobius Artists Group and the site-specific improvisational group Moving Sound (Artslink Award 2002 with core members, Grantley Smith and Liz Roncka).
Ellen Godena and John Morrison
Ellen Godena is an independent choreographer based in Boston, MA where she is the
artistic director of the Umi no Bodi dance troupe. Her movement works are known for
their spare aesthetic and unworldly qualities; she finds her dances through stripping
away the foundations of movements we create in our daily lives to uncover underlying
states of stillness. Her recent work additionally focuses on creating dialogues between
humans, machines, and human-machine hybrids. Ellen founded Umi no Bodi (a Japanese
phrase meaning ‘Ocean’s Body’) in 2008 with the goal of creating large-scale, site-
specific installations that transform outdoor spaces not traditionally used for performance. Each performance work also features robots and machines as non-human dancers. Ellen’s training and background is based in a decade of study of butoh, a Japanese avant-garde form, noguchi gymnastics, and ritual mexicano theater techniques. Since 2000, she has performed solo, group, and ensemble work in Boston, Providence, and New York City. Selected venues include Mobius, Green Street Studios, the Rhode Island School of Design, Rhode Island College, AS220, The New Museum, The Jonathan Shorr Gallery, the Joyce Soho, Brooklyn’s Grace Space, and the Tank. Ellen is a former member of the Boston-based Kitsune Butoh (2003-06) and the NYC post-modern butoh troupe, the Vangeline Theater (2006-08). She has performed with Master butoh artist Katsura Kan (Curious Fish, 2002, 2008), and trained with international artists Hiroko Tamano, Su-En, and Diego Pinon as well as American artists Deborah Butler, Vangeline, and Jennifer Hicks. Ellen holds a Bachelor’s degree in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (1997), a Master’s degree in Developmental Psychology from Harvard University (2005).
John Howell Morrison (b. 1956) currently is chair of composition and theory at the Longy School of Music. John has served on the board of directors of the Iowa Composers Forum, and was elected president of the Cleveland Composers Guild. Morrison has been commissioned by the Fromm Foundation, the Intergalactic Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, the Detroit Chamber Winds, Antiqua Nova, the Galhano/Montgomery Duo, Davidson College, the Cleveland Composers Guild and several individual performers. Grants from the Ohio Arts Council (2002 Individual Artist Fellowship), American Composers Forum (Composers Commissioning Project and Performance Incentive Fund), Meet the Composer, Iowa Arts Council, Luther College, and the American Music Center (Margaret Fairbank-Jory Copying Assistance) have supported his work. John has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Schweitzer Institute (Festival at Sandpoint), June in Buffalo and the Charles Ives Center for American Music.
Kendra Heithoff and Matthew McConnell
Kendra Heithoff hails from South Dakota and specializes in modern performance, ballet and
modern dance instruction and contemporary choreography in Boston, Massachusetts. Kendra
dances with Urbanity Dance Project and Dance Currents. Kendra's choreography was selected
to perform in the Dance Complex’s Shared Choreographer’s Concert and for the upcoming
Juddertone Project in 2009. Her work was also selected for the University of Minnesota's
Student Dance Coalition Concert in 2007 and 2008 and the Red Hot Art Festival in 2006.
Kendra has toured internationally in Trinidad and Tobago with Global Worship Movement
and performed with Nautilus Music Theater, Kay Cummings, Linda Talcott Lee, Joe Chvala
and Charles Moulton. Kendra also served as an intern with Black Label Movement in 2007.
In addition to teaching private lessons, Kendra is the Site Manager and lead teacher for the Boston Ballet's Taking Steps Community Outreach Program. She is also on faculty at Brookline Academy of Dance in Brookline, MA. Kendra holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Dr. Matthew McConnell (b. 1980) is a composer, organist and piano instructor who holds a B.A. degree in
Music from Bennington College, a M.M. degree in Musical Composition with Distinction in Performance (and
Academic Honors) from the New England Conservatory of Music, as well as a Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.)
degree from the same institution. McConnell's manifold compositions and commissions include symphonic
works, concertos, incidental music for plays and events, chamber music, works for solo instruments, choral
music (both sacred and secular), and several songs. He is particularly fond of his Concerto for Toy Piano and
Orchestra which was premiered in Boston in May of 2004. In the words of toy pianist Margaret Leng Tan,
“It is delightfully convincing and well orchestrated so the toy piano can emerge as soloist.”
McConnell co-founded The Toyland Band, a Boston-based award-winning instrumental ensemble that
specializes in performing arrangements of classical and popular music for children on no less than 28 diverse toy instruments. He was also the Musical Director of the Drury Drama Team, and composed music for the International Thespian Festival held in Lincoln, Nebraska. McConnell was the principal organist at St. Andrew's Episcopal Chapel in North Adams, MA for seven years, and is the former organist and choir director of the First Baptist Church in Cheshire, MA. He is the current Minister of Music at Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Malden, continues to concertize throughout the commonwealth, and was a Teaching Fellow at the New England Conservatory of Music from 2006 to 2008. He received the Aaron Copland scholarship to attend The Conducting Institute's Composer/Conductor Program at Bard College in 2001, and is a member of ASCAP.
Eva Perrotta and Elizabeth Lim
Eva Perrotta Born in France, she first studied theater for several years before starting her dance
training. Dance brought her to Argentina where she studied and performed with Diana
Theocharidis and Estella Erman. Then she moved to New York City to pursue her studies at the
Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance and danced with the Martha Graham Ensemble.
She performed with several choreographers and directors in France, Argentina, and the United
States, including Affinite Company, Assymbolie Company, The Pirates Company, Buenos Aires XXI,
AMDaT, and Human Kinetics Movement Arts. As an independent choreographer, she was able to
travel and collaborate with artists such as Jose Halac, Carlos Andino and Daniel Tepfer (Composers
and Musicians) Pascale Servoz Gauvin and Michael Pope (Cinematographers), Eva Perez de Vega Steele and Ian Gordon (Architects), Sadio Bee and Marie Rousseau (Fashion Designers), Lindsay Abromaitis Smith (puppeteer). In 2001 she created the company "Onseplu" and various physical theater works for the Aurillac and Avignon festivals in France, as well as shows for fashion designers in Paris. Since moving to New York, she has been invited to represent the Martha Graham Center with her Choreography for the Annual Benefit Funds for Dancers event.
More recently, her works have been presented by the Puffin Room, La Guardia High School of Performing Arts, Merce Cunningham Studio Theater, Dance New Amsterdam (RAW Material), White Wave Dance Festival, Lower East side Festival of the Arts, the Outlet Dance Project (NJ) and she has self-produced her own projects in theaters like Triskelion Arts amongst others.
In 2008, she was Artist in Residency at Spoke The Hub in Brooklyn where she had her full evening show produced.
In spring 2008 she has been teaching and commissioned to choreograph for the Young Artist Program for the Martha Graham Ensemble season at Theresa Lang Theater. She is currently member of the Note in Motion Teaching Artist. Eva is the artistic director of Nu Dance Theater.
Originally from the Bay Area, California, Elizabeth Lim is a graduate student at the Juilliard School, where she
is studying composition with Dr. Robert Beaser. Elizabeth’s music has been widely performed throughout the
United States, as well as in Europe and Asia. Elizabeth was named one of four winners of the annual Juilliard
Orchestra Composition Competition, and her work for orchestra, Paranoia, was premiered in Alice Tully Hall in
April 2009. While an undergraduate student at Harvard University, Elizabeth was awarded the Hugh F.
MacColl Prize in composition, the John Green Fellowship in composition, and the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts.
During the 2007-2008 concert season, she served as one of three composers-in-residence for the Berkeley
Symphony Orchestra as part of the Under Construction concert series. Recent accomplishments include
commissions and awards from the WomenSing!, the Palo Alto Youth-to-Youth Commissioning Project, Bellevue
Youth Symphony Orchestra, the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP), the National
Association of Composers, USA (NACUSA), Society of Composers, Inc. (SCI), and from the first national Iron
Composer Competition, hosted by the University of Nebraska’s Artsaha.
Tiffany Rhynard and Juliet Case
Interlacing the parameters of activism and art, Tiffany Rhynard is interested in the conver-
gence of movement, voice, and technology, specifically in dialogue with the study of human
behavior. She is Artistic Director of Big Action Performance Ensemble (Big APE), an experi-
mental performance company comprised of dancers, composers, and video and lighting de-
signers. Rhynard's choreography has been presented nationwide and she will soon premiere
her work in Schrattenberg, Austria this summer at Hotel Pupik. Her video works have been
presented at the Dance for the Camera Film and Video Festival in Salt Lake City and Danc-
ing for the Camera at the American Dance Festival. Recent video projects include the docu-
mentary Women Building Larger Lives, a film illuminating the strength and resiliency of
incarcerated women in a vocational construction program at the state women's prison in
Windsor, Vermont. As a performer, Rhynard has worked with various choreographers including Chavasse Dance and Performance Group, Brosseau Danceworks, X Factor, Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, Gerri Houlihan, and John Gamble Dance Theater. Active in the collaborative process, She has worked with a variety of musicians, poets, visual artists, and animators. Past projects include an environmental movement and sound installation with composer Lei Liang, and a biographical solo for Christal Brown in collaboration with writer and poet Karma Johnson. She holds a B.A. In Dance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an M.F.A. in Choreography from the Ohio State University. Rhynard has taught at Peace College, North Carolina Governor's School, Ohio State University, the State University of New York at Potsdam, and she is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Middlebury College in Vermont.
Juliet Case is a composer interested in expanding the boundaries of traditional instrument use; her work involves
various collaborative and mechanical techniques aimed at the creation of unusual new sound worlds. In 2007,
Case filmed and edited a 90-minute documentary, where she interviewed eight musicians and led their experi-
mentation on extended techniques. Case has been commissioned by various artists, including award winning saxo-
phonist Dennis Shafer, Vox 4 String Quartet, organist Matthew McConnell, Bryce Dance Company, videographer
Mili Pradhan, and filmmaker Michael Herrington. She is a co-awardee of the Women’s Electroacoustic Listening
Room Project, the Longitude Commissioning Project Award, and the John Hedrick Memorial Award. Her music has
been performed throughout the U.S., in the Czech Republic, and on Kansas Public Radio. Her educational back-
ground includes composition studies at Longy School of Music, where she received her M.M., and at Bennington
College where she received her B.A. Case is also co-founder of Juddertone.
Alisia Waller and John Murphree
Alisia L. L. Waller is a fight and dance choreographer, physical comedian, dancer, drag
performer, stage fighter, video and performance artist and sometime sculptor and comix
artist. Ms. Waller studied dance as a child in Washington state and the Caribbean, and
in her early teens joined the Inwood Ballet Company of West Virginia and studied
modern dance under Liz Bergman at the Conservatory of Shenandoah University. She
studied performance art with Mari Novotny-Jones at the School of the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston (where she joined the Museum School Cheerleaders, lecturing with them at
Universities and touring to Washington DC) and performed in an experimental musical
in Philadelphia. In 1997, Alisia Waller co-founded the And So No Sin Performance
Troupe. Over the past twelve years And So No Sin has created nearly fifty original per-
formance works in the Boston area encompassing a broad spectrum of experimental art. The work of the troupe and the individual artistic excellence of the director have both been recognized with opportunities such as a performance commission from the Fort Point Cultural Coalition, invitations to present work in international performance festivals (Mobius International Festival of Performance Art, the upcoming Open Arts Festival in Beijing), receiving a 2008 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Choreography, being asked to participate in the MIFPA symposium at the Museum of Fine Arts, becoming a member of the Mobius Artists Group, being invited to give an artists talk at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and many invitations to act as guest director, choreographer or consultant for Boston area artists and companies. At the core of the troupe and Ms. Waller's work is a desire to create art with pleasure, humour and purpose; to explore, share and learn from a state of passionate "not-knowing" and whatever fragments of clarity may be found therein
John Murphree is a composer living in Medford, MA whose music has been hailed as "always
engaging and often beautiful," and "having an approach that is both technical and visceral."
His compositional purpose is twofold; to express an autobiographical experience or emotion,
and to create new sound worlds. To produce these new sounds, John has recently begun
sculpting instruments from steel, bronze, brass, nickel and aluminium. His sculpted instruments
likewise serve a dual purpose; to physically create these new sounds, and to bridge the gap
between the visual and acoustic arts. "I am trying to manifest the transfiguration of artistic
energy into musical sound through the creation and performance of these instrument-sculptures.
"Many of his traditional pieces, for example his "First" String Quartet, also try to achieve this
transfiguration by superimposing an artistic form, in this instance cubism, over the musical form.
John's background as a vocalist has also given his music a consistently lyrical and undoubtedly human quality.
A recent master's in composition recipient from The Boston Conservatory, John's undergraduate degree, also in composition, is from Boston's Berklee College of Music. His artistic education lies solely with Dennis Svoronos from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. John was recently named an Associate in the Arts at the St. Botolph Club, and has been commissioned to produce original works and arrangements for numerous performers including Yo-Yo Ma. John currently teaches composition privately from his home in Medford where he composes daily, and encourages all artisans he meets to collaborate. His scores and sculptures are available through his website, www.johnmurphree.com
Visit http://juddertone.ning.com to learn more about these artists.
